Chapter 66
Mora
Mora thought she knew carnage—the months she’d spent with Castellan were fraught with violence, the hatred for Halflings a gangrenous wound festering throughout Berwick. Blood staining the cracks in the cobblestones a common sight, bodies lying wide-eyed and frozen along the roads.
When she’d first walked into the fray back in Galdon’s Crossing, Mora froze, the percussive thrum of her racing thoughts too quick to follow.
The more she tore through each village, bestowing judgment on violent mobs and saving what Halflings she could, the more Mora grew used to the brutality.
Numb to the aftermath. Ever the monster Dother warned her she’d become.
Now, however, as she watched dozens of armed men, clad in fighting leathers with bloodied swords in their hands, Mora felt that primal fear.
Too many wore royal blue regalia—her family’s colors, as if this were all in her name—silver filigree glinting while they swung their swords into the bellies of the Halflings she’d saved.
Her soul ached when she spotted Hafira sobbing on her knees, Nile dead in her arms, his glassy eyes staring up at nothing.
A puddle of stew and blood pooled around them, the pot overturned.
Shards of porcelain framed the bodies littering the ground, Halflings and humans alike, their attackers devoured by the power they sought to quash.
Some were burned, the blue peeled away from their leathers by flames that continued to consume them.
Others were marked by scratches down their throats, marred by their feeble attempts to burrow into their windpipes and free themselves from the water that drowned them.
The guards and their ilk were consumed by trees, ensnared by furious, twisting winds, charred by Aegists’ shields—the Halflings fought well.
But how many would they lose by day’s end?
... And where could Mora take those who lived?
This was the place Castellan deemed safe, his wish demanding she bring everyone here until he declared otherwise. Even with their haven tainted, Mora was trapped by his whims, her hands tied until he gave a new direction.
A ferocious wind gripped her smoke. It plucked wisps free until swaths of obsidian glittering with the finest flecks of gold tumbled apart, swirling through the whirlwind and weaving themselves back together, over and over again.
Mora felt the rage within the air Elementalists’ torrent, the force of the Halflings a visceral thing.
In her mind, she roared with them, her own fury awake and wild.
Men craned their necks, feeling her frigid touch before Mora descended, but all they could do was gasp.
A violent wave of onyx mist rammed into half a dozen rebels, Mora grinning inwardly while they screeched, their bodies flying.
A spray of mud splattered in the air on impact, bits of soggy earth splashing down like dirty rain.
A Halfling fell with them, his graying hair slick with blood, pain in his caramel eyes. “Fucking she-devil,” he gritted out, batting at Mora’s vapors. She landed by his side, walking free from the clutch of her darkness.
“Where’s Castellan?” Mora shouted, ducking when a blast of wind filled with ice shards flew overhead.
The Halfling’s striking gaze shifted over Mora’s shoulder, narrowing before he lifted a hand.
Blue sparked on his fingers, erupting into a translucent dome that curled over Mora’s shoulder, and smashed into someone at her back.
There was a bark of pain joined by a sharp buzz, the sickly scent of burning flesh suddenly festering in the air.
“Look around you, Princess, I’m a little busy trying not to die. How would I know where Castellan is?”
The semi-sweet, acrid taste of death festered on Mora’s tongue, but she swallowed her urge to gag and gave the Aegist a nod. “Thanks,” she said, cocking her head toward his shield.
“It was him or us.” The Aegist stood, his shield rising with him, narrowed eyes peering through billowing smoke, the forest burning at their backs. Red splotches stained his sallow cheeks, his face haunted.
Mora stayed by his side, a thin layer of water lapping at her feet, embers drifting in the air and bouncing off his pulsing shield. Was it quiet? Or was the blood rushing through her ears blocking out the noise? She gulped. “Is it over?”
A sword sliced through smoke, thwacking against the shield, sparks flying while magic hissed.
The Aegist grunted on impact, his feet slipping in the soggy earth when the sword came down upon them again.
His weathered face contorting as he pushed his power harder.
“It’s never over,” he wheezed, outstretched hands shaking.
Mora called to her own power, onyx mist spilling from her fingers, her eyes locked on their attacker. The ground shook, the puddle shuddering, bits of dirt rising to its surface—it was almost like watching a boiling pot, until saplings pushed through.
