Calla
MAEZ.
The room fell silent for a moment to take in the formidable sight.
“Hello, Uncle,” Maez said, her face tight, her voice cold.
Nero only smiled at her menace. He opened his mouth to say something, but Maez’s hands shot out and her magic blew him backward. Caution morphed his arrogant face as if he was surprised Maez didn’t allow him to speak.
Green lightning stabbed at Nero from every direction, a zipping ball of static surrounding him, but not a single blast penetrated the swirling air that encircled him.
He grimaced, opening his balled fists and pushing his hands forward as emerald sparks shot out, knocking into Maez.
She growled, gritting her teeth, holding her hands out in mirror to Nero’s own as her feet skidded backward toward the edge of the blood-slicked dais.
A figure stood amongst the field of corpses, so coated in gore I didn’t recognize her at first. But then she brushed her red hair over her bare shoulder to tumble down her back.
“Briar!” I called.
I was only able to take a single step toward her before three Silver Wolves ran at us. Grae jumped in front of me, sword drawn as he caught a Wolf in the side and then turned to the other while I finished off the third.
As I yanked my blade from the Wolf’s side, I watched as Briar turned to me, her expression pinched, her eyes bloodshot.
I could tell from the way her brows knit together that she was crying.
She gave me one single look, placing her hand over her heart, before turning toward the dais and limping toward her mate.
“No,” I sobbed.
The ground rumbled as the dragon flew past the rubble of the now-missing wall, circling back toward us again.
Grae grabbed me just in time, throwing me to the ground and shielding me with his body as the dragon barreled into the hallway, piercing another hole into the palace.
Fire ignited in every direction—the carpets, the tapestries.
A hole in the roof above us caved in, blocking our way to the far end of the great hall.
I scrambled to my feet, searching for Briar, but the pile of stones was too tall. I climbed up the crumbling heap of debris two steps before my feet slid out from under me and Grae pulled me back.
“We need to get out of here before that dragon brings the whole place down,” he shouted.
I lifted on my tiptoes, barely getting a peek of Maez and the feral green fire that burned all around her now.
Her face was tight with pain, her posture stooped, and I knew in my gut that she was losing this battle.
That she was more experienced with the magic, but that Nero was simply stronger—in his madness, if nothing else.
But then I looked around and realized it wasn’t madness. It was the blood—the deaths he’d caused. He was more powerful because he had been more indiscriminate. More ruthless.
More of a monster.
A retinue of Olmderian guards began climbing through the blasted hole in the wall to my right and I barked orders to them to remove the rubble. Despite their frightened expressions, they did as I said.
“Calla,” Grae snapped, but I was already moving rubble with my raw, cracked hands. My mate let out a curse from behind me and jumped to my side to help move the debris.
We were all getting out of this together or not at all. I wasn’t leaving my twin to die in this place. She had come to my aid, and there was no way I wasn’t going to hers.
A scream rent the air, and I looked between the walls of rubble to see a bolt of lightning hit Maez square in the chest and she tumbled off the dais. Nero laughed, stalking forward, summoning another wave of power to end her.
Dread gripped me as I watched him lift his hands, knowing that when they fell, Maez’s life would end along with any hope of us surviving.
But when Nero lifted his hands to the sky, a flash of brilliant lightning struck him from behind, not of emerald . . . but of crimson. The rest of the wall in front of me crumbled to reveal the source of the rogue dark magic:
Briar.
She stood on the dais behind Nero, a flow of churning green siphoning off from Maez and morphing into scarlet as it poured out of my twin. She was taking Maez’s magic and turning it into something else entirely.
“What in the Gods . . . ,” I whispered, horrified, as Briar seemed to draw the sorceress’s power into her, using herself as a conduit to shoot at Nero.
Maez stood on wobbling legs, blood trailing from her nose and ears. Her magic sputtered, barely a spark, but she shot it at Nero’s other side. He stood in the middle of the dais, pulled in either direction by Briar’s and Maez’s magic, his teeth bared, clearly in pain.
But he didn’t drop.
Sweet Moon, it still might not be enough. After all the deaths by his hand, he was so fueled with dark magic, even their combined power might not be enough to fell him.
I kept moving stones, revealing another familiar face in the walls between us.
“Mina!” I tried to reach for her hand and pull her over the rubble, but she slipped. “Grae, help me!” Before he could reach her, a soldier appeared, one in Damrienn garb. “Look out!”
Mina whirled toward her attacker as he lifted his sword aloft and charged.
The blade swung down, and I screamed Mina’s name, but then a flash of silver fur shot out from the melee. The soldier slashed his dagger clean through the side of the Silver Wolf who yelped and fell backward.
I knew in an instant who it was. Only one Silver Wolf would protect her with his life. A Wolf who had tried so hard to keep his sister from falling in love with a human. A Wolf who clearly loved one himself.
Hector.
Even with blood pouring from his chest, Hector righted himself and launched at the guard, snapping at his legs and toppling him over. He barely paused before tearing out the guard’s throat. And then his body spasmed and he collapsed.
Mina shot forward as he shifted into his human form, so caked in blood and gore I couldn’t see his wounds, but I knew from his gaunt, gray gaze that a shift wouldn’t save him now.
His eyes peeked open, his lashes clumped in congealing burgundy. He lifted a trembling hand to Mina’s cheek, leaving a streak of blood where he swept his thumb across her face.
She let out a silent sob, shaking her head at him. His hand wrapped around the back of her neck, and he pulled her down into a fierce kiss. My vision clouded with tears as motes of golden light started collecting around him, lifting his soul from his body and warping it in a glittering orb.
I sucked in a sharp breath.
I knew that golden light. Felt it stitch me back together with my own dying wish.
Tears spilled down my cheeks as the cloud of sparkling dust collected, and with a flash like rays of sun peeking through the clouds, she appeared. Vellia, beautiful and ethereal as ever. The silver-haired faery floated down to Hector’s side.
Mina sobbed harder, shaking her head. Signing ferociously for Vellia to go away, but Vellia just calmly drifted over to Hector and crouched down so he could whisper in her ear.
Her eyes lightly drifted to Nero, to the blinding battle he was locked in with Maez and Briar, and she nodded. When her hand touched Hector’s chest, his grip on Mina went slack. Mina keeled forward, gathering him into her arms, kissing him, shaking him, but he was gone.
Vellia stretched her glowing golden hands apart, stretching, stretching the final fabric of Hector’s life.
She gave me a single look, a stolen glance, the warmth of a mother’s smile telling me everything I knew she wanted to say.
I nodded back to her through watery eyes.
Her gaze found Briar next, and Briar’s magic sputtered to a stop as she held our faery godmother’s gaze.
Despite her distance, I could see the single word being chanted on my twin’s lips. “Please, please, please.”
Vellia nodded to Briar and then clapped the golden threads of Hector’s soul together with Briar’s crimson magic and Maez’s emerald ether and let it fly forward, crashing into Nero and causing him to vault across the room in an arc of rainbow light.