84. Chapter 84
CHAPTER 84
Dynalya
D yna swung her a blade of Essence, parrying an elf’s sword. She fought down a spiraling flight of stairs, cutting her way through a barrage of elves. There were three floors between her and escape. Dodging a guard’s spear, she drove a knife into his chest and hit the hilt, driving it home.
An arrow zipped past her nose. Another elf was perched on the steps across from her, arrow aimed at her. A black winded figure knocked him over the railing, and he fell screaming down five floors.
Relief swam through her at the sight of Cassiel. He cast out fire to take out more elves charging at her from above. Dyna parried another attack then she leaped up onto the railing and jumped.
Cassiel dove down and caught her raised hands.
She grinned up at him, unable to hide how immensely happy she was to see him.
Cassiel returned her smile. “Sorry I’m late?—”
Explosion ripped a hole through the keep. The force threw them off trajectory and they dropped for the ground. Cassiel yanked her against him and wrapped her in his wings before they hit the second landing. He groaned and she winced, looking him over.
“Are you all right?” they asked at the same time.
Cassiel laughed tiredly and brushed the hair from her face, cupping her cheek. “I am now.”
Dyna stayed there with him a moment. His eyes were a little sad, but clear. There was so much she wanted to tell him, but the windy stream had them both looking out at the massive hole left in the Blood Keep, providing a view of the courtyard below.
She spotted her Guardians scattered on the floor, some wounded and others unconscious. Rawn and Raiden pushed off the ground as Prince Anon strode out of the smoke, his hands flaring with magic. He shouted out spells, making the earth shake.
“Help them,” Dyna told Cassiel. “I can make it out.”
Cassiel’s brow furrowed with worry. “But?—”
“It’s all right.” She got up. “Go!”
Cassiel flew out and dove for them. Dyna ran over to the opening, perching there. Lights of blue and red flashed. Magic flared all around as the elves battled for the upper hand. Klyde and Zev fought to protect their fallen friends too wounded to fight, a yellow butterfly among them. The Valkyrie were far off into the sky, battling Gadriel’s forces.
She had to get down, but the stairs had crumbled from whatever blast had hit them. The battle outside caught her attention at another flare of fire.
Power rose from Anon’s hands in a red haze, and a glowing hexagon spiraled from his palms. Runes flickered through it, power building. The air throbbed with power. The flowing runes swelled, and Anon barked a command. A red beam launched from the spell and struck. Cassiel launched his fire in return but was not prepared for Anon throwing up his hand at the keep and swinging it to Cassiel. A large piece of the keep’s broken wall launched at Cassiel. It knocked him out of the air and pined a wing beneath it. Anon yanked down another arm and more boulders piled onto it.
Cassiel’s cried out in pain. Dyna fell against the wall as she felt his strength seep away with the agony of his broken wing. That was where their power lied.
His weakness.
Cassiel had told her what it was from the beginning of their journey.
Without their wings, they were human.
Her chest heaved with a frightened breath. No.
A spell circle flashed around Anon’s wrist, power pulsing. Dyna conjured a flare of pure green flame and took aim. The blast blazed through the air. Anon saw it and threw up a shield. It blocked her spell, but the force knocked him off his feet with a grunt. Anon glared at her, furious.
He rolled to his feet only to block Raiden’s coming sword.
“Get him out!” Dyna shouted frantically to the others.
Zev, Klyde, and Keena ran for the boulders pinning Cassiel, but red elves swarmed them. Anon and Raiden clashed with spells. The Magi Masters battled head-to-head, filling the atmosphere with their power.
Dyna quickly took a rope out of her satchel. Tying it to a beam, she tossed it out the opening in the wall.
“Enough!” Leif roared.
She froze and her heart sank. Cassiel was still trapped and Anon had Raiden on his knees, a sword at his neck.
King Leif clutched Graeae to him, a knife pressed to her throat. “We end this now, Altham. Either you son stands down or you lose a daughter.”
Altham held out his hands in surrender and dropped his sword. “All right,” he said warily and looked to Anon. “We end this here.”
“On your knees, Altham.”
Gritting his teeth, the King of Red Highland slowly lowered to the sand.
Anon sneered at them, and his gaze fixed on Rawn on the ground. “You’re right. We do end this here. Beginning with the Norrlen line.”
“Put the knife down!” Altham shouted at both his son and Leif. “I command it!”
“Why? We have the upper hand here,” Anon continued, looking at Leif. “My father has daughters and sons to spare. But this one,” he laughed as he pressed the blade’s edge against Raiden’s throat, making it bleed. “He is precious to you.” He sneered at Rawn who was still on his hands and knees, fingers digging into the sand. “Your son will bleed out the way your sister did, Rawn. And I will carve my name into him next.”
