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KIT

The world stopped.

Like the pause between ticks of a clock, the inhalation before a gasp of life, it was as though time itself had frozen.

And then it restarted, and Kit’s eyes grew wide as many, many things began happening at once.

Turquoise light shot up from the crater Malakar had left behind—a blinding geyser of magic that burst into the sky.

Heat and power washed so intensely over the battlefield, Kit could feel it all the way from the healer’s tent at the top of the hill. She scrambled to her feet, heart hammering in her chest, while Tenebris Nox’s words of concern fell unheard on her ears.

Kit could not hear anything, could not see anything, other than what was happening on the battlefield below.

The remaining abominations, still engaged in battle, looked up for a suspended moment, staring at the power still exploding from the crater. Then, screeching, they ran.

Quick-thinking soldiers and the Arcanians still on the field did their best not to let them escape. They could not stop them all. One carried a red-robed figure in its misshapen arms as it flew away. But they stopped enough.

The pillar of swirling light started to calm, gushing power replaced with a shimmering mist—like the spray of a waterfall, sprinkled in the air. The rays from the sun and the aurora created brilliant, dazzling rainbows where they met the vapor.

It was too beautiful a sight to describe. And the contrast with the bloodstained, body-littered battlefield below was too horrifying to behold.

A dark shape emerged from the crater, soaring through the mist. Kit held her breath⁠—

Then released it when she saw the long, sleek curve of a feline body, the huge feathery wings extended on both sides.

She breathed deeper when she saw the two silhouettes on the shadowcat’s back.

“Take me down!” she urged Nox, who was standing beside her now, their eyes locked on the sight before them as well.

The nocterrian’s gaze flicked to the bandage wrapped around Kit’s midsection and narrowed their gaze.

“Now,” Kit bellowed at them, and with a shake of their head, they swept them both into the dark, reemerging a few yards from the crater.

Bodies surrounded them. The snow was so thoroughly steeped in red and black blood that there was hardly any white left.

Kit couldn’t look long. Her vision tunneled to the shadowcat who had just landed in front of her. And then shock rippled through her core, because it wasn’t Elyria struggling to hold a barely conscious Cedric Thorne upright on Sid’s back.

It was Tenny.

Relief, panic, and alarm warred in Kit’s chest. Tenny was safe, Cedric and Sid were here, but⁠—

“Where is she!?” Kit cried.

“She was right behind us,” Tenny said, releasing a small grunt as Nox rushed forward to help slide Cedric off Sid’s back.

The shadowcat vanished her wings in a burst of black smoke, then immediately lay on the ground, offering her body as a brace for a groaning Cedric as Nox leaned him back.

“Get Shep,” Tenny told Nox, and without a word the nocterrian stepped back into the shadows. Her eyes darted nervously to the crater before she unwrapped his hand and began plucking shards of—quartered hell—obsidian from his skin. “She said she would be right behind us.” Her voice was quiet, hollow, and Kit’s heart clenched.

Nox returned a moment later with Shep in tow, green light already swirling in his sylvan hands.

“His head,” Tenny said urgently. “I ran out of mana.”

“I have him,” Shep replied, and Tenny sniffled and gave a stiff nod before backing away to let the healer work.

“Where is she?” Kit repeated, a whisper that lingered too long in the air. Now that Cedric was being taken care of, she could not rip her gaze from the misting crater. “What happened?”

“Elle, she—she killed him. She stopped him.” Tenny wrung her hands together, then wiped them on her dress, like she was just realizing how much of Cedric’s blood coated them. “And then the Line—I don’t know how to explain it. Swelled? Burst? She yelled at me to go, to get Ric out, and I swear to the Five, Kit, she really was right behind us.”