Chapter 12 Aurora #2
None of us had an answer, and the murky silence made my stomach clench. The Limuses always deployed the sand barriers during attacks.
Their absence felt… wrong.
In the shadows the Glacies cast on the ground, the Ignises’ horns blazed like torches. When moonlight hit those outside the darkness, metallic hides gleamed with a sheen like beetle shells.
Wind carried the stench of rot and sulfur up from the valley, and my hands shook as I gripped the rocky ledge and tried not to breathe it in.
I pushed my blood magic further, sweeping every corner of the pass. “I don’t understand,” I said, frowning. “I don’t sense any other Souleaters. There should be more—backup, reserves, something.”
Terraknight’s voice came from my side. “Something’s off. Could be a trap.” His eyes swept the formation below. “Cap, what do you want us to do?”
“I don’t hear any more of them,” Harbinger’s response crackled in my ear.
Air sizzled behind us. We turned as Radu stepped through his portal, Pearl and Ember behind him. Frost covered their hair, and Pearl rubbed her arms for warmth. Only Ember looked unaffected—her fire magic protecting her from the bitter cold.
Radu moved to the edge and studied the Souleater formation below. I found myself watching the way moonlight caught in his platinum hair as a gentle breeze whipped it around his face. His shirt pulled tight across his chest and shoulders, outlining every carved muscle beneath the fabric.
The man was a contradiction. Always silent, locked in his head, like the rest of us didn’t exist. Now I understood why. The Voices gave him no peace, a constant chorus of the dead demanding his attention.
Knowing the reason didn’t make him any less maddening to deal with. Still, I couldn’t deny the effect he had on me. Those strange golden-scarlet eyes could leave me breathless with just a glance. It was foolish, really. Here I was in the middle of a potential battle, distracted by temptation.
Then again, meaningful relationships had never been my strength.
Between Selena and the occasional Blood Pact—where conversation was hardly the point—I kept to myself.
Hard to form connections when half the Republic saw you as the ‘halfblood-loving princess’ and the other half thought you were too far above their station.
“Too many Ignises in the front,” Harbinger said, his deep, masculine voice disturbing my wandering thoughts. “We’ll strike from the rear, take our chances with the Nebulas. The Limuses are guarding the flanks, but they’re too close to the canyon walls. No room for a side attack.”
I followed his gaze to the four-armed creatures lumbering at the convoy’s rear.
Their hunched backs and skeletal frames looked almost pitiful from this height.
But I remembered when one of them crushed me to its chest. How massive they’d seemed when towering over me.
How their rotting breath had made my eyes water.
Gale crouched at my side, wings spread in a scarlet blanket behind her. She shot me an infectious grin, and her whole face lit up. It was impossible not to return the smile despite the churning in my gut.
Another battle, another chance to save the people I vowed to protect—or fail spectacularly. The fear never got easier. Not only for my life, but for what my mistakes might cost others. Phoenix’s face flashed through my mind; the moment my control slipped and those Ignises broke free.
I couldn’t let that happen again. I wouldn’t.
“On three.”
Radu stepped forward, shoulders squared, jaw set, and scanned each of us with calculating amber eyes.
When his gaze locked with mine, the world narrowed to just us.
Battle-hunger flickered in his dilated pupils; the same predatory gleam I’d seen countless times before steel and portal magic met rotting flesh.
His mouth quirked up at one corner, and I caught the silent message: Trust yourself. Try to enjoy the slaughter.
I’ll try, I sent back with a nod. For Father, for Conin and Phoenix, for everyone we’d already lost to these monsters.
“One,” he began, never breaking eye contact.
My pulse hammered against my ribs. The Souleaters’ guttural snarls carried up from below.
“Two.”
He stepped backward off the ledge, body twisting in freefall as his lips shaped a soundless, “Three.”
I looked over the edge just as the portal swallowed him, then spat him out sixty feet below in a burst shadow. The blood-red gem at the pommel of his sunsteel blade glinted as he slid it free from its sheath. Then another portal claimed him.
Boots scraped stone. Gale and Hummingbird launched themselves over the cliff, wings pressed tight to their backs.
They plummeted toward the horde of Souleaters, then snapped their wings open mid-fall.
