Chapter 71 Nox
Nox
We hadn’t been ready for this. There were dozens of them, these red-and-black-veined, unnatural creatures with dark magic flowing from them in droves. As several more refugees fell to the onslaught, the weight in my chest sank lower and lower.
This was my fault. I brought them into this. I led my people straight to their demise.
We had to hold on. Just a little longer.
More shouting and clanging steel rang through the air, and I saw our two other groups that had split off at the beginning now being pushed back to us by Scarven’s mutant creations.
“Nox!” Tessa shouted, wielding two shortswords against a Shadow Wielder covered in dark veins. “What are these things?”
“Mutants,” I growled over the noise. “Stronger than normal Veridians. Looks like he has an army of them.”
“You can say that again.” She grunted, lunging forward to pierce the Shadow Wielder’s wall of magic.
There was a tremble at my feet right as a brilliant white stag burst through the clearing, impaling someone in a lion’s mask with his antlers. Kieran flung the body to the side and charged again. Several of Scarven’s men backed away in a group to avoid the sharp antler tips.
“It’s like they’re lining up for me,” I said to Tessa, watching them gather together.
“How nice of them.”
“Kieran, move!” I bellowed, and he darted out of the way. I unleashed a stream of dragon fire on them. The air heated, the red and orange flames illuminating the fight around us. I closed my mouth and watched their ashes fly away in a gust of wind, then turned back to the others.
More mutants had arrived, along with some of Scarven’s men in their lion masks. I lost track of how much time had passed as I barreled through mutated shifters and hybrids of all kinds while still keeping an eye out for Devora and Arowyn to return.
“Tessa!” I called to my third as she took out another opponent. “Go check on Arowyn and Devora. Make sure these things don’t get to them.”
With a nod, she hurried through the fray, disappearing in the wave of fights.
Someone shouted my name, and I spun around to see the same half man, half wolf Shifter from before launch himself at me.
Claws swiped at my face, but I grabbed his wrist and snapped it in half.
He didn’t even howl as the bones popped themselves back into place.
He was so close now that I could see the black-and-redness of his veins swirling like liquid, the same darkness reflecting in his pure black eyes.
Spit clung to the wolf Shifter’s teeth as he unhinged his jaw and bit at me, narrowly avoiding my neck.
“A little help over here!” I heard Everett yell from somewhere. I rolled my neck along my shoulder, relishing the crack and pop of joints, then shifted my hand into talons.
The wolf threw himself at me again, and I shoved my talons through his chest and out his back, severing his spine. For good measure, I pulled my arm back and yanked his heart along with it. Black blood and red entrails covered my talons. I threw the organ on the ground and pivoted to find Everett.
What I saw stopped my heart.
Was that—was that my mother? How could she possibly have gotten here?
She ran through the flailing limbs and weapons, clutching something to her chest. Her gray-and-blonde hair whipped behind her as she sprinted. She kept glancing over her shoulder with a look of absolute terror on her features.
“Mama!” I shouted. I pushed forward, finally getting a glimpse of what she held in her arms.
A baby.
Confusion blurred my senses, taking me back twenty years ago, when I watched my mother twirl that same baby in the living room of our house. That was Vera. But that wasn’t possible. Vera wasn’t a baby anymore.
I reached for her, so close I could almost grab the ruffled sleeve of her dress, when she let out a scream.
A sword rammed through her chest.
I opened my mouth, but there was no breath left to scream. It felt like someone had ripped the air from my lungs. Her body slumped to the ground, revealing a man with a curved sword in his grip.
I blinked away my shock and staggered backward. Something was wrong. It couldn’t be—
“Father?” I whispered, taking in his short dark brown hair, the gray streak on the side, the sharp chin and jaw. A face I hadn’t seen in nineteen years.
“So sentimental, brother,” my father said with a sneer. Slowly, his face morphed into Scarven.
Illusions. It had to be. All of it.
Wrath replaced my shock, and a snarl worked up my throat. I gripped the dagger at my waist and took a few steps toward Scarven. “You bast—”
He disappeared. I stopped short, spinning in a circle to find him. His chuckle burned my ears. I whirled again, but he was gone.
