32. Chapter Thirty-One #2
Something snarled behind us. She spun, still supporting my weight as she lifted her hand against an oncoming revenant.
Darkness—blacker than the shadows swirling around us, emptier than the emptiest night—opened in a yawning circle before us, like a portal into a void.
It swallowed the creature without a sound, vanishing as swiftly as it had opened up.
Awe gripped my chest. I’d only seen Lily’s magic in limited action before. She was truly terrifying.
But when I glanced at her, I could see the weariness painted across her face, the dark circles beneath her eyes. She wasn’t going to be able to keep fighting for long. Her magic was draining her—fast.
“There are too many. We can’t fend them all off,” Owen called to Archer.
Only their close proximity allowed me to pick them out in the darkness, fighting back-to-back with one another and Cliff as they attempted to keep our enemies away from the carriage.
Both jaguars leapt at the undead with fierce intensity, tearing into their half-rotten flesh and pulling them apart with strength that surpassed their unearthly powers.
Owen summoned a wall of water to knock the revenants approaching him back into the river, some of the more decomposed bodies breaking apart from the force, severing skeletal arms and removing teetering heads from bodies.
Yet for every undead we incapacitated, there were at least two more who were unaffected.
“We have to retreat!” Owen cried out.
“Not yet,” Archer protested, desperation edging his voice. The stiff way he moved reminded me that even without a physical wound, he felt my pain too.
Cliff’s gaze darted back and forth between the two of them. “We won’t have a choice soon, Your Highness. My hold on Chase and Princess is slipping; if we don’t leave soon, they’ll be too caught up in the bloodlust of the fight to listen and pull the carriage. We’ll be trapped.”
“Very well. Cliff, get Owen and Lily back into the carriage and get out of here.” Archer’s expression was taut with determination as he turned and decapitated a revenant. He spun to fend off another undead attacker creeping up on his flank. “I have to get to Duskmarsh.”
“There’s no way they’ve survived, Archer.” Owen shook his head, defeat evident in the slump of his shoulders.
“Maybe the revenants haven’t reached them yet,” Archer retorted, refusing to accept what even I could tell was an inevitable defeat.
“Get back to the carriage,” Owen cried out, tossing a glance toward Lily and Cliff.
Cliff turned to the carriage, and, brow furrowed in concentration, using his earth magic to mend the shattered glass.
As soon as he was finished, he called to his jaguars, his tone soft yet firm as he tried to draw their attention from their prey.
Thankfully, they came bounding toward him immediately, fur splattered in mud and gore and eyes fiercely gleaming in the night.
But as soon as they reached their master, they leaned into him so he could pat them on the head and then stood patiently as he hooked them back up to the carriage.
Owen was already summoning more water, mist swirling in the air around us as a distant roar reached our ears, sending shivers down my spine.
Lily summoned another of those void-like portals at the same time, sending the charging revenants into nothingness just as a wall of water, coursing around us with graceful ease, slammed into the remaining undead, sending them flying back into the river.
The effort made Lily sway on her feet, her grasp slipping from my hand. She’d used too much magic in too short a time, draining her so completely she was fainting from sheer exhaustion.
“Lily?” I asked, reaching for her as she started to fall. “Lily!”
In a blink, Owen was before me, scooping her into his arms. He looked dead on his feet as well, his wet hair plastered to his face, his dark eyes intense and focused.
“Archer,” he growled as he stormed back toward the carriage, “we’ve cleared the way, but I can’t go with you on this suicide trip. We have to get Lily out of here.”
“We’ll be back—I promise.” Archer tossed Owen a crooked grin, but it didn’t fully reach his eyes.
“I can’t protect you if I’m also protecting Lily—”
“Go, Owen!” Archer’s voice deepened, all remnants of forced mirth gone. His eyes blazed with ferocity. “This is a command from your prince, overriding your need to protect. I have a duty to my people. We’ll make it back to the carriage, I swear it.”
With one last doubtful glance, Owen charged for the carriage, leaping inside with Lily cradled in his arms at the same moment Cliff ascended into the seat, taking the reins. The carriage jolted forward as the jaguars lunged, their growing urgency nearly overcoming Cliff