Copper and dove-white feathers caught the wind as they banked hard, diving straight into the circling Glacies.
Air lances sliced through the night and clashed with bursts of ice shards, followed by the wet splatter of severed limbs hitting the ground.
“Eat my dust, Terra!” Quakelord called out, spinning to face us with his back to the ravine. “Ladies.” He tipped an imaginary hat and spread his arms wide, letting gravity take him.
For all his quick temper, Quakelord knew how to cut tension when he wanted to. A smile tugged at my lips as I craned my neck to follow his descent. Narrow platforms jutted from the cliff’s face, softening his landing as he bounced down like a grasshopper.
Rich, fruity magic saturated the air so thick I could taste it on my tongue. I glanced over to find Terraknight to my left, knees bent, arms spread at his sides.
The rock underneath him appeared to turn spongy.
I gawked and reached out to test it. Cool to the touch, but it felt like rubber instead of stone. He tested it with a few bounces, building momentum like a diver on a springboard. His grin flashed white as he caught Selena’s dumbstruck stare.
“Show-off,” she muttered, but her lips twitched.
Terraknight’s laugh boomed across the pass before he dove headfirst into the abyss. For someone built like a battering ram, he moved without sound. Not even a pebble scattered in his wake.
“Ready?” Pearl asked.
Her eyes blazed sapphire-bright. Pearlescent scales rippled across her hands and forearms, catching moonlight as she wove complex patterns through the air.
Water droplets materialized from nothing, thousands of them spinning and merging until a massive sphere of liquid hovered five feet off the ground.
The soft murmur of churning water almost drowned out the battle cries rising from below.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Ember spat and stomped one yellow rubber boot against stone.
She had good reason to worry. Fire magic worked fine for rooftop-hopping across ruins scattered throughout the wards, but more than a hundred-foot drop was a different story.
So, we had come up with another idea during our strategy meeting―use me as a pack mule while Harbinger and the others kept the Souleaters distracted―which she agreed, albeit reluctantly.
“Hop on,” I said, patting my thighs and bending my knees to match her height.
“You think having a few decades on me gives you the right to be condescending? Stop treating me like a child!” Ember seethed, but she still grabbed my shoulders and hoisted herself onto my back.
A killer smile lit across Selena’s face as she snorted behind her fist. I bit my cheeks to stop the laughter threatening to escape. “No one thinks you’re a child,” I cooed. More like a sweet, innocent young woman who could melt steel with her bare hands.
Pearl waited at the edge, only her head visible above the giant water sphere that encased her body. Saltwater sloshed around her shoulders as she moved.
“See you down there,” she called, then rolled forward and plummeted. The massive bubble carried her like a cannonball.
“Our turn,” Selena said, peering over the cliff’s edge. “Rappel down to that ledge. See it?” She pointed to a flat outcropping jutting from the rock face about seventy feet down.
I nodded.
“Should be safe to jump from there if she holds tight. If not… at least you tried.” She shrugged with typical Selena warmth. “Break a leg.”
“I’m right here, you assholes,” Ember muttered, but Sel was already gone, a dark blur dropping into the canyon.
I adjusted my ‘cargo,’ making sure Ember’s grip wouldn’t snap my neck on landing, then dropped to my knees. My fingertips found the first handhold, rough granite biting into skin as I supported both our weights. This would destroy my nails, but it might earn me a few points with the balaur.
The ledge stretched almost four feet across, plenty of room to land safely.
Battle sounds rose from below, deafening now as we grew closer to the slaughter.
Wings beat too close for comfort as Glacies circled overhead, their ice magic crackling in the night air.
The Black Guild kept them occupied, but it wouldn’t last long.
I breathed in the thick stench of rot and took a running leap into empty air.
“Hold on,” I whispered.
Gravity seized us like a giant’s fist, but even with Ember’s added weight, the fall felt routine. I’d been jumping a three-hundred-foot drop from my bedroom window since age five.
This was nothing.
The landing jarred us both. Momentum pitched Ember forward, and her forehead cracked against the back of my skull hard enough to make me see stars.
“This changes nothing,” she said, sliding off my back and rubbing her nose. Her lovely brows slid together as she assessed the battle, but the smile she tried to hide behind her hand told me I was on the right path to win her heart.
