Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
ELARIYA
We’d portaled in moments ago. If the Deathless didn’t know we were coming, they knew now.
We’d brought the war to their doorstep. And gods, what an army we had.
The sight around me stole the breath from my lungs.
Twenty-six thousand warriors.
They stretched across the valley in disciplined ranks, their golden armor catching the strange rust-colored sunlight of the Ashen Expanse.
Banners bearing the crests of the eleven Fae kingdoms of Vaelthorne stirred in the cold wind, while dragons circled high overhead, their shadows gliding across the thousands gathered below.
Between the formations stood twelve royal mages—including me.
The difference was... I was also a queen.
A queen with her own dragon.
While the other mages prepared their enchantments, I sat astride Laureth, clad in armor with my sword strapped across my back.
Hedion stood proudly on my left, while Wolfe was on Pyrion on my right. He scanned the awful wasteland and the towering obsidian fortress in the distance beyond the barrier.
Kazavania lay beneath a crimson sun that bathed everything it touched in an eerie blood-red glow. The earth was cracked and barren, and twisted, leafless trees clawed their way up from the ground like gnarled hands.
There was no birdsong. No running water. Even the wind seemed reluctant to touch this place, as though the realm itself warned all living things to keep their distance.
The barrier was the liveliest thing here. It rose before us, an endless wall of crystal that met the earth and the sky and stretched beyond the limits of sight in both directions.
Ancient magical wards pulsed beneath its transparent skin. I strained to see the demons but either I was too far away or they weren’t there yet. From what Kaem described I imagined hordes of them crawling all over the place.
It didn’t matter. In a few moments...
We were going in.
Breaking the barrier and going inside.
Then we’d see exactly what was there.
I held fast to the courage that had brought me here. I was equipped to fight. The only thing that worried me was some of my strongest abilities like freezing, slowing, and speeding time wouldn’t work on the demons.
I’d had a few lessons with Magdalena over the last few days.
She’d warned me that since the demon crossbreeds were the necromancer’s creation, they would almost certainly be resistant to temporal manipulation.
His kind of magic warped whatever it touched, pulling it out of time’s natural flow.
That left me with entropy—the ability to age them.
Unlike my other gifts, entropy didn't weave the current of time around a creature.
It accelerated the time already flowing within it.
The problem was there would be thousands of demons. Even with Laureth, I couldn't age an entire legion of them. I'd have to be selective. Use entropy where it mattered most and rely on my air magic, my sword, and my dragon for everything else.
“Are you okay, Ziyka?” Wolfe asked through the bond.
We looked at each other from across our dragons.
“Yes. I’m okay. Just a little…”
“Overwhelmed? Yeah. Me too.”
I smirked. “You? Overwhelmed?”
I looked him over. The helmet had hidden most of his face and he looked absolutely terrifying with Pyrion grunting little spurts of blue flame.
“Looks can be deceiving Ziyka.”
“Don’t worry I’ll take care of you.”
That made him smile.
But the smile faded the moment the battle horn was blown, a signal that everyone was ready to strike.
Wolfe and I stared back at each other. There were too many words between us to speak or even think.
But I felt his love. And he felt mine.
He looked away.
It was time.
Wolfe urged Pyrion forward with a gentle touch against her neck. The great dragon stepped out from the front line before unfurling her vast wings.
With one powerful beat Pyrion lifted into the air. Wolfe guided her into a slow pass before the gathered armies, hovering above the front ranks so every warrior could see him. All eyes followed him as silence rolled across the battlefield.
Pyrion came to a steady hover at the heart of the army.
The dragons circling overhead drifted into silence. Even the horses grew still, sensing the weight of the moment.
Wolfe surveyed every face before him.
Every Fae.
Every mage.
Every dragon rider.
Then he drew a slow breath and for the next few moments, he wasn't my husband. He was my king.
"My friends..." His voice carried across the valley, enhanced by magic so every warrior could hear him. "Today, we do not march because we seek glory."
His gaze swept over the gathered host.
"We march because there are those who would see every kingdom fall.
They have taken our people, our families, our future, and if we do nothing, they will take everything else.
" He rested a hand against Pyrion's neck.
