Page 103 of Fatality on the Field

I let the thought bolster me as I close in on Liam, and when I’m close enough to read the veins in his wings, I yell, “On your left, Cap!”

He half-turns, meets my eyes, and for a moment, the exhaustion vanishes. He smiles at me—huge, blinding, and all the way down to the tips of his perfect Fae teeth. The Fae brakes so hard in midair, that I almost run into him as he waits for me to get within range.

“Maschula,” he shouts, “hold on a second!”

Before I can respond, he’s grabbed both my hands in his, his wings wrapping us in a microclimate of gold light and warm wind. The bond slams into me like a cardiac paddle—full jolt, no warning, and every channel of energy wide open. I go from running on fumes to suddenly, viscerally alive, like someone swapped out my blood for battery acid.

Holy fucking shit that’s potent.

“How did you—” I choke as the sensation spikes, and the rain itself turns to steam around our joined hands.

He grins, his eyes full of sunrise and warmth that radiates his home land. “Better?”

“Are you insane?!” I snap. “That could drop you, you lunatic.”

“Not at all, love. Get back to the shadow, Morgana. It’s not down yet and we’re both ready for another go now.” He cuts our contact quickly, and the bond dampens, but the energy crackles at my fingertips. My wings snap wide with the force of my power at its zenith.

Every muscle in my body is now hungry for the fight again, so I take a sharp right and head for a lower altitude. As I move, I see Wolfie and Presley tracking us with surprise in their eyes. Wolfie seems to have noticed the bond exchange, so he tilts his head at Presley. They come together and then, like a kid copying a dance move, the Fae reaches for his mate’s hand. They lock eyes eyes, and I see the charge snap into place, and give them a thumbs up.

I continue my descent, noting the shadow masses are regrouping, pulling in the bodies around them to reinforce the center. The stone crust I left behind has slowed the growth, even in two parts, just enough to matter. Diving straight for the first gap I see, I channel every bit of the bond energy Li and I shared into my new strike. I go full stone at the last second, my fists cocked and Des hissing at my throat like a murder scarf.

We hit the right half dead center, and this time, the crack I make isn’t just superficial. It splits all the way through, revealing a hollow space lined with fragments of bone and glass, akin to the inside of a wasp nest if it was designed by godly psychopaths. My gorgon eyes focus on the ring of power and light, which is so bright as it emits from my target, that I can’t see for a second. The inside of the mass ossifies, a web of grey and white shooting through the darkness as I get knocked back hard.

The pain is instant and enormous; my left wing goes dead, then my right, and for a second, I’m sure I’m going to crash to the fucking ground from way too high to be injury-free. I bite back a scream as I tumble down, digging my talons into whatever I can grasp as I roll sideways in the air. The shadow shrieks over and over, loudly enough to rattle my brains in my skull.

“Maschula, get up! You can’t stay there!”

Liam’s voice is a beacon, and I push off the crumpled seats in the lower section of the stadium with what’s left of my strength. The air feels heavier than ever, but the updraft from the scoreboard is still there, so I use it to whip back into the sky towards his voice. He’s waiting for me just above the upper deck, his wings trembling but still solid as he helps me stay aloft while my bell tries to unring itself.

“Impressive move,” the prince pants as he looks at the damage on the field. “You almost cored that one. A bit dangerous going it alone, though, mate. I think my heart took a trip out of my chest and landed on the field for a second when you went down.”

“Almost isn’t good enough,” I rasp as I continue to find my way out of the fog in my head. “We need something that will—” I can’t finish the sentence because every nerve ending in my damn wings is on fire, but I know my mate will get the gist.

He grins, wild and beautiful, as he nods at the other fighters. “They’re working on it, babe. Think you have another one of those in you if I come along? We might be able to take one half of this shit out.”

I know exactly what he’s thinking; if we time it right, I can stone the center and he can blast it with Daybreak energy while it’s squealing. I nod, too exhausted for words, but Liam arches a brow at me.

“Are you sure? I’m not going to lose you to this. We’ll find another way.”

“We can go as soon as I get my faculties back and we try the bond thing again,” I say as I hold onto him. “There are too many lives at risk to worry about any one person, Prince Spéirgheal. No one is coming to save us, so guess what? No one is here to stop us, either. This is the moment, you know?”

His lips split into a grimace that I know is hiding his fear as he nods. “Not my first time in this situation, but definitely different than before. I didn’t give a single shit if Alwyn or his sycophants died, but I sure as fuck care if our family and friends get killed. It’s harder to risk.”

I look down to see Slade’s voice shattering another half-dozen necro-bodies, and Iggy flinging a red-gold shield up that pulses like a live heart. Lucas, battered with blood and dirt staining his furry white coat, is still swinging at the zombies, but every hit looks like it costs him a year of his life. If we don’t succeed soon, one of them will fall and I cannot stand for that to happen.

Liam grabs my hands, and we charge up the bond again, but this time, it’s not quite as strong. When we pull back, I look up to realize the storm above is louder than ever now with thunder rolling in from the north like an approaching army. I cut through it, trusting the bond to guide me, and as Liam flies in from the opposite side, I feel something gather in the surrounding air—electricity, magic, willpower, and everything in between all snapping into a single point we must destroy.

The Daybreak prince and I dive to hit the shadow mass together, and this time, neither of us holds back even a scrap of our energy. I focus on the heart, letting my eyes shine with vengeance and Des’s venom pours through every cell of my body as I target the thinnest spot in the inner shell. The world shrinks to that one, exact vector, and the rest of the stadium fades away as I head for it.

Liam’s Daybreak light burns hotter than the sun, as it pours through the cracks in the darkness and rotting magic. The collision is so violent that for a second, I think we’ve both disintegrated from the impact, but the screams that erupt from the mass are like banshees flooding the area. The necromantic shell fissures, splits, and then detonates, blasting shockwaves outward in every direction. I’m thrown backwards, end over end, but I hear the aftershock ringing in my ears as I fly away.

Catching myself once again by my third bounce off solid objects, I know my wings are damaged but still functional. I look for Liam to see him spiraling down, his wingtips trailing smoke, but I can tell he’s alive. When I finally crash to a stop, the battered, hungry faces of my friends below make me laugh and groan at the same time, but I am so injured that I can’t even react without feeling like my body is going to shatter into pieces.

There’s still another shadow mass left to go, but for the first time tonight, it feels like we might have a shot.

The fight goes on, but we’re not making as much ground as Li and I did with our crazy kamikaze strike. It’s too disjointed between air and earth, because the teams can’t communicate. I try to figure out how I’m going to move so I can direct an attack on the remaining mystery blob, when an avian scream rings out that’s so vast and brutal that I nearly sprain my neck flinching away from it.

It’s a seismic event, a pressure wave that folds the atmosphere in half and punches every living thing out of their comfort zone. The whole world vibrates, and I’m pretty sure I see the insides of my own eyeballs as I mutter, “What the⁠—”