Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Smoke charred the insides of my nostrils.
I drew it into my lungs long before the first screams sounded, screams like the crash of breaking glass in a dead-silent night.
The first one rang out to herald the attack before a blast of energy leveled half of the opposite bank of the river. It sent soil and sand crumbling into the waiting rapids, the bank cut into pieces.
The bellow of a war horn rang out and a cry from camp answered. “Look to the forest!” More screams, the sound full of terror. “They’re here!”
My brain stopped working as dread coursed through me. Mike whirled toward the river, his face pale at seeing a wall of water rising in violent fashion, reaching for the edge of our wards.
And destroying them.
He stiffened and a small groan of dismay made it through his clenched teeth. “The wards should have held.” We marked the way they shattered and fell like snowflakes, but neither of us could move yet. “It’s not possible!”
It definitely was possible. The first battle of this war just shattered our defenses.
Mike and I braced when the water fell and took our wards with it. I crawled up the mud churned bank, shifting my teeth into cutting blades as I went.
The warning of the breach spread through camp, but by the time we made it back, it was already here.
Fury and fire twisted through my veins. I wasn’t ready yet to lead a rebellion into battle but Dorian took the choice away from me. Thank the goddess our rebels were armed. Our magic was ready.
“Keep yourself safe, Tavi,” Mike warned and gave me a quick kiss.
In an instant a glow cast his skin in gold, waves of green magic lifting from his outstretched palms.
Everything about him was more, more Fae than I’d ever seen him.
Something wild grew inside of me and I nodded. “Keep yourself safe. And find the others. Tell them to ready the defensive spells we have set. Do not let Dorian Jade take this camp!”
Another crashing roll nearly drowned out my order, as Dorian Jade’s magic hit strategic points and snuffed out the exterior rim of balefire.
Mike’s gaze lingered for just a moment before he turned and disappeared into the chaos. A line of Dryad soldiers closed in behind him, cutting him off from view.
“Ready yourselves!” The call came from a male somewhere in camp.
Several of Dorian’s soldiers, armed with spears and swords, charged down the hillock toward me.
My insides turned to solid ice. Then—
Power whispered to me, begging to be used, excited to stretch its legs for something other than drawing in the elements. I spared half a second to listen before sidestepping out of the way of the soldiers.
They pivoted with me, the first shaking his head. His sword flashed and I met it with a whisper, barely a move as my power wrenched the blade from his hand and parted his hand from his wrist. An inhuman screech vibrated in the man’s throat.
The second soldier rounded on me next, ditching the spear for magic. He thickened the air and sliced it upward to unbalance me.
I took more than his hand from his wrist.
I hurried toward the meadow and the tide of bodies already fallen in the ambush. Too many of our soldiers had been cut down quickly.
The resistance was doomed from the start.
I shook the thought away along with the awful taste in my mouth courtesy of regret.
Then I spotted him. Dorian Jade stood at the tree line, with a trio of orbs circling his head in a rainbow of colors. They changed in a blink from pure white to putrid green. Zombies erupted from the ground.
Undead rose like weeds, stumbling over each other with ungainly movements, wave after wave of them. My gut clenched.
Fevar warriors sent a wall of fire at the zombies, and several of them curled in on themselves, charred to a crisp.
Then those orbs changed again, the order morphing into something new and equally devastating.
Through the blistering blue flames from the Fevar, the first howl changed the energy of the battle. My hair lifted, the sensation a surprise, and my eyes widened when the first of the direwolves arrived.
They stood on two legs and charged through the pale blue flames like they were nothing. The first swipe of their claws took down a handful of Fevar in one swoop.
I hadn’t counted on direwolves. My plans twisted, maneuvering to include this change.
A ripple of magic charged up my spine and I shifted into my halfling form. Muscles bulked, skull lengthened, fangs and claws appeared.
I brought my arm up in time to avoid a blast of Fae magic from another pair of Unseelie. A growl unleashed from my throat as I barreled for them, knocking both with my shoulders and sending them toppling into the still-lit central balefire.
Both disintegrated without a sound.
Heart pounding dangerously fast, I loped through the camp, lungs swollen and ready to burst. Magic urged me on.
I had to get to Dorian Jade. If he fell, the rest would too.
Countless would die if I didn’t do something, if I didn’t take him down now. My friends, the best friends I’d ever had—
Emotions soared through me and my spine rippled with awareness.
