Chapter 13 Aurora #2
I severed the magic. The connection snapped like a broken cord and slammed back into me. In my arms, Hummingbird lay unconscious, his thread of life barely flickering. Blood leaked from my eyes and dripped down my face, mixing with the crimson pool spreading beneath his broken body.
Quakelord was gone.
Hummingbird didn’t have much longer.
Standing felt like wading through molasses. Every muscle protesting as I forced myself upright. Even the ground seemed to resist my advance, as if it knew the weight of loss I carried.
This was my fault.
I should have seen the trap sooner. The ease with which those first Souleaters had fallen… it should have been a warning. They’d been sacrificial pawns. Passed through the canyon to draw us in where the energy blast could strike. The enemy had even predicted we’d attack from the rear.
A subtle, ruthless strategy unlike anything Souleaters had shown before.
My heart plummeted.
Sweet Derzelas, was this… was this an attack orchestrated by the Shepherd?
A Glacie dropped a dozen feet away, its hooved feet scraping against stone. Ice crystallized along its elongated arms as it flexed razor-sharp claws in our direction. Behind it, more shadows moved: Limuses prowling along the crater’s rim, their barrel chests heaving as they scented fresh blood.
Fury blazed through my veins. “Sel, stay with him,” I snarled, stepping between her and the advancing monsters.
My magic punched into the Glacie’s mind. For a heartbeat, it resisted, then I crushed through its defenses with every ounce of power left in me. I seized control of its nervous system and made it drive its own claws through its skull.
The creature’s beady eyes went wide before its head caved in, black ichor spraying across the mountain wall.
Behind me, jasmine and vetiver flooded the air as Selena’s magic awakened.
A faint crimson glow emanated from her palms as she pressed one hand against Hummingbird’s gaping wound, the other over his forehead.
The whites of her eyes turned completely black, fusing with her irises until they resembled pools of liquid obsidian.
“Make them suffer,” she ordered, then bit into her wrist and positioned the dripping wound over his lips.
Three more Souleaters crept over the canyon’s rim. Every movement was a beacon, an offering, to fulfill my rage and thirst for death.
My hand found the silver needle hidden in my hair. Rage narrowed my vision to a single point. The world went silent as my pulse slowed to that of a seasoned predator.
The first—a Limus—charged, snapping its jaws at the air. I sidestepped its clumsy lunge and drove the needle through its eye socket, twisting until brain matter gave way. It collapsed in violent spasms.
The Nebula came from the left, all four arms extended.
Like smoke through flame, I caught two wrists and snapped the bones with my bare hands.
Before it could react, I grabbed its throat and squeezed until cartilage popped beneath my fingers.
Acidic saliva dripped onto my arm, burning through leather and skin. I barely felt the sting.
The third—another Glacie—hesitated, sensing the death of its packmates. Something almost like awareness flickered in its black eyes.
I grinned, cold and cruel, showing my fangs.
“Come on then,” I snarled.
It lunged. I met it head-on, catching its claws against my forearms. The impact drove us both to the ground, but I rolled on top, pinning it beneath my weight.
Leathery wings crumpled under my knees as I drove the needle into the soft spot beneath its jaw and severed the spinal cord with one clean thrust.
Chest heaving, I looked down at the corpse with satisfaction.
I would claim their feeding ground as my domain. Their growls would become whimpers under my carnage. Their claws would fall open, unable to claim another life. And I would end this. Even if I had to kill them one by one.
My hands balled into fists. Black ichor coated my palms and face and dripped down my neck beneath my collar. The remaining shapes near the crater’s edge held back, watching with wary eyes. A few retreated into the hole.
Some primal part of me noted they should have attacked by now.
But fury had burned away rational thought, left only the need to destroy something, anything, to make the pain stop.
These weren’t mindless White Sheep—they were Black Sheep with fragments of consciousness, smart enough to recognize a predator when they saw one.
Smart enough to retreat when the odds turned against them.
I stared at the bloodshed, a boulder in the pit of my stomach. The Academy had trained me to lead, to strategize, to protect. Yet here I stood, surrounded by rotten corpses, and still utterly powerless to save the people in my care.
