Chapter 45
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Fire roars down the corridor. The dragon shifters scream and throw themselves through the doorways that line the hall, barely managing to get out of the way before Alistair’s flames wash over them. Not all of them make it.
Short cries are interrupted as several people are incinerated on the spot. But the others rush out from the doorways and charge forward in a furious frenzy.
Isera shoves a massive block of ice towards them while I call up my magic and throw it towards our attackers as well.
“We don’t have time for this!” Orion yells from my left, still breathing heavily from his earlier exertion. “We need to get out. Now!”
Latching on to the bone white sparks of fear in their chests, I blow them into wildfires while Isera is forcibly shoving them all backwards with her ice in an effort to get them out of the narrow corridor so that we can make it past.
I cast another panic glance down at the pocket watch I’m still clutching in my hand while I flare the flames of fear even higher. But instead of it causing our attackers to flee in terror, it just makes them erupt into total panic.
Screaming their lungs out, they run back and forth while shoving blindly against each other and the block of ice. In their fear, they can’t seem to work out which way is out.
Isera lets out a snarl.
With a flick of her wrist, she lets the block of ice disappear.
The dragon shifters immediately start dashing towards us. I quickly break the connection to my magic and instead summon a violet flame of pain. With a shove, I slam it into the chest of the guy who is running at the front.
A howl of agony rips from his throat, and he crashes down on the ground.
It causes the others behind him to trip over him.
They tumble to the ground while the ones behind instead try to jump over them.
But it buys Isera enough time to summon a new block of ice, an entire wall this time, and slam it right into them from straight ahead.
More cries of pain echo between the walls as the ice wall crashes into them with such force that the entire group of attackers is thrown halfway down the corridor.
“Alistair!” Isera calls.
“I know,” he yells back.
The ice wall disappears.
Then a tidal wave of fire surges through the corridor.
Panicked screams rip from our attackers’ throats as they desperately try to scramble to their feet and out of the way. But it’s already too late.
The roaring wave of fire crashes over them, and the almost blue-colored flames incinerate them straight away. Blackened bodies hit the floor with a thud as their charred corpses topple backwards.
“Run!” Orion snaps.
We lurch forward.
The stench of burning flesh hangs over the corridor.
It makes my stomach turn, and I barely dare to breathe as we dart forward and jump over our dead attackers before we finally reach the other end of the corridor.
Clutching the pocket watch in my hand, I cast another desperate glance down at it while we hurtle towards the side door that has finally appeared at the end of this next hall.
My pulse pounds so hard in my ears that I can barely hear anything else.
We have to make it. Please, Mabona, we have to make it.
Isera shoves the door open. It slams against the wall while the four of us leap out onto the stone ground outside.
The midday sun streams down from a clear blue sky, making the ice glitter like jewels around us as we dash towards the closest side gate.
In my hand, the clock ticks mercilessly.
Two minutes left.
Oh Goddess, we will never make it.
A cry of pure dread rips from my lungs as we race towards the side gate. The guy Isera killed on the way in is still lying there slumped against it, keeping it open for us.
We clear the gate.
One and a half minutes.
Wind rips through my hair and clothes as we sprint down the path along the mountain towards the safety of the city below.
The secret tunnels that Kath and the other humans were rigging with explosions run underneath the mountainside outside the walls as well.
If we’re too far up, the ground will explode right underneath our feet.
One minute left.
“RUN!” I bellow with all the air I have in my strangled lungs.
We pick up the pace, sprinting so fast that the mountainside blurs around us.
Thirty seconds.
The shadows from the massive ice walls that loom behind us still stretch across the ground. We’re not far enough away yet. When the explosion happens, the debris alone will be enough to kill us.
Twenty seconds.
My lungs burn and my throat aches as I run heedlessly down the path with my friends around me.
Ten seconds.
The shadow from the ice walls ends up ahead. If we can just clear it, we should be mostly out of harm’s way. We need to make it. We need to—
The castle explodes.
A boom echoes over the mountainside, so loudly that it rips the air apart, and a massive shockwave pulses out from behind me.
I scream as my body is thrown forwards from the force of the explosion.
Hitting the ground, I try to twist my body to protect my head. Stones scrape against my cheek, tearing open the flesh.
“Isera!” Orion screams, the word tearing from his chest with such force that I can hear it even over the ringing in my ears.
While tumbling uncontrollably across the ground, I desperately search for my friends. But all I can see is the sky and the ground that flip over and over before my eyes.
Then I slam to a halt against a small boulder. Air explodes out of me from the hit. Gasping, I try to refill my lungs while also pushing myself up from the stones.
Shadows are falling over the ground around me.
And my terrified and disoriented mind can’t make sense of it.
But then my vision clears slightly. I blink hard, trying to stop the world from spinning around me long enough to see where my friends are. Alistair is lying on his stomach farther to my left, and his eyes are sliding in and out of focus as he tries to push himself up.
On my other side, Orion is already on his feet again and he is sprinting towards something. It takes me another second to realize what it is. Isera. She is also lying on the ground. Her head is right next to a rock, and blood smears both it and the side of her head.
I scream her name, but I can barely hear my own voice over the pounding of my heart.
Then the first chunks of ice hit the ground.
Stone and ice crash down over the entire mountainside as the Ice Palace, the massive ice defensive walls, and the ground it was resting on, all fall back down after being blown sky-high in the explosion.
Dread crackles through my spine as I realize what those dark shadows I saw earlier were.
Debris.
We are still in the blast radius.
I try to shoot to my feet, but the moment I push myself up, the world around me sways so much that my knees buckle and I collapse back down on the ground.
Farther away, Alistair looks like he is screaming while he points his palm at the ice crashing towards us.
But his fire magic fizzles out before it can even leave his hand since he can’t concentrate enough through his pain and dizziness to use his magic properly.
Blocks of ice smack into the ground all around us.
Scrambling away on my hands and knees, I barely manage to get out of the way as a chunk the size of a boulder crashes down right where I used to be.
But there is no escape. I stagger to my feet and run, but I only make it a few steps before the next hail of stones hit.
Throwing myself sideways, I roll across the ground to avoid the biggest ones.
Agony pulses through me as the slightly smaller stones rain down over me, burying my body. I desperately shove them aside.
Across the ground, Orion finally reaches Isera. My heart breaks as he throws himself over her unconscious body, protecting her with his own.
Boulders and blocks of ice slam down all around us.
Pushing desperately at the stones, I try to free myself. But my leg is now stuck underneath two of the bigger chunks. I scream in panic, trying to yank my leg out while a massive shadow suddenly appears above us.
True terror grips me as I whip my head back and stare up into the sky.
Because it is not the sky that meets me up there.
It’s an entire section of the massive ice walls that used to surround the Ice Palace.
And in that moment, I know that this is it. There is no escaping this. When that massive section hits, we are going to get squashed underneath it like bugs.
A furious scream of rage and hatred against this unfair world rips from my lungs as the ice crashes down.
But right before it can hit, something huge and black shoots through the air from my left.
My scream is transformed into a shocked gasp.
Lyra.
The ground underneath me shakes as Lyra in her dragon form lands above us. Her four legs hit the ground on either side of us all. I stare up in shock at the huge dragon body that now protects us all like a roof.
Then the massive section of the ice wall slams down.
Right on top of Lyra.