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They weren’t soldiers.
But they fell like them.
One after another after—
“Move!” Elyria screamed, the word ripping raw from her throat at the mixedborn girl, whose face had drained of color, her makeshift weapons flung from her hands by the cultist bearing down on her.
The girl scrambled back, a whimper pulling from her throat, the children hidden in the trees behind her crying. The cultist swung her blood-forged blade . . .
. . . and met a wall of ice.
Kit’s silver-and-gold wings were a beacon in the dark forest as she soared in front of the ice wall she’d erected, cutting off the children, however momentarily, from their assailants. Through the icy barrier, Elyria could just make out the sight of the mixedborn girl gathering the younger children, could see their forms grow smaller as she ushered them back through the woods, toward safety.
Elyria exhaled a quick, relieved breath. Then steadied herself. It was time to finish this.
Swallowing back bile, Elyria tore the axe from the sylvan boy’s body and immediately threw it into the back of one of the cultists still fighting with Jocelyn. Shrieks rang through the air in duplicate as Elyria realized that the ice wall Kit had constructed in the blink of an eye had covered the feet of two of the other sanguinagi, freezing them in place. Elyria darted forward and thrust her dagger between the ribs of one, then the other. Their final breaths were satisfyingly wet as they sank to their knees.
Satisfying, too, was the sight of Kit showering a third cultist with a burst of water that instantly crystallized on her skin, leaving her screaming in agony long enough for Kit to descend and plunge an icy dagger into her sanguinagi heart.
But it still wasn’t all of them.
Jocelyn fought the two remaining cultists, and the toll this battle had taken on her was becoming clear. Her movements were sluggish, her reactions delayed. The night was wearing on Elyria, too, whose wild magic was barely a glimmer within her now. Her heart was still racing though, the need to survive, to protect, pulsing through her veins and keeping her alert.
She needed to stay in it, if just for a little longer.
In the distance, Elyria heard a riotous bellow, the screams and growls of the monsters Cedric and Sid still battled. She grappled for the bond inside her, relief stealing her breath when she found it strong, glowing with her knight’s steel-willed determination. They were doing all right.
It was almost over.
The thought came just as one of the cultists slipped under Jocelyn’s outstretched arm, moving like a wraith with a blood-crystal dagger raised high.
Elyria was, once again, too slow.
And the cultist’s grin was bright in Elderglade’s glow, her eyes fevered and red, as she plunged her dagger into the soft juncture between Jocelyn’s arm and shoulder.
Jocelyn cried out.
Elyria lunged.
Instinct took over, the quiet shadows she’d kept buried in her chest—the ones she’d been so grateful not to have to think about, the ones she’d been purposefully ignoring so she wouldn’t have to consider what they were, what they meant—surged forth.
She still wasn’t thinking about what they meant as shadows snapped out from Elyria’s palms, ribbons of black diving through the air. They wrapped around the cultist’s torso, hauling her off Jocelyn and hurtling her into a nearby silveroak so hard the wood groaned.
The cultist left a bloody streak down the silver-striped trunk as Elyria’s shadows unwound from her body and she collapsed limply at the base.
“I’ll be fine, Elle,” Jocelyn said weakly, clutching at her wound, trying to stem the gush of blood. She fell to her knees, her weapon discarded on the ground. The dagger had gone in at a bad angle, the blade serrated, and when the cultist had ripped it out, she’d taken a chunk of Jocelyn with it.
Elyria saw red, her eyes narrowing on the single remaining cultist.
It was only him now. Him against Kit and Elyria both, bearing down on him together. Elyria’s shadowy ribbons had receded, but darkness now misted over her skin, clouding her in night.
The sanguinagi’s crimson eyes darted between Jocelyn on the ground and then Elyria before him. They widened as understanding dawned. Understanding . . . and fear.
This was the Revenant.
Crimson lightning burst from the man’s hands, aimed at Elyria, whose shadows were ready to lash out in response. But before she even had the chance, Kit was there, erecting a shield of ice, blocking the barrage of blood magic and sending it ricocheting into the canopy above instead.
Elyria cursed as the bolts collided with branches and leaves, and the sparks left in their wake did not fade, did not snuff out this time.
