Chapter 50
CHAPTER FIFTY
Attempt to flee again, and you’ll receive her hand with the finger next time.
The pirate’s eyes shot to Carina and Drystan as he continued, signing the words, “The shield is thickest, widest, on its outer edges. We need to take it down from the top.”
Carina blinked, realization brightening the green in her irises.
“He’s right,” she whispered. “Saros reinforced the sides of his shield by thinning out the top of it. We can break it from above.” Her eyes slid to me and darted to Nerissa as she approached.
“Your friend may have just won us this war,” Astraeus said in a low voice as Carina explained it to Nerissa.
I blinked as emotion swarmed my chest and that burning sensation pricked my eyes. I reined the feeling in, certain if I let it out, there would be no stopping the flood that followed.
“We obviously can’t fly and fire an air cannon from above,” Nerissa cut in.
“You won’t need an air cannon,” Astraeus said, glancing at me. “You’ll need a perfect shot. The thinnest point should look something like that.” He pointed a ringed finger at my chest, where my amber amplifier had fallen open, showcasing the spiraling creature inside.
“A rubelline arrow,” I answered, understanding sinking in. We’d need to shoot an arrow to weaken the thinnest point and then send a blast of magic into the shield, shattering the rest of it.
“How will you see the thinnest point if the shield is invisible?” Drystan asked.
“If Aquila and I send enough power into it, we should see a ripple off its surface,” Nerissa replied.
I opened my lips to respond I didn’t have a good enough shot when a heart-stopping scream cut through the growing commotion of the Rising camp.
It was followed by hundreds of black arrows raining down from above.
Carina shouted as she stretched her own shield farther as forces continued to gather, the arrows bouncing off the invisible wall and clattering to the ground mere feet away.
Drystan hurried to the front of the group, shooting his hands to either side, horror strewn across his face as he gazed at the spiked bodies.
Evony shoved through the soldiers, letting out a devastating sob. I steeled myself, leashing the powers that longed to rip free, and rushed to where Evony had fallen to her knees, sobbing and shaking.
“Evony,” I breathed, grasping her shoulders as she wept. “Breathe, Ev. Breathe.”
“I…” she muttered between gasps, “I can’t… We have to…”
My hands found her face.
“Evony, look at me.”
Her eyes, wild with wrath and pain, shot between my own and the wall.
“Look only at me,” I whispered.
Dad… We have to… she mouthed, face pale with shock.
“With me,” I whispered, turning her away from the walls.
“No,” she whimpered.
I tugged her away from the city and through the crowd of gathering soldiers. “NO!” she screamed at me, ripping her arm away.
“NO! I can’t hide. I can’t do nothing. You can’t keep me from this!” she shouted, throwing her arms to the surrounding army.
I swallowed the lump forming in my throat, dry from the truth in her words, a large, dark form appearing at my side.
“I told you to get back to the eastern shore unit!” Ezrich’s words were sharp, laced with his own anger and pain.
“Fuck you!” she screamed at him. “You were supposed to wait for him!”
Ezrich’s face crumpled for a moment.
“He stayed for you!” he bit out, his features hardening in grief. “He could have been safe with the elves. He stayed in Sultira because of you, not me. He knew I’d join the units passing through the Lake of Light!”
“Evony, you need to breathe,” I said, reaching for her hand.
She whipped it away, her face soaked with tears.
“You have no idea what I need,” she spat, throwing her hands toward the blood-soaked walls of Aedrialis. “What do you know of this?”
The blood in my veins stilled, my powers going eerily quiet as the events in the Crystal Castle crept to the edge of my memory, but I slid that steel door shut with practiced control.
Her blue eyes, brighter through the fresh tears, scanned my own as she waited for my reply, but any words I had left for her remained lodged in my throat.
“I’m not going back there to hide,” she spat. “To wait for this to happen to more people I love!” Her voice broke.
I swallowed, lifting my hands, the iridescent stars shining in the early morning light. She stared at them before taking a shuddering breath.
