Page 145 of Black Sea

They were severing mercilessly.

My bond with the Crystal.

My bond with the enemy.

They were stripping everything from me to bind every fiber of my essence to Cousin Yelgnib.

No, please, stop!

And when I let out a cry so sharp it cut through the night, a loud, distant bang made the ground tremble and the air shudder around us. The torches’ flames suddenly flared, causing Queen Aloiv and her adepts to fall silent and listen attentively.

I spat out a red stream, gasping roughly as my head lolled against my chest. I slightly smiled. “He’s here,” I whispered.

And he was trying to break down the barriers protecting the forest.

Queen Aloiv and the acolytes kept reciting the formulas with growing intensity to drown out the increasingly loud detonations and my screams of pain and despair.

Until, finally, with all the breath in my lungs, I managed to roar, “ No!”

The next moment, an invisible force exploded in the clearing with such power that it knocked us all to the ground.

81

I heard only a deafening whistle. A mixture of blood and dirt coated my tongue like a poultice. I coughed and spat, producing saliva to try to expel it. My eyes watered from the dust as I blinked rapidly, and I struggled to lift my head.

My cousin was lying next to me, our wrists still tied. He coughed and complained, touching his breastbone with his face twisted in a grimace. We had ended up near the huge altar, which seemed to tower above us.

My father was already standing, his armor covered in dirt with a few leaves stuck to his cloak. His voice reached me muffled and distant, like I was underwater.

“Form a perimeter, quickly!” he ordered our soldiers in Elvish.

Araton was helping Queen Aloiv and her two acolytes, who were also coughing from inhaling the dust still swirling in the air along with debris from the undergrowth and bark fragments, to stand up.

Disoriented, I watched the younger witches scream and the older ones summon the gods, while terror drove the will-o’-the-wisps to dart among them like mad arrows.

My eyes met Aloiv’s wide ones, and her fear struck me with the sharpness of a blizzard.

Mornon had entered the Forest of Witches. In a few moments, he would arrive and carry out a massacre.

Just like he had promised me.

As if she had read my mind and refused to accept the inevitable, Aloiv set a look of determination on her face and called out to her coven. “Raise a defense barrier! Protect the retreat of the elderly!”

“Yelgnib, come on, get up,” I told him, standing up as the witches began to cast the spell vainly. “ Get up,” I growled, pulling him to his feet and then untying the rope around our wrists.

“We can’t dematerialize,” said one of the old witches.

“A dark force is holding us back,” another added in a trembling voice.

Dammit!

Time was running out. They had to flee, flee, flee.

“We’re going to die,” Yelgnib whimpered.

“Cousin.” I cupped his face in my hands, trying to calm him down, but his terrified eyes kept darting everywhere. “ Look at me.” He obeyed, his face pale as if he were staring at a demon. “You need to run to the village and find a hiding place. Do you understand? You must—”

Something crawled between my ankles.