AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Flanked by the burning, dying beasts, whose feet were scrambling in the dirt as they were consumed by my fiery magic, I sent another wave toward the charging soldiers, then one more after the retreating mages.
One managed to cast his magic toward me, and, curious to see what happened, I cast mine right back. For a split second, both our powers collided midair, then his shattered apart, along with the mage himself.
The rest of them panicked, some running for their lives—they did not make it far—some disappearing into thin air the same way Zorander did. I sent a spiral of magic after them into the ether, praying to the gods it caught up to them.
All around me, the ground was littered with bodies, but none of them were riddled with black vines and thorns. None of them were disfigured…just dead.
And not a drop of blood to be seen.
I burned them anyway, just to be sure.
Because denying the Oracle her prize would be my greatest pleasure.
23
ZORANDER VAYLE
After settling two drunken fights and putting out a fire that nearly caught an artillery wagon ablaze, I made my final inspection of my troops—a ritual I performed before every battle, both to settle my nerves and save as many lives as possible—when white light flared on the other side of the flatlands.
Not an explosion of fire, but of pure starlight.
I was already racing through the encampment when it flared again, brighter this time, a cresting wave of power that could only come from one person. When the light faded away, there would not be a single soul left alive on the other side of the field.
I threw open the healer’s tent.
Empty.
Of course it was empty.
Of course I’d spill out my guts to Anaria, the first female in a hundred years to crack the ice around my frozen heart, and she’d decide to take on our enemies all by herself.
Of course.
I didn’t know why I was raging when fear turned my blood to ice. I didn’t know why every jagged breath hurt, or why my chest was caving in at the thought of Anaria being gone. But I buckled on my weapons belt, then hurled myself onto the nearest horse and spurred the beast across the barren plain to where the magic had originated, toward the speck of a figure I’d seen briefly outlined against that deadly, brilliant light.
Footsteps, faster and softer than any horse’s, pounded behind me, then Tavion ran at my side, his long body stretched out in a clean line as he overtook me and disappeared into the darkness.
“Fuck this.” Between one breath and the next, I vanished from the back of the still-galloping horse and reformed to where I’d just seen Anaria.
She was already gone.
I blew out a long, unbelieving breath at the ashy remains of what had once been the king’s deadliest hunting beasts, winding my way between the fallen soldiers, their blank, unseeing eyes staring up at the brightening sky overhead, the campfires still crackling merrily as if death didn’t lay all around them.
Every last soldier was dead.
Mages, too, which spoke to just how much they’d been taken by surprise.
Or to how powerful Anaria was.
Streaks of black charred the ground from spent magic, acrid smoke swirling up from the corpses and the ashy remains of the hounds. The air stank of ozone, was so heavy with it I pressed a cloth over my nose just to breathe.
Not one drop of blood stained the ground—except for the hounds’—every single one of the dead whole and untouched, though their eyes were wide in terror, mouths stretched in a final, silent scream.
To the south a war horn sounded, then another. The other half of the Fae army was rousting itself to battle, and I spared one final glance up to the city towering over me.
Anaria was on her way into that hellhole.
I was no mind reader, but I knew exactly where she was headed.