I could still hear the fight raging around me, could still see my comrades locked in battle, but all I could focus on was him. This was my chance. I was so close, I could taste it.
There was a flash of his dark hair, and I lunged.
My dagger fell through thin air. I let out a growl of frustration.
“Looking for me?” Scarven asked, reappearing several feet away. He cocked his head and stared at me as I pounced. I wrapped my hands around his throat, but all he did was smirk.
“I thought you were the mighty dragon Shifter, slayer of enemies and lord of the skies,” he taunted. “Where’s that fire?”
I squeezed his neck harder, feeling his muscles work to draw breath and watching his veins bulge from the pressure. With a roar, my dragon fire climbed up my throat in an intense wave.
This was it. Finally.
But someone was shouting. With a gasp, a familiar voice spluttered from Scarven’s mouth.
“Nox, it’s me!” the voice said. “What are you—Nox—”
Scarven’s face flickered, and suddenly, I was staring into Kieran’s eyes. His face turned purple beneath my hold, his fingers clawing at my arm as I crushed the life out of him.
I instantly dropped him.
Disgust poured into me. I almost killed him. My best friend.
He fell to his knees, and I caught his back, my hands shaking. “Kieran, I—I’m so sorry. I thought you were Scarven. He’s here. He’s—”
“Are you sure, brother?” Scarven whispered behind me. I set Kieran down as he recovered his breath, hunting for the disembodied voice. “Are you sure I’m truly there? I could be anywhere. Anyone.”
There was a mass of dark curls and full red lips, and suddenly, Sage was standing before me. She swished the skirt of her dress and flashed me a smile. “Did you miss me, love?” she crooned. “Or have I been replaced so easily?”
The image wavered and shifted to Devora, red hair tangled down her back.
She was bound and gagged, that horrid fatesprig collar back around her throat.
Tears streaked down her dirty cheeks as she stumbled to her knees.
I knew it wasn’t real, and yet I couldn’t stop myself from reaching for her, the fear so visceral, I thought it would eat me alive.
Her body vanished. In its place was a single, rolling head. It came to a stop, the gaping mouth and vacant eyes of my father staring back at me.
“Get out of my head!” I roared, gripping my hair.
“What does it feel like to have everyone you have ever loved leave you?” Scarven’s voice echoed across the space. The vision of my father’s head was quickly replaced by a younger version of my sister and me holding hands. My breath faltered.
“Even your own sister doesn’t know who you are.” In the span of several seconds, the younger Vera changed, aging by a decade as her features hardened. She glared back at me with those bright golden eyes full of venom.
“She’s dead,” I choked out. “Vera’s dead. I saw her at—at the forge. I couldn’t save her.”
Scarven’s deep hum rumbled the earth. “Did you, now? Did it look like this?”
The world tilted. I was back in the tunnels of the Guardian Forge, staring at my sister down the hall. She looked back at me for a split second before the caves erupted.
Was all of it an illusion? Had she truly not been in those caves, or was this the lie?
My head spun. My dragon half ached inside my chest, begging to be free and carry me away from this. I didn’t know what to believe. I couldn’t trust my own sight, my own mind. The pressure built in my chest as my stomach tightened.
More and more visions slipped by, each of them more gruesome than the last. Memories of the past mingled with my present—Kieran, Tessa, Devora, the Order, all of them ripped from me in a haze.
He was trying to make me crazy. He was trying to make me snap. My people needed me, and here I was, captive to my own mind. Useless. Helpless.
In the blink of an eye, the visions stopped. I gasped at the abrupt change.
In their place stood Everett, black fighting leathers coated in blood and dirt. I wasn’t sure if this was real until I saw what he was holding.
With one hand, he gripped none other than Malek Mortep by the throat.
“He’s an Alchemist,” Everett said, slowly turning to me. “And an Illusionist.”
Clarity struck me. The answer was so simple.
Mortep had two magic types. He created the illusion of Vera in the forge. Scarven was using him to mess with us tonight.
“You know the key to stopping an Illusionist?” Everett said, glaring back at Mortep. The scar across Everett’s gray eye stood out brighter in his fury. “You go for the eyes.”
With two strikes from his dagger, he tore out Mortep’s eyes.