Page 324 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

Whoosh.

“Jason!” I bellowed, hitting my knees in front of Brody. “Ambroise! Focus. Focus on my voice. We’re in the thicket.” He blinked, just as I had, confusion marring his brow.

“Jason!” I grabbed his arm, yanking hard enough to jolt, relieved when his gaze snapped to mine.

“Shields are slipping,” he noted numbly. I nodded. “How long have we been at this?”

“Hours,” I breathed. “Has to be hours.”

“What now?” he demanded, still looking to me to do my damn job.

But the knife was plunging through my skin again, and I was drowning in blood beneath an orange sky. Leaving her. Losing her all over again. I’d known better. Known better than to fight without control.

“Aren?” Jason’s demand had me grasping onto reality, blinking against the fog.

“It’s not real,” Mags breathed, just as a growl set the hair on my neck rising. I whirled as Brody staggered to his feet, finding wolves emerging from the gray.

“Goddamnit,” I growled, drawing my sword and shoving Mags behind me.

“Not real,” she breathed, but the beasts were growling. The sound resonated in my ribs as the branches around us groaned and creaked under the weight of an unnatural wind.

“Shields up,” I demanded. Because I couldn’t do both. I couldn’t fight the wolves and brace for the flame—couldn’t counter Balorath, force Koa’s spellwork back, and kill these demons while acting as their bulwark.

I spun my blade as wards rippled to life around us, turning and tossing the shield to Jason, who caught it and took my place.

“Bloody hell,” Brody growled, turning toward still more demons at our back.

A deafening roar bellowed from above, but my focus was for the wolves as they lunged.

The narrow path acted as a bottleneck, and I forced my feet forward. Stabbed clean through the first. Ducked and rolled with the second as its paws collided with my chest. A scream rang out, but I was grappling, sword flying as we tumbled.

I grabbed a dagger from a sheath, drove it into the beast’s ribs, and spun. A blur of mottled skin shot overhead, screams hauling me to my feet. Shadows lassoed the beast’s throat, yanking it back toward me. I wrapped my arms around its neck and bellowed as it thrashed, snapping its spine just as another lunged.

Mags went down, fear slicing through me as I threw my blade. It embedded in the thing’s back, but it kept fighting, jaws snapping as shadows yanked at its limbs. Incensed, it kept lunging, teeth clacking as it fought toward her face.

With a thunderous crash, the sky opened, branches snapping, roots ripping clean out of the ground. Above the din, Balorath bellowed, “Cockroach!”

Scaled talons half as long as I was tall plunged through the thorns as the dragon roared. The wolf cried out, whining and snarling as it was yanked off Magnolia, ripped through the hole punched through the brambles.

Silence settled.

Wide-eyed confusion tangled with horror in its wake. The beast was massive—no lone warrior was going to slay something so enormous. How in the hell had she survived that? Its mobility must’ve been inhibited by the structure of the mall.

And she’d used that against it. Brilliant.

Panting, we all stared at each other. Mind spinning, I closed the distance to Mags and knelt, pulling her into my arms as my palms skimmed the scrapes and wounds littering her skin.

We breathed against each other, trying to steady ourselves as Balorath’s wing beats grew distant.

“Move,” I rasped. “We have to move.”

She nodded shakily, clinging to my shoulders as I hauled us to our feet.

None of us ran. I wasn’t sure we could any longer, and based on the carcasses around our gathering, Jason and Brody were likely just as stunned.

But we walked, the crackle of flames fading with each slow step into the thickening fog. The chill deepened as the barrier did, my vision reduced to a few feet in front of us.

“It’ll come back,” Jason warned.