Shouts erupted from ahead, and Ronan ordered soldiers back to their posts, as arrows pummeled Carina and Drystan’s shield.
“Okay,” I whispered.
Ezrich turned, and the full force of Bear’s son loomed over me as I did my best not to shrink beneath his fury.
“What do you mean, okay?” he seethed.
“You are not her keeper, nor am I,” I snapped.
“She’s sixteen,” he growled, baring his teeth.
“And she’s seen and lived through more than any sixteen-year-old ever should. She’s sick of being treated like someone who hasn’t.”
I turned back to Evony. “You want to do something? Follow me.”
Evony somehow managed to get a hold of her emotions as we strode from the walls of Aedrialis, as if being allowed to help, to do something, had granted her the ability to grab them by the reins.
Fresh devastation and betrayal fueled the gathering darkness as I funneled the unending emotions into my chasm of power, honing it into lethal vengeance in the hours that passed.
We’d met and planned at length after Astraeus had figured out Bear’s message. Twilight stalked the disappearing hours of the day, our time running short. With the approaching army from the south, this was our chance to make Bear’s sacrifice count for something. Evony’s chance.
I sat behind her, arms around her waist, the armor covering every inch of her body clinking as she adjusted her seat. Aquila’s large form flew from the north as we raced over the city, ascending into the clouds where the air thinned.
The dominating castle turrets of Mount Telum came into view as white wisps of clouds floated over the top of the fortress.
Aquila and Tiberius circled once, twice…
right before Nerissa sent a massive blast of wind into the clouds, scattering like birds in a storm.
A blazing white light followed, lighting up the darkening sky and shooting a hundred feet below us to the tip of Mount Telum, where it rippled off the king’s shield.
The shining, twisting pattern of the steepled fern barrier came into view as it shoved against Nerissa’s magic. The spiral shimmered and slipped into nothing as its edges spun into its center, the thinnest point.
Aquila banked hard, taking himself and Nerissa out of range.
Evony’s breath hissed as she drew her bow, aiming over a hundred feet away, on the back of a flying horse, at an invisible target.
“Get ready!” I shouted through the wind.
Evony’s head bobbed, and Tiberius flung his momentum upward, arching backward and shot his hooves to the sky above us. My legs burned as they wrapped around him, and I reached around Evony’s waist for his mane to keep her secure against me.
“Now!” I shouted, dropping my dark shield.
The world flipped, and Evony let out a war cry as the taut bowstring slipped through her fingers. The blazing rubelline arrow tip soared like a star as it ripped through the air, straight toward the center of the king’s shield.
Tiberius righted himself in time to dive after the arrow headfirst. Evony clung to his neck as I threw one hand out, finally shoving out the powers that had built to a boiling point.
Vienah’s betrayal. Bear’s sacrifice. Queen Antares’s scheming. Bayne’s soulbinding.
Devastation and grief collided with a growing wrath and an insatiable need for revenge. Raw memories fueled the emotions that surged from my innermost being, and I latched them onto that strange force binding my two powers.
A twisting spear of black and golden power formed at the tips of my fingers, the Obscura seizing my emotions and the Transcindiel sucking every ounce of energy from my body.
The spear rotated as it shot through the air, chasing after the arrow as if my powers knew their target.
They caught the feather fletching midair just as the glowing rubelline tip of the arrow struck the center of Saros’s shield.
Everything stilled, sound vanishing, before a deafening crack ripped through the air, and my ears hollowed out. My powers tore through the small hole the rubelline tip pierced in the shield. A tsunami of wind followed as the Obscura power devoured the shield, darkness spiraling out from its center.
Black, massive wings shot out, slowing our momentum.
I sagged behind Evony as the expenditure of power hit me.
Tiberius chased the rippling darkness as it ate through the invisible shield, leading us to the edge of the city.
Shouts from below mingled with the eruption of cheers from the Rising soldiers beyond the city walls.