At first, they blended with the rotten grass behind the translucent shield, but then their trunks thickened, branches unfurling and weaving together, pulling the trees closer.
Imani roared, leaping onto her growing creations, a shadow cast upon Mora and the Aegist as she ran along the thickening boughs stretching above them.
Straight to the traitorous guard. Her hands cutting through the air, nature answering her call.
“Forbidden filth,” the swordsman grunted, his blade coming down on the twigs snagging his ankles. He hacked away at the plants, but there were too many. Imani cackled when a cluster of roots twisted around his leg and tugged, his head slamming against the ground before she lifted him in the air.
She made an obscene gesture, shouting, “Watch your mouth!” Then leapt from her trees and ran into the fray. Smoke billowed around her, shouts and cries echoing from across the camp. Mora hadn’t missed the sweat trickling down her face, or the way her shoulders sagged.
Her well was nearly empty, her power drained from her display in the woods.
“You need to let me out!” Mora shouted to the Aegist, squinting as she watched her friend.
A blast of ravenous winds cut the darkness, smothering the last of the fire Elementalists’ embers, and Mora could see Imani again.
Fingers flexed at her side, an enormous pine’s roots tearing themselves from the soil at her command.
The evergreen creaked as it tipped over, a group of men clad in fighting leathers uttering a unified scream before it landed, taking them out.
The young fire Elementalist barely escaped the impact, a spray of fire leaving their palm as they ran off with another Halfling, toward the battle cries ringing out on the other side of their camp.
Imani stood alone, panting, staring down the one remaining guard, flames dancing at his feet—the fire Elementalist missed.
He tore a dagger from the corpse of a young boy—a Halfling Mora had saved in Syldith, who couldn’t have been more than sixteen—and pointed the blade at Imani. “Try me with your fucking trees,” he taunted, inching closer.
“Gladly,” she hissed, but her lungs shuddered on her next breath, hands tremoring at her sides.
What Imani didn’t see—what Mora should have noticed sooner—were the men hiding in the thick of the woods, bows ready. The fires yet to reach them.
“Imani!” Mora screamed, exploding into a violent wave of obsidian, a mass of mist crashing into the Aegist’s shield. Sparks rained down—she could feel the burn, and the echo of what should have been pain, like the ghost of a touch intending to be harder.
With a snarl, the Aegist let go, a loud pop ringing in the air when the shield broke, and Mora sprang free.
She sped toward Imani, praying she’d make it.
Pushing herself with as much force as she could muster.
The arrows knocked against their bows, strings straining while they were pulled back.
Imani was too focused on her prey, her fists shaking.
Pulling from a well that had nearly run dry.
There was a whistle in the air, cutting through the clash of weapons and magic, somehow louder than the shrieks of fear, fury, and pain.
Imani lifted her arms above her head, plants rising to her call, surrounding the man with the dagger.
Climbing faster than he ran. He leapt over a branch, but another careened toward him, snagging his boot and knocking him to the ground. He landed hard as arrows neared.
A wave of glittering onyx dove, arrows plinking into the mass, sharp arrowheads tearing through her to be consumed by darkness.
Snapped in half and tossed onto the bodies below.
Then, she tackled Imani’s target, chuckling inwardly at her friend’s startled grunt.
The rebel’s yelp was cut off by a loud gurgling in his throat, a spray of blood escaping his lips—Mora tore through his sternum, a shadowy viper burrowing through sinew and bone, ripping his royal, leather chest plate in half as if it were nothing.
His eyes grew wide, dark irises nearly consumed by white, his flesh ghostly pale.
Blood seeped through the gaping wound she’d left behind, the hole so big organs hung off fractured bones, squished beneath his palm when he pressed it to his chest. A useless endeavor.
When he fell to his knees, he was already dead, his body slumping, face planting on the ground.
Fresh arrows were notched in bows, aimed high, released on Mora’s shadowy fog as if that would do anything.
She wished she could snarl—no pulse coursed through her frigid, vaporous form, but Mora’s mind raced, an endless stream of wrath and dread consuming her while she careened toward the trees.
There were more archers than she realized, bows at the ready.
Firing uselessly. She flung the broken shafts back at them, an arrowhead finding its home. One of her targets falling over. Dead.