Chapter 33 #3
The rest didn’t succumb as easily, with them quickly adjusting to their dulled senses and coming at her together, blades drawn.
Stinging cuts tore her skin open, blood smearing across her flesh and seeping into her clothes, but she was nimble enough on her feet to avoid any major wounds, ducking and dodging their attacks while kicking and striking in return.
Nine against one were challenging odds—even without their enhanced strength and speed—but they couldn’t all assault her at once without harming each other, and she used that to her benefit.
She brought one woman down with an elbow to her temple, brought another down with a kick to her nose, shattering the bone.
She managed to steal a dagger from a man and stab him with it, using the same blade to fell two more, leaving just four of the original ten remaining.
Four—plus the dozens still standing between her and the dais, none of whom had been touched by Wynter’s nullifying powder.
But Viri refused to think about that, focusing only on the battle at hand, and struck forward with the blade once more—or she would have, if it hadn’t flown from her fingers.
By magic.
Viri whirled toward the Reaper Lord, who was no longer chanting, but looking straight at her.
Goosebumps prickled her flesh, from fear but also from the wave of ellixen she felt rushing in her direction—a wave she was certain would send her crashing to the ground, unconscious.
If that happened, Jessalyn would die. Viri was sure of it.
Dread enveloped her, but so did determination, both making her react instinctively by throwing her hand out to meet the power surging her way, bracing herself to push back against it. Wards by definition were barriers, and she had ward magic within her, which meant—
The Reaper Lord’s ellixen slammed against her invisible shield, the force of it so strong that Viri stumbled a step, but that was all it did. She was still standing, still conscious.
As stunned as she was that it had worked, she didn’t let on, only stared right back at him, reveling in his shock.
And his fury.
But then he snapped his gloved fingers and the rest of his reapers sprang forward, a veritable army lunging Viri’s way.
Only, it wasn’t just his army that was rushing toward her, because with a loud boom, the doors to the cathedral burst open, unleashing a river of black-uniformed Nox and red-cloaked hunters into the vaulted hall.
Viri’s heart leapt with hope, and she swore she heard the Reaper Lord cry out an enraged, “No!” before she became fully preoccupied by the reapers, who were now swarming all around her.
She quickly brought down the four remaining ones whose strength had been nullified, then spun just in time to meet the attack of an ellixen-heightened man, the speed of his movements alarming, the power behind his slashing sword enough to carve her in two.
He didn’t get a chance, because Reeve was suddenly there, his black blade slaying the reaper in three effortless moves.
Viri was so relieved to see him that she could have jumped into his arms and kissed him—and might have, if they hadn’t been surrounded by death. Instead, she ducked when a knife soared past her head, then demanded, somewhat irrationally, “What the hell took you so long?”
“Walnut was hungry,” he answered, tossing her two daggers and executing an impressive sideways kick that sent an approaching reaper flying backward. “We had to stop for snacks.”
Snacks? Viri’s brain almost exploded, but then she saw the teasing glint in his silver eyes and rolled her own, stabbing forward with her blades when a male reaper lunged for her.
As soon as he fell, a woman took his place, followed by two more who pushed Viri closer to where Reeve was battling three reapers at once, his black sword reflecting both moonlight and fire.
Beyond him, Viri spotted Braedan fighting beside Sage and Ardin, the three of them moving in sync, a perfect, deadly team.
But it was the two people battling a few feet away from the trio that stole Viri’s breath, because Wynter and Jonas were also here, not using swords and daggers but instead tossing vials left and right, an assortment of liquids and powders, some of which Viri had seen before and others she most definitely had not.
The impedidust was familiar, immobilizing any reapers it touched and allowing the Nox and hunters to swoop in and take them out with ease, but there were other things that left Viri cringing, like the orange potion that ignited on contact, burning a reaper to ash, and the brown sludge that made another’s skin melt away like dripping wax, his screams audible even over the sounds of clashing steel echoing throughout the cathedral.
But it was a different scream that captured Viri’s attention, one younger and much more familiar—a warning scream that caused her to spin toward the Reaper Lord just in time to see him wave his hand outward, not to attack her personally, but to make the hall come alive.
There was nothing she could do to ward against his ellixen as the cathedral itself became a weapon.
Vines coiled around the legs of the Nox, sending them crashing to their knees.
Pillars cracked and crumbled, dropping lethal chunks onto the heads of anyone standing too near.
The ground fractured into deadly fissures, with hunters vanishing into blackness.
Coffins opened for victims to stumble into, then closed again, trapping them inside.
And perhaps worst of all, the candles erupted, creating a firestorm that burned without fuel, like a wall of flames bearing down on them all.
“Reeve!” Viri shouted in alarm, but he was already throwing his magic to douse the fire, only for it to rise again almost instantly.
She was about to ask if there was anything her own magic could do to help, but another scream from Jessalyn had her whipping back toward the young girl—
Just in time to see the Reaper Lord’s bone dagger plunge downward.
“JESSY! NO!” Soren bellowed from somewhere to Viri’s right, the terror in his voice feeding her own.
Her heart stopped as the blade seemed to move in slow motion, both Soren and Jessalyn’s screams piercing her eardrums, but then her pulse sped twice as fast as resolve burned through her.
Before she could second-guess herself, she flung out her arm and released her magic, visualizing an invisible shield forming around Jessalyn, just like the one she’d created to protect herself from the Reaper Lord’s ellixen attack.
She had no idea if it would work against a solid object, but she pushed everything she had into it, begging, pleading with her magic to do the impossible.
The bone dagger continued downward, now just inches from Jessalyn’s chest. Viri was aware of the reapers still surrounding her, of Reeve fighting them off while trying to combat the raging flames, of Braedan and Sage lunging forward to assist, of Wynter tossing her scarlet powder at yet more attackers heading their way.
But while all that was happening, Viri’s concentration remained on pushing her magic outward, praying, praying, praying for it to work.
The Reaper Lord’s dagger was a hair’s breadth away from striking Jessalyn’s heart—
And then it met Viri’s barrier and shattered like glass, falling in harmless white shards to the ground.
“NO!” the Reaper Lord roared over the chaos.
He flung out a furious hand, and Viri was too busy keeping Jessalyn protected to stop his magic from slamming into the people closest to the dais—Nox, hunters, and reapers combined—all of whom flew violently through the air and smacked hard against the arched walls and pillars before crumpling to the ground.
None of them rose again.
Viri’s blood turned cold at how many people had just died with a single blast of the Reaper Lord’s magic, the power he commanded unfathomable.
She reinforced the barrier around Jessalyn, fearing he would shift his rage onto her, but as Viri watched, he seemed to peer across the cathedral, taking in the battle with a calculating air.
She realized what he was going to do an instant before he did it, and she leapt forward to stop him, dodging between fighting opponents and avoiding the snaring vines and crumbling stone, tripping once and cutting her palms on broken glass before scrambling back up to continue her sprint toward the dais.
But when she finally made it there, it was too late.
The Reaper Lord was already gone.