Forty-Six
Asher
“We’ll follow your lead.”
At Elodie’s words, my heart skips a beat.
I shouldn’t be so nervous. I’ve spent years training to take down void creatures on the front lines.
But I never expected to be facing an onslaught like this. I never expected I’d be facing it with my match and the other members of our union around me, counting on me to get us through the disaster.
Elodie was careful not to say why she turned to me. I’ve never told anyone about my training outside of school, my plans to follow the same kind of path my education at Beacon Prep would have taken me down even though Cole has much bigger dreams for me.
But her endorsement is all it takes for the othersto trust me. Even Salvatore Cosgrave—king of the combat club, brutal heir to two mafia empires—glances back at me for guidance, his sword hovering between him and the mindless dog.
The void raccoon that’s crouched just a few steps away lets out a fierce hiss, and my instincts kick in through the alarm clanging through my body. I hold out my hand at my side, concentrating on the ephemera tickling at my senses from the forest around us.
None of my hopes or secrets matter if we don’t survive the night. The pain rippling through my other forearm where a roving void kestrel clipped me brings that fear into stark focus.
Maybe I can ask the other guys not to say anything to my brother once we’ve made it through the mayhem. First, we have to actually make it through.
A glinting translucent sword of pure magical energy forms in my grasp. A pinching sensation digs into the back of my skull at the effort it’s taking to condense the ephemera that solidly, but I’ll take the pain if it gets us through the next hour.
The raccoon springs at Elodie. I leap into its way, whirling before slashing down and across in one of the techniques my friend Jesse helped me practice.
The wavering blade slices through the creature’s spine.
My conjured weapon doesn’t carve through flesh as easily as the illusionary body of the bear I fought during the previous seminar. A sharper jolt of pain radiates through the back of my head.
The raccoon topples over. Its head rolls away from its body into the grass.
Salvatore gives a whoop of a laugh and extends his free arm. “Nice one, Raith, but I bet you’d like a real sword.”
Glinting particles shiver out of the soil from all aroundus. They converge into a length of metal with a leatherbound handle lying on the ground by Salvatore’s feet.
He scoops up the second sword just as the dog launches itself at him.
The guy is no slouch, even if most of his training has been focused on fighting other people rather than savage animals. The two blades whip through the air.
One skewers the dog in the chest. As it holds the beast still, Salvatore swings the other sword through its neck.
As the void dog crumples, the mafia heir wipes the newly constructed blade on a patch of grass and tosses it to me. I manage to catch the grip without fumbling, letting my conjured weapon disperse back into the air.
Salvatore’s construction is sound, possibly because of how much time he’s spent handling weaponry. I test the sword’s weight in my hand.
A smile tugs at my lips with the fading of my headache. “It’s perfect.”
I lift my head to scan our surroundings. No other creatures have charged toward us through the dim moonlight yet, but shrieks and yelps ring out from several directions in the forest.
My gut twists. I rest my free hand against my hip, against the stone in my pocket I’ve always considered lucky.
Is luck enough to get us through tonight?
Maybe not, which means I have to be.
I reach for all the lessons I was taught during my early years at Beacon Prep and everything I’ve picked up from Jesse and my other extracurricular studies since then.
No one teaches strategies for dealing with a horde of void creatures, because no patrol has ever had to do that before. There are pieces specific to working with a group of hunters that should help, though—pieces the Luminary students will never have learned.
