AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It rumbled in satisfaction.Freedom. It has been too long since we’ve roamed this world.
Tenah practiced deep breaths, striving to maintain her cool. If these beasts escaped, if they climbed out of the cavern and ravaged her isle… Elementals save them all. She’d witnessed firsthand how much damage feingrot had done in her home, and now she watched as they failed to hinder the war beasts in the slightest.
The sound of marching soldiers drew her eyes to the tunnel. Vristarians clad in black and gold emerged, the badge of the Embassy pinned to their leather armor. Leading them, Vesara wore a thin coronet of gold above her jet black brows. Her knives glinted as they hurled through the air, slamming into the third war beast—a fanged harpy with snow white wings.
Reinforcements had come.
Tenah’s rigid body went slack, and she found rhythm in her breathing once more. Her healing magic blasted up into the shadow beast’s core. It whirled its giant hollows for eyes down to her level. Then it unleashed a shockwave of Chaos unlike anything Tenah had experienced before.
Rama was slow to shield against its attack, and she smashed against the cavern wall. Stars bloomed in her vision. Warm blood dribbled from a cut in her skull. Images flashed before her darkening eyes.
Cirel, consumed by dark magic, screaming for her help.
Maltar prowling the manor.
Her father, more creature than shadow, laying waste to shadows with fire and lightning.
There were visions she’d never experienced too. Endless fires sweeping through forested mountains. Isles tumbling from the sky, sinking deep into the ocean, and summoning treacherous waves that crashed against the coasts of Aranma.
Tenah pressed her back further into the cavern wall. She didn’t know what to make of what she was witnessing. Deep in her bones, she wanted to run. No sane shadow would stand before this war beast’s darkness and not cower.
But sanity was for the weak.
Snarling, she unleashed a burst of Rama, forcing everything she had into a final, wishful attack. Her magic ate through the beast’s smoke. Devoured its bones until nothing remained except for a sliver of white crystal.
A purified shard.
She rushed forward to catch it, just missing as it struck the floor and shattered into a million pieces, too small to hold anything more than a whisper of magic. Her hands slammed down on the rough bits and pieces.
One war beast down and she was nearly drained of healing magic. It waned in her channels, giving way for Chaos to sweep in and breed self-doubt.
Her eyes drifted to her father, who battled to restrain Balhudhal with a net of sizzling dark magic. Balhudhal cleaved its talons through the fault lines in the cavern ceiling. Magma shifted its rock armor around to accommodate the narrow escape in the cliffs, and then it pulled itself free.
Her father wasted no time giving chase. He blasted flames from his hands to launch himself into the air, a fire god out for vengeance against an old enemy. Feingrot scaled the walls, trailing after like a horde of bloodhounds.
Stomach heaving, Tenah watched the harpy ascend from the cliffs next. Vesara briefly locked eyes with her from across the cavern. Then they both launched into motion.
Astride Maltar, Tenah urged the feingrot up the cavern stairs. They raced through the catacombs and burst out onto the streets, only to find the capital already ablaze beneath Balhudhal’s wrath. Historic buildings and bell towers, famous armories and shops. Merchant stalls burned like torches, spilling plumes of black smoke in the sky. Vozarian in Denoden could probably see the smoke signaling the destruction of their homes.
Atop the cliffs, Vesara and her assassins fought with a handful of Ruzgorn against the harpy’s vicious speed. More of her cousin’s warriors leaped over rooftops toward Balhudhal.
She spotted her father standing on the palace roof, launching assaults at the war beast as it unleashed fiery hell in the center of Firesteep. Feingrot failed to find purchase in its rocky exterior as it bled magna to incinerate them.
Tenah scraped her source of healing magic clean. Its slow regeneration was definitely concerning, something that would only improve as she continued to wield it. She would need to be precise with her attacks.
She patted Maltar’s neck. “Get me closer.”
Maltar launched its powerful form up the jutting stones of the nearest building. Racing across the rooftops, she grimaced as the streets filled with magma, spilling out from the tidal wave Balhudhal was summoning. One that would devastate the capital, Ruzgorn and Embassy assassins with it.
Elementals, she hoped Cirel didn’t have any more war beasts.
Tenah gathered Rama into a churning sphere between her palms. Then she took aim, launching it at the largest crack in Balhudhal’s armor, right beneath its outstretched arm. Her magic impacted right on target, causing Balhudhal to lose hold on its wave of magma. She breathed for what felt like the first time in minutes when it fizzled out.
Her father seized the opportunity and increased his attacks. Branches of lightning snapped from his form, lashing at the war beast. Balhudhal let out a roar that shook the terracotta tiles beneath Maltar’s paws, sending it careening toward the edge of the roof. Heat scorched Tenah’s skin as she dangled above the alleyway that rippled with magma. She hissed, clinging tighter to his fur.
Balhudhal turned its wrathful gaze on her.
“Tenah, move,” Hakkan shouted from the adjacent rooftop. He launched himself across the narrow alleyway, thrusting a shoulder into Tenah to knock her away from Balhudhal’s sweeping arm. She raised her head in time to see Maltar and Hakkan pushed from the roof.