No matter how many I killed, how much blood I spilled, none of it would bring Quakelord back.
Thunder split the night sky. I ducked on instinct as the heavens blazed white-hot again, turning darkness into blinding day. Familiar this time. Not a lesser threat, but at least I knew what to expect.
I shoved my grief into that locked chest in the back of my mind, along with every other pain I couldn’t afford to feel right now. Spinning on my heels, I counted the globes of fire growing larger in the distance.
Five.
Five Magma Lances deployed from every direction, trapping us in. Too late to stop the launch, but I could still eliminate the source before they fired again.
My Blood Manipulation exploded outward so violently my body recoiled.
“Find shelter! Now!” someone roared—Harbinger or Terraknight, I couldn’t tell through the ringing in my ears.
But there was no shelter.
Nowhere to hide in this narrow stone throat.
My magic penetrated the Ignises’ empty minds. No resistance this time, as if whoever had controlled the previous Souleaters had vanished. Unlike in Brasov, I didn’t waste precious seconds deciding methodology.
I wanted them gone.
Erased.
Extinguished to bits.
Their black, viscous lifeforce rushed to the surface of their armored hides as I commanded their vessels to empty. I couldn’t see them—hidden beyond the towering canyon walls—but I sensed the ichor gushing through every pore, felt them drop like stones as our connection severed.
But this was no cause for celebration.
Whoever orchestrated this knew my limitations and positioned the Ignises exactly one foot inside my range. I couldn’t sense what lay beyond that barrier. More Black Sheep? An entire army?
The odds looked grim either way.
“We need to run!” Selena’s voice vibrated with hysteria.
Hummingbird’s limp form lay over her shoulder, blood from her torn wrist smeared across his ashen face. His broken wing and boots dragged behind her as she rushed toward me.
Another thunderous explosion splintered the night. I jerked as Selena shoved my shoulder.
“Snap out of it! We have no time!” Her scent had soured with fear.
I stared up at the hundred-foot walls hemming us in. The gorge stretched barely forty feet wide in some areas, ancient limestone carved over millennia into a natural trap. Above us, jagged edges jutted out against the star-scattered sky, some as sharp as broken teeth.
Sweet Dark Father Almighty.
Time slowed to a crawl. Terror froze my blood as the true horror crashed over me. We were insects caught in a giant stone bottle, and someone was about to pour in liquid fire.
The Magma Lances struck through the limestone with earth-shaking force.
Lava erupted through the fissures and poured down in glowing waterfalls.
The narrow pass turned into a furnace. High above, centuries-old pines clinging to impossible ledges burst into torches before tumbling into the inferno below.
Two bulwarks of lava formed ahead and behind. Two from the sides. One slashing diagonally across our escape route.
The walls themselves had become weapons, caging us in a corridor of death.
Black spots crowded my vision. My body felt disconnected, floating, moving too slowly while reality shifted into fast forward. The approaching heat made the air shimmer like a mirage. I would die here without warning the Republic.
'You’re going to lose this war, princess.' Radu’s words echoed in my skull.
Nausea churned in my stomach, but I forced it down. One step at a time. Get out alive first. Then find a solution to save a nation that didn’t want saving.
Selena’s grip on my elbow was iron as she hauled me toward the cluster of bodies gathered on the other side of the crater.
Through smoke and ash, I recognized Terraknight’s grim features.
Rich chocolate skin disappeared under layers of grime and blood, his hazel eyes stark in the hellish glow.
He grasped my free arm and pulled me behind his massive frame just as Selena crouched to lay Hummingbird gently on the ground.
“How long do we have?” she asked, voice hard and focused.
I looked up at the converging walls of fire and felt my heart stop. “Not long enough.”
At my feet, Gale kneeled with Hummingbird’s head cradled in her lap.
He was too pale, had lost too much blood.
Being Changed could only do so much for a mixed-breed this badly injured.
Their mortal blood hindered immortal healing, and if they lost all their reserves, they died.
The gaping wound in his abdomen was too massive, the healing process too slow to suture itself together.
Selena’s emergency work wasn’t enough.