I flashed her a grin, blinking rapidly as the dizziness subsided. “Let’s go raise some hell.”
Ahead of us, Black Guild was already carving through the Souleater vanguard.
Gale stood at the center of a howling vortex, mahogany hair ripping free from her braid and lashing her face.
Pearl worked in perfect sync from the ground, sending thick ropes of water spiraling up from the base.
The liquid tentacles climbed higher and higher and twisted around each other like a massive serpent made of brine.
Pearl clapped her hands, and the water ropes snapped forward. They wrapped around Souleater necks and torsos before dragging them screaming into Gale’s spinning death trap.
Salt spray mixed with the sweet scent of citrus as Gale spread her wings wide.
When she launched skyward, chunks of stone tore loose from the ground, caught in the updraft of her takeoff.
The trapped Souleaters spun faster, their gurgles and shrieks bouncing off the gorge’s sheer walls as she carried them higher.
She hurled them against the cliff face with bone-crushing force. Rock cracked and boulders tumbled down, flattening the Limuses too slow to dodge.
Ember’s boots squeaked as she rushed toward the battle, but I couldn’t look away from Terraknight. He stopped dead center in a pack of circling hellhounds, tapped his boot once, and dropped into a fighting stance.
Dozens of Limuses circled him, their crimson eyes blazing with hunger, and the damp, foamy saliva from their snapping jaws made even my skin crawl. Behind them, Glacies dug their talons deep into stone, ice creeping down their claws to form spears that scraped the ground.
A massive stone pillar erupted in front of Terraknight just as the hellhounds pounced. He drove his fist straight through it, shattered three feet of solid rock into thousands of razor-sharp fragments, and sent the explosion of stone shrapnel ripping through Limuses.
But the Glacies were already raising their arms, ice spears aimed at his exposed back.
Sabin, you fool.
I thrust my Blood Manipulation forward and slammed into their minds. Glass-thin barriers tried to keep me out, but I cracked through like breaking a mirror. I raised my palms and twisted their heads toward each other, then clenched my fist.
The ice spears launched straight into their own ranks. They punched through gray flesh, some lodging deep, others bursting out the other side in sprays of black ichor. Bodies dropped, adding to the growing pile of corpses.
Terraknight spun, eyes wide as he searched for whoever had saved his ass—Souleaters didn’t just drop dead for no reason. When his gaze found mine, that confused frown melted into a brilliant grin.
“Thanks, Projector!” he called with a sharp nod before sprinting toward where Hummingbird and Quakelord were cutting through the remaining horde.
Black gore drenched their clothes and painted their faces, but it didn’t stop them from shouting kill counts at each other.
They moved with vicious efficiency, competing to see who could deliver the fastest death blow.
Watching them laugh and joke while butchering monsters should have been reassuring.
Instead, dread pooled in my stomach.
This was too easy. Souleaters never went down this fast, never fell into such obvious tactical blunders. Something was wrong.
Radu materialized beside me as if summoned by my thoughts, and I noticed the Voices hissing through my Transmitter had grown louder. What used to be background static now buzzed like angry wasps, impossible to ignore.
“Hold!” he barked, raising a fist.
Every muscle in his body went rigid, veins standing out along his forearms as he listened to something the rest of us couldn’t hear.
His eyes twitched, pupils darted back and forth like he was reading invisible text.
The Souleaters around us continued their march, flowing past as if we were nothing more than rocks in a stream.
They were ignoring us.
What in the Underworld—?
I held my breath and sent my Blood Manipulation sweeping toward the canyon’s exit. Nothing. No ambush, no reinforcements lurking within my one-mile range.
Radu broke formation and scanned the canyon walls with keen eyes. His knuckles went white around his sword hilt.
“We fall back,” he shouted, voice tight. “I don’t like being trapped in here. We’ll draw them into open ground where we can—”
A blinding lance of light tore across the sky, turning night into day in a heartbeat. The beam sliced through the heavens, then erupted in a thunderclap that shook the mountains themselves.
The sound hammered my bones and turned my blood to ice. Realization washed over me. A burning sensation akin to fire ants spread across my skin.
Trap.
“RUN!” Selena’s scream broke my paralysis. She shoved hard against my chest, and my numb legs finally responded.
The sky was falling, and we were about to die.