Page 83 of On Brutal Thrones

Heat slams into me.

The night transforms around us, darkness replaced by a vicious orange glow as fire climbs through the branches. Smoke pours into the air, carrying the sharp stink of burning pine.

“Behind me!” Thorian shouts.

Whatever exhaustion Fenric and Talon were fighting disappears. They move instantly, circling around me with Thorian and putting me in the center. Golden weapons rise around me, their polished surfaces catching the flames until they seem to burn too.

Then brilliant blue fire erupts around the perimeter of camp.

It races in a circle, cutting us off from the forest before climbing higher than my head. Within seconds, we’re surrounded by a wall of blue flames. The heat becomes unbearable. Sweat breaks across my skin, making the hilt of my dagger slick in my palm.

“Fucking Vultures!” Thorian shouts.

Panic flashes across his face.

“I sensed their magic. A locating spell. We need to find a way to scatter. If they’re far enough away, there’s nothing we can do with our weapons to stop their attacks.”

A ball of energy punches through the blue flames and explodes only a few feet away.

I cry out and stumble back.

Through the shifting wall of fire, I catch glimpses of figures moving among the trees. The Vultures. They’re circling us, robes whipping behind them as they run, stopping only long enough to gather magic before sending another attack through the flames.

One of them looks different. Wrong somehow. But I can’t focus on him long enough to understand why.

“Run!” Fenric screams.

We scatter within the fiery ring.

Talon catches my arm and yanks me backward just as another blast cuts through the space where I was standing. This one crackles with electricity, jagged streaks of white-blue light jumping through the air before slamming into our fire pit.

The world dissolves into noise and light.

Magic explodes around us. Burning branches crash from above. Fenric is shouting something to Thorian about breaking the ring, but I can barely hear him over the roar of the flames.

Talon stays with me.

He pulls me left when magic strikes from the right, then changes direction so quickly I nearly lose my footing when another blast comes from ahead. Every time I think I understand where the Vultures are, another spell comes from somewhere else.

We reach the blue flames on one side of the camp. There’s no opening.

Talon swears and drags me the other direction.

Still nothing.

My throat is painfully dry now, and smoke stings my eyes until tears stream down my cheeks. I cough, but it does nothing to clear the tightness building in my chest. The canopy overhead is trapping too much of the smoke beneath the trees.

We can’t stay here.

Even if the Vultures never hit us, the fire might kill us for them.

“Over here!” Thorian bellows.

His voice cuts through the chaos.

Talon and I turn. Thorian and Fenric are beside a massive boulder near the edge of camp, Thorian already bracing his shoulder against it. Fenric gestures frantically for us to come.

I have no idea what they’re planning. Neither does Talon, judging by his expression. But it doesn’t matter.