Blood coated Gale’s arms to the elbows as she pressed down to slow the bleeding. Silent sobs shook her shoulders as her copper wings wrapped around them both, shielding him against our tightening circle.
Beside me, Ember gasped between cries.
I reached out to comfort her, but she pulled away, her gaze locked on Quakelord’s motionless form. His black hair spread like spilled ink around his head, waxy skin stretched tight over angular bones. Selena had draped her leather coat over his torso, concealing the fatal wounds.
The stillness of his body was devastating—no heartbeat, no life left in those veins.
An invisible claw pierced my chest and twisted. Helplessness crashed over me as I fought back burning tears.
We’d never hear his voice again, cracking jokes or spewing hatred about the Republic. I’d rather be the target of his loathing than see him reduced to this empty shell.
Derzelas, hadn’t there been enough death?
“Stay together. Don’t leave the bubble,” Pearl’s firm voice brought me back from my spiral as cold saltwater foamed around our legs. Brine grew so strong it almost masked the spike in Harbinger’s scent.
Ten yards away, darkness writhed and crackled, streaked with golden arcs flaring inside it. The air rippled with approaching hell.
In front of me, sweat beaded on Terraknight’s nape, his dark skin gilded by the lava’s glow. I focused on a droplet trailing from his hairline when something buzzed to our left, followed by another swish behind us.
Craning my neck, I spotted lightning bolts whizzing from four expanding portals. Pitch black surrounded us as golden strikes collided and retreated into the ever-growing gateways’ depths.
Pearl’s water bubble rose past my chest now, its pressure oddly comforting against the scorching air. I forced my breathing to steady, my heart to slow its gallop.
I understood their strategy now. Pearl had encircled us with her magic, just like in Sibiu. Plan B, in case Radu’s portals failed to contain the Magma Lances.
All around us, the portals had fused into a single cylinder of stretching blackness. I tilted my head back to watch it soar toward the clouds, grasping Selena’s hand and squeezing tight.
We’ll make it. We’ll survive this. We won’t die.
The Magma Lances cleaved through the remaining forested mountainside.
As water covered my head, the last thing I saw clearly was the portal walls reaching past the lava tides—over a hundred feet high—blotting out the moon itself. Holding my breath, I waited for impact, for the sound that would announce our doom.
But nothing came.
The darkness felt crushing.
Terraknight jostled backward and stepped on my foot, so I pressed my hands against his broad back to steady him and realized he was bracing against someone else’s weight. Reaching over his shoulders, I found Radu’s soft hair and curled my fingers around his neck for support.
He was struggling to maintain the portals, shoulder muscles tensed like boulders. Underwater, his frantic heartbeat sounded like muffled drumbeats, reverberating through Terraknight’s body and into mine.
Eyes squeezed shut, I sent my Blood Manipulation outward again, desperate to understand what was happening beyond the water shield and Radu’s magic.
Silence. No more oily mental threads. I pushed further until my skull throbbed. No Souleaters moved within my one-mile range—as if they’d never existed, or the Shepherd had ordered a retreat.
This had been an ambush. A perfectly laid trap.
The Shepherd had cast its lure, and we’d taken the bait. Starved to cleanse the world of these monsters. A bitter sigh escaped me, the bubbles tickling my face.
Without Pearl and Harbinger’s quick thinking, we’d already be ash. Even now, we weren’t safe. Only Gale could have escaped on her wings, but knowing her loyalty, she’d never abandon the others.
The Black Guild’s bond was stronger than forged steel.
The Shepherd had positioned those Ignises at perfect intervals—a five-pointed star with us at the center. When they launched their attacks, they’d left no escape route, no safe ground to reach.
The more I understood its strategy, the more my blood chilled. Terrifyingly intelligent. Utterly ruthless.
I kept my magic extended like a sensor, monitoring for any breach. Souleaters pressed differently against my consciousness than natural creatures; their corrupted essence always betrayed their presence. But there wasn’t even a stir.
Inside Pearl’s bubble, time moved slower than molasses. Death’s proximity warped perception, made seconds feel like hours. When silver light began filtering through the murky water, relief flooded me. Silver meant moonlight. No lava walls.
Radu had done it.
He’d absorbed the Magma Lances and saved us all.