"I won't lie to you. Some of us will not return from this battlefield. I would rather speak the truth than offer false hope.”
The words struck like a hammer, but not a single warrior looked away.
“But know this..." His voice rose. “Look around you. Today we stand here together as one. Fae. Mages. Dragons.” His gaze swept across the banners of the eleven Fae kingdoms. Determination hardened his expression. “The Deathless have had centuries to prepare for this day."
He drew his sword.
"So have we."
He pointed the blade toward the fortress.
"Today... we end this."
A roar erupted. Everyone shouting their war cry in one thunderous voice. I shouted with them.
Kaem and Arielle urged their dragons forward, breaking away from the front ranks. They stopped before the towering crystal barrier, hovering side by side.
Kaem raised both hands and began chanting the spell to break the barrier. Every word uttered resonated through the air with a force that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. Arielle joined him a heartbeat later, her voice weaving into his as the two enchantments became one.
The barrier answered.
Light rippled across it, like veins of lightning. It raced across the wall, making the ground tremble.
Then—
With a deafening crack, the barrier shattered into countless shards of shimmering light before dissolving into nothing.
The path to the fortress lay open.
For the briefest heartbeat...
Nothing moved.
Then Wolfe raised his sword.
"Forward!"
We answered as one.
The war had begun.
Laureth launched into the air, carrying me high above the charging army. Around us, dragons surged forward, their riders racing toward the fortress.
I searched the battlefield, instinctively following Wolfe's lead.
He wasn't charging blindly.
He and Pyrion swept low across the front, scouting the ground ahead. I did the same, looking for demons.
Where were they?
Kaem said there were legions, but it looked like no one was here.
The distance between us and the towering black walls was still vast. Far too vast for the Deathless to simply let us march to their doorstep without a fight.
They had to be waiting somewhere.
My stomach tightened.
Gods...
Not a moment passed before a thick shadow erupted across the land ahead of us.
Darkness raced over the cracked earth like ink, then it split wide open and monstrous shapes poured from it.
One after another, horrific figures tore their way from the shadows, rising as though the realm had birthed them. Soon they covered the wasteland so fully there was no earth left to see.
Blessed Mother.
They had been waiting.
The demons stood on two legs, but nothing else about them belonged in the world of the living.
Their skin stretched tight over twisted, brownish-black frames, every joint bent at unnatural angles as though their bones had been broken and reset the wrong way.
Their bald heads narrowed into grotesque faces filled with tiny black eyes and rows of jagged teeth.
Then their mouths opened. Their jaws split unnaturally wide, peeling back to reveal rings of them.
They shrieked—a sound so unnatural it clawed at my mind rather than my ears.
The first ranks surged toward us.
The speed...
Merciless gods.
Kaem hadn't come close to describing them.
Their bodies bounded across the wasteland aiming straight at us.
But our army held.
No one broke formation. Everyone kept moving forward with Wolfe at the head.
Then Pyrion folded her wings. Deathwalker magic erupted from Wolfe, spilling over Pyrion until dragon and rider disappeared beneath a storm of living shadow.
The darkness poured over them turning both dragon and rider into one terrifying force.
Moments later, Pyrion opened her giant maw and a vast torrent of black magic swept across the battlefield, swallowing the first ranks of demons whole.
Wherever the magic touched, life simply... ceased. The creatures collapsed in waves, their twisted bodies crumbling into ash.
Wolfe never looked back.
He drove Pyrion forward as more demons came.
Thousands in one breath.
Wolfe unleashed another wave of death magic, carving a second path through the horde. Before the ashes had settled, fresh demons flooded into the gap.
Any hope to minimize their numbers waned. But that’s where I came in.
Through my dragon bond I told Laureth to attack. As one we released a wave of time magic. It flowed like fire through Laureth’s mouth and struck a hoard of demons advancing toward us.
The wave of time magic washed over them. Their movements faltered. Skin withered. Flesh shrank against bone. One after another they collapsed into grey ash as centuries passed through them in the space of a heartbeat.
But… damn it. More came.
Any triumph I felt was short lived.
Both sides came at each other and crashed in the middle in a blast of darkness, swords, roars and death.
And still more demons came.