The first glittering spark of sunrise peeked through the dark canopy of trees.
I turned suddenly and braced at the first snap of direwolf teeth around my wrist. The creature bit deep, his eyes red with bloodlust. Rage burned hotter inside of me.
This place had been our home. Like hell I’d let it fall.
I pushed my palm to the creature’s forehead and cast a spell through him, severing nerves along his spine. The direwolf fell, dead before he hit the ground.
“Rebels!” I sent my voice out to the camp, amplifying it for everyone to hear.
“Dorian Jade might have found us, but we have everything we need to fight him off. Leave none of them alive. We’ll fight them off with every claw and spell at our disposal.
Don’t let them overwhelm us with their surprise attack. We are stronger than they think!”
The rebellion heard me. They had to hear me. Several nearby people roared in response and when I twisted back toward Dorian, his smug smile worried me.
The horrifying clang and crash of battle carried through the air, filled with yells and outbursts of Fae magic.
I grabbed a zombie by the neck and twisted it in front of me to block an attack from another Unseelie. The snick of a blade sounded from behind—
By the time I turned, Noren was there, rushing the soldier. My heart thundered as I watched them collide, Noren taking down the Unseelie and scattering three additional soldiers who’d swarmed us.
Bronwen shifted form and landed on two solid feet and reached for my elbow to announce herself. Still wearing her pajamas, her face streaked with blood, I wasn’t sure whether to worry or smile with pride.
Her eyes blazed with purpose. “If you’re trying to destroy Jade, then I’ll be your spearhead! We have to flank him somehow.”
“He’s using those orbs to direct their movements,” I said in breathless agreement, my voice octaves deeper in this form. “I’ll need more than you to get us a clear path to him. The sooner we take him out.”
I could end this now if I sent a blast his way. I’d managed to take down every Fae soldier and leave the pixies unharmed at EverRose. And when I did the same to the zombies, I hadn’t hurt Mike and Poppy.
But our rebels were too intermingled for me to pick them out one by one. What if the magic didn’t differentiate this time? Was I willing to take that chance?
The closer I got to Dorian, the better my aim would be, and the less collateral carnage.
More of our allies swarmed the Unseelie, yelling as fighters broke into smaller units. Dryad fought with twisted limbs sharpened to deadly points and used their height to their advantage.
Bronwen and I ducked beneath another fire blast from the Fevar, but everywhere I looked, there was death. Coral stood near Melia, her red hair a beacon, holding back a tide of werewolf shifters ringed by more direwolf. She held her ground but a gaping hole to her right left them both open.
I gestured Bronwen to their side. “Go there! Coral’s open.”
She rushed to assist, and I raised my hands against another wave of zombies forcing their way nearer.
A plume of fire billowed toward them and the zombies shrieked, curling in the blast. The same golden-haired Fevar warrior I’d helped dipped her chin in acknowledgement as the zombies halted.
I returned the gesture, magic crackling at my fingertips.
“Protect the camp! Don’t let them surround us. If they get to the river, it’s over,” I called out. Magic amplified my words again.
Unfortunately, Dorian knew the same trick. “Darling, it’s over before it began,” he replied, voice louder, deeper, potent. “Give up now before we’re forced to take down these good people who were misguided enough to believe in you. Do you really think you have a shot at winning?”
I cut a line of red through an Unseelie warrior and forced the air from his lungs. “Ditto!”
Every inch of ground gained made no difference. I sliced and forced magic out, but Dorian never got closer.
A small blast. That was all I’d need.
I twisted like a major league pitcher winding up for a ferocious fastball, and thrust forward with both outstretched hands. A blast of blinding white left a crater in the dirt in front of me but stopped short of Dorian and those dancing orbs.
And anyone who’d gotten in the way was gone.
Dorian laughed, his defense whole, not a single crack in it. I shook my head, sweat and gore plastered to my fur. Focus! How could I end this?
Julie, with Doug at her back, used a tent pole to spear through the heart of an approaching Unseelie, but not before receiving a vicious swipe of a blade. Doug took one look at her and shifted into his wolf with a violent unsheathing of his claws. The darkness in his eyes promised retribution.
Lesheno and Poppy slowed time to a halt before another warrior brought his magic down on Julie. And in the seconds before contact, she shifted, wings melting away and her blue skin transforming into a lithe, white-furred fox with massive ears.