Raiden glanced at Dyna from the corner of his eyes, and she read the message.
Taking a breath, she conjured a bow in her hands and aimed with a special arrow she had saved in her quiver. One with a hinderance rune carved into the arrowhead. She released and the arrow that hit Anon’s thigh. He staggard back and Raiden ran back to his father’s side.
With a rageful curse, Anon ripped the arrow out at the same time a ring of red runes blazed around Rawn. Not due to Essence, Dyna realized. The crimson veins of power were coming from the wounds in his body.
Blood.
They crawled over his hand and raced along his arm in twisting trails that began to glow as Rawn chanted. The blood magic snaked over his shoulder, up his neck, and across his face. The glow in his teal eyes brightened, power bleeding out, shining through his skin.
Anon sneered and strode toward him confidently, chanting a spell of his own. But no magic lit his hands. Dyna had nullified his magic. It took him a moment to realize he couldn’t call on his Essence. By then, Raiden had muttered a spell under his breath, and bindings of teal light trapped the prince in place.
Anon’s eyes widened.
He grew panicked, flailing to break free as the crimson spell circle around Rawn bloomed with light and lifted into the air above him. The spell flashed brighter. Pressure built against Dyna’s Essence, and she felt fear.
The Red Highland elves fled.
The Greenwood elves ducked.
The wind went still, and all fell silent.
Rawn lifted his hand. A red glow lit up his bleeding fingertips, palm aimed at Anon. “You should have run,” he said. Then Rawn calmly cast his spell with two eerie words. “ Anadaug Erg'nas.”
The spell blazed out a sharp thin wave. A crimson blade. It swept clean through Anon and every red elf standing — like a scythe. A mist of blood sprayed into the air.
The red prince froze, his eyes wide in disbelief.
In denial.
His spear and torso split in two, toppling in the sand.
Then Rawn’s eyes rolled. Raiden lurched forward and caught him. Dyna’s shoulders slumped and she allowed herself to breathe. They did. Cassiel looked up at her, happy as the others began to help remove the boulders.
The earth violently shook. It knocked her onto the floor. Dyna gasped. She forgot about this part of the plan. The Blood Keep groaned, sending cracks through the bricks.
It was coming down.
The walls gave, the ceiling caving in from above as the Blood Keep began to collapse. Dyna leaped out of the way of falling brick. She dove for the broken stairs as dust and boulders rained down. Her Guardians shouting for her outside. She missed a step and dropped to the main floor. Rolling to her feet, she ran outside onto the front steps but there was no more ground to run onto.
A massive fissure split the earth between the courtyard and the Blood Keep, swallowing elves and horses. Shouts cried out as everyone fled.
“Dyna!” Cassiel shouted, yanking desperately to break free beneath the boulder that still pinned him. “Raiden, get to her!”
Raiden looked between her and his father slipping down the fissure. He had to make a choice, and she nodded to tell him it was all right.
The ground gave away.
Raiden dove and caught Rawn’s arm.
“No!” Cassiel screamed. The earth violently shook, the building crumbled above her. Dyna exhaled a shaky breath, knowing this was the end. Tears streamed down Cassiel’s face as those shattered eyes met hers. He was trapped. There nothing he could do, but she saw a decision cross his face. Her mouth parted and she tensed.
“Don’t,” she whispered, suddenly understanding what he was going to do.
Cassiel took hold of the bolder and shove with pained roar. He tore himself free in a scatter of blood and feathers. She screamed with him at the horrid pain washing through her body. But he crawled on his hands through the sand, pushing himself to his feet.
Cassiel ran for her and dove across the chasm. He crashed into Dyna and in the same momentum he tossed her. She sailed away from him, from his crushed starlit eyes, and she landed in Zev’s arms. Dyna spun around to see her mate fall back. He weakly sat up, as blood streamed from his back.
His wing.
It was gone. He couldn’t fly to her anymore.
Cassiel gave her a watery smile. You’re right, lev sheli. I can’t run away from our fate. So I’m changing it.
Dyna screamed as the building came crashing down on top of him. She flailed against Zev, kicking to break free. He yanked her away from the chasm as it spread. They fell back into the sand.
The bond shook and cracked, and after so many months of silence, Dyna felt him. It started as a vicious twisting in her gut and spread to her body. She felt an unbearable weight crush her, squeezing all the air out of her lungs, her throat clamping with cries she couldn’t make.
Pain. She was feeling his pain.
And Dyna stared at the crumbled building he was buried under, she felt the last beat of his heart fade.
Dyna’s broken cry echoed in the skies as the rest of her split open.
“CASSIEL!”