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“Fern,” she rasped between gagging, hoping the Fae would feel how bleeding wrong this was. “Hedda.”
She just needed someone, anyone, to—
“No!”
Fern and Lyriat’s woven bellows were the last thing Lunara heard before she was swallowed by darkness.
Fern hurtled towards a half-formed Forgotten shoving creatures into the cracks, mace arcing as she brought it down. Connection, thunder booming, and she caved its rotten skull.
“Eat shit, you woody fuck,” she spat, kicking it over the edge and swiping up the Sorcerit hanging there.
A thought and her rain poured in all directions, flowing against gravity to fill the lungs of every monstrous arsehole in the vicinity. A flex and lightning shot after it to electrocute them, disintegrating their bodies. A leap and she was in the air again, shockwaves rippling out to mix with the havoc Brand was wreaking as she glanced over the battlefield to orient herself.
What a fucking mess.
In the center of the storm, Brand was engulfed in golden light, roaring to the sky as he tried to hold it all together. But this shit was too much even for him. Half the Westrealm was going to disintegrate if he didn’t let go.
Lyriat was still diving into the darkness on his massive, membranous wings for the last few creatures that had fallen. Vann had turned into something Fern knew deep down she should recognize, his flora consuming him as he hauled the land with root and vine to save it.
Lunara and Araxis were…were…
A knot twisted in her chest, doom coalescing at its center.
Shit. Fuck.
Fern darted back the way they’d come, frantically searching every hollow and crevice for either of them. The two of them were just there, but she’d turned around and…
“Fuck!” She spun mid-air, breaths shallowing, that knot tangling further. “Lyriat!”
The Demon King snapped his gaze to her.
“Lunara and Araxis are gone. I can’t—”
Brand’s roars turned to screams, the world shuddering in violent agony.
“That isn’t his,” she hollered. “Lunara is hurt somewhere. We have to find her now!”
She could feel it.
A Forgotten sprang into the air, reaching with taloned arms to claw her down. Before she could get her own blow in, Pet side-swiped it from out of nowhere, his snarling maw clamping over its head and tearing it away before they hit the ground.
—Go lass. Find her!—
Fern’s heart flipped when that golden stare turned on her, burning, but she didn’t have the fucking time to think about it.
“Look!”
She followed Lyriat’s swordpoint to the Ghostwood.
Hundreds of crows swept in from the bony trees, engulfing Okthana and lifting her from the ground. A twist and jerk, and she was nothing more than a shifting haze of shadow, racing across the border.
Straight towards them.
Fern squared up, twirling her mace. “Let’s fucking go, bitch.”
She unleashed a battle cry as the shadows descended—except Okthana scattered into a million pieces and blew right past in a blur, reforming as Fern and Lyriat spun.
“Shite!” Lyriat flapped his wings and soared after her.
