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The flames didn’t need any coaxing. They traveled down the whirlwind and devoured the shields as well as the men holding them. Their screams rang out over the lake as I burned three more boats.
Another horn sounded and the third flank of boats fell back toward the island shore. I smirked across the horizon at the tiny black cloak waving in the wind. Kairn would be much more careful facing me than his comrades were.
“Nock!” Gerarda called again. “Aim for their bellies!”
The arrows flew through the air once more, straight and low just as Gerarda had commanded. Five men fell over the edge of their boat and burned screaming for someone to save them.
By the time our hulls passed through that part of the lake, the men were floating facedown in the water.
“Feron, can you see if the water is still toxic that far back?” I pointed at one of the ships clambering for the shore.
Feron’s purple eyes glowed as he nodded. He turned toward the black sail and plucked one of the men from the ship with a weed from the lake bottom. The man screamed in agony the moment his flesh touched the water.
“Excellent.” I grinned, allowing the thrashing sensation to build in my stomach. I raised my arms, relishing in the power coursing through them until a wall of water stood between us and the soldiers wanting us dead.
Fyrel and Elaran gasped up at the sheer size of it. I let it grow into the flaming cloud and then I released it.
The shrieks were muffled as the swirling wall dropped onto the remaining ships. The current of the wave propelled the closest boats to shore carrying nothing but survivors.
Chaos erupted on the beach as the soldiers loaded rocks into tiny catapults they had set up along shore and their archers devised a line across the beach. The risk of disembarking in their range was too high.
“Stop the boats!” I called when we neared too close to shore. I unraveled my gusts and our sails went limp. A chill ran down my spine and the waters around the boat froze, almost to the shore but not quite.
The Shades moved without the need for a command, helping others out of the boat and Myrrah back into her chair. I unsheathed my sword and Riven did the same. He no longer carried his broad sword behind his back, but a thinner long blade that suited his Mortal form.
Syrra had her curved blades in her hands and looked out onto the beach with a fury I had never seen. Even Nikolai beside her stalked toward the men with a blade in each fist, determined to hurt Damien in all the ways he had hurt him.
“Charge!” I commanded and our line erupted into a run.
Elaran ran behind Myrrah, her chair slipping on the flat ice.
“Feron!” I shouted as we neared the shore. The barrage of arrows plummeting to our heads was easy enough for me to deal with. Butthe catapults and the large mechanical bows were something better dealt with by a master earth wielder.
I turned to see Feron standing on the ice behind us. His eyes glowed violet and there was a loud, thunderous crack. But the fiery sky did not flash with light. The sand along the beach began to move, drifting downward into a chasm Feron had split across the island.
The men shouted, running away from the sinkhole, but many were caught in the flow of falling sand. When their catapults had fallen underneath the surface of the beach another loud crack sounded as Feron moved the earth back together again.
Their archers shot again and I lifted their arrows into the violet flames still burning above our heads. But the skies above the island were clear and then we would be able to fight at our full force. I let out that chilly power once more, fusing the ice completely to the shore as we stormed the beach.
“Keera, go!” Gerarda shouted, taking three soldiers down in one twist through the air.
I nodded and transformed into my winged form. I soared above, searching for the seal over the south end of the island. The glamour shattered and I saw the interwoven pattern glowing along the beach. It was as if the seal had been made of sunlight, glowing brightly under the smoke-covered sky.
Kairn was running toward it. I dove without a second thought.
I hooked my talons through his shoulders and dropped him to the ground before transforming midair and bringing my blade to his head. But Kairn was quick footed for such a mountain of a man. He rolled away from my blade and turned with a sharp sword of his own.
We circled each other as his men shouted in the distance. From the corner of my eye, I saw that Feron had reached the shore. He’d built a platform and wall to protect Myrrah from the soldiers butnot the soldiers from her well-aimed bow. He had called thick roots from the earth and they wrapped around his legs like one of Riven’s shadows, keeping him straight as he walked across the beach as a giant tree. He kicked his legs as he walked, knocking through the battle lines and leaving soldiers in his wake.
Kairn snarled at me. His black eye didn’t move in his head like his gray one. Instead the amber iris flared until there was nothing left of the darkness. Kairn’s back straightened and his limbs went limp at his side.
“Hello, Keera,” he cooed in his thick rasp of a voice, but somehow I knew it wasn’t him speaking at all.
My lip curled over my fangs. “It’s over, Damien.” I lifted my blade. “You have lost.”
“Have I?” A cruel grin grew across Kairn’s face in an identical match to Damien’s. He pulled out a thin blade from his belt. It dripped with thick, black liquid.
I swallowed waiting for him to attack, but he didn’t. Instead Kairn plunged the blade into the seal. There was a flash of light and he yelped in pain as the seal blew him backward onto the beach. Soldiers turned to protect their captain, but my friends would take good care of them.
