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“I never thought I’d be defending General Slaugh,” he said, “but over my dead body are you taking him.”
“That can be arranged.” Nox raised her hands and shot a bolt of shadow magic at him. Leap and the other Lightning Riders scattered, but Einar and I dove straight for Nox. I opened my mouth as icefire barreled up my throat, fully intending to unleash it on her and end this once-and-for-all.
But I was so focused on my goal that I didn’t notice the giant until he stepped in front of me.
“Adara, watch out!”Einar cried, but it was too late. I slammed into the giant’s chest at full speed. Pain radiated through my body as several bones broke upon the impact, and the giant let out a roar. He grabbed me, but Einar intervened, blasting the giant’s head with fire. The giant released me, and I plummeted, my wings struggling and failing to hold me aloft.
Isador and Diyani caught me before I slammed into the ground, carrying me a safe distance away and depositing me at the base of another hill. Though I knew it would be painful to do so, I shifted into my half-dragon form, knowing that the physical change would force my body to heal. The pain was excruciating, and I collapsed to my knees on the hillside, panting hard.
“What do you want us to do, Lady Adara?”Diyani asked as she crouched above me, shielding me with her body.
I scanned the battle before me, trying to get a sense of my bearings. Einar had successfully fought off the giant, and he was now fighting General Slaugh, using his fire magic to keep the general from going to his mistress. Nox and her Shadow companion had retreated farther behind their lines, and I spotted them just in time to see the one in Lady Mossi’s body raise its hands and send a wave of shadow magic rippling over the earth fae army. Dismay filled me as the earth fae began morphing into shadow creatures—mindless minions who would fight to the death and beyond, turning all their victims with each bite and scratch of their claws into the same soulless monsters.
“I need you and the other dragons to use the icefire primal stones to burn out the shadow taint in the armies,”I told Diyani. Even now, the earth fae shadow soldiers were ripping into the water and air fae, infecting them with Nox’s poisonous magic.“It’s already spreading, and if we don’t stop it now, every soldier on this battlefield will become a shadow creature.”
“What about the Shadows?”Isador asked.
“Let me worry about them.”
I rallied my strength as the last of the pain faded, and the three of us took to the skies, heading back to the battlefield. Diyani and Isador flanked me for a few brief moments before veering toward the lines where the earth and water fae armies clashed. Leap, Lord Oren, and the other Lightning Riders were relentlessly attacking the giants, and Einar was still fighting Slaugh, who had shifted back into his fae form. The general seemed to have grown twice his usual size, shadow magic oozing from his pores as he held his own against Einar with a combination of shadow and earth magic. It was obvious Nox was fueling him through their connection—the only way to stop him was to stop her.
“Oi!” Leap pulled up alongside me. He was sweaty and disheveled, but still gave me a crooked grin. “Need someone to watch your back?”
“Always.” I grinned back at him, my heart swelling with affection.
Leap shadowed me from above as I flew over the battlefield, heading toward Nox. He used his lightning strikes and wind magic to fend off attacks from the earth fae below, giving me freedom to make a beeline for the two Shadows. Nox’s eyes widened as she saw me coming, and she fired bolts of shadow magic in our direction, trying to knock Leap from the sky.
“Go!” I shouted at him as he swerved to avoid the attacks. “Help the other Lightning Riders. I’ve got this.”
Leap looked torn, but he did as I said, veering away from Nox’s line of fire. The other Shadow was too preoccupied with directing the earth fae army—the dragons were doing a good job of purifying the soldiers with their icefire amulets, forcing the Shadow to make more—so she had no choice but to face me on her own. I conjured a ball of icefire as I raced toward her, but just as I threw it, shadow wings burst from her back, and she took flight, narrowly avoiding the blast.
“You’ll need to do better than that!” she shouted, circling around behind me. I turned in time to see her fling a rope of shadow magic at one of the giants, lassoing it by the wrist. The great creature lumbered toward me, its shadow-blackened eyes brimming with hatred, and I cursed as I flew sideways, narrowly avoiding its grasp.
“Coward!” I shouted, shooting another blast at her. “Getting others to do your dirty work instead of fighting yourself!”
“But of course.” Nox alighted on the giant’s shoulder, stroking her hand down its craggy cheek. “Why work harder when you can work smarter? A queen doesn’t waste energy swinging her own sword when she has soldiers to fight for her. She uses her superior intellect to direct them in battle.”
“Queen?” I scoffed, dodging the giant yet again. “Of death and destruction, sure. But you don’t know the first thing about how to lead living, breathing people.”
“I have no interest in leading living, breathing people.” Nox flicked an imaginary speck of dust off her shoulder. “They hold no value to me aside from the life energy my shadows and I will harvest from them, once we take control of your world.”
I tried to blast Nox with icefire again, but although she dodged it, the ball of magic hit the giant square in the shoulder. The creature roared, stumbling back a step and crushing several fae underfoot as the magical blue flames raced across its body. A minute later, its eyes cleared, and it blinked in confusion as it turned this way and that.
“Stupid beast,” Nox snarled. “Attack her!”
But the giant wasn’t listening, too entranced by the battle raging around it. It began to walk toward its fellow giants, and I took advantage of the opportunity to close the distance between me and Nox, weaving in between her blasts of shadow magic. Her eyes widened as I reached out to grab her, but right before I made contact, a cloud of shadow magic burst from her, temporarily blinding me.
When it cleared, I had my fist around the front of her dress, and she had hers around the handle of a knife.
But the knife wasn’t pointed at my throat.
It was pointed athers.
“If you make one move,” Nox said, a feral gleam in her eyes—no, mymother’seyes—as she spoke, “or summon so much as a flicker of icefire, I will slit your mother’s throat here and now. She will die, and I will take General Slaugh’s body while she bleeds out in your arms and everything you hold dear crumbles to dust.”
I froze, my heart lodging in my throat. “No,” I croaked, struggling for breath. This couldn’t be happening. I couldn’t have come this far, only to be told that in order to win this battle, in order to defeat Nox, I would have to lose my mother.
“Yes.” Nox smiled, her confidence growing as she sensed my weakness. She pressed the knife into her throat, sending a trickle of black blood flowing down the column of her neck. “You have to make a choice now. What’s it going to be, Adara? The world, or the person who loves you most in this world, who sacrificed her life for you? The one person you set out on this quest to save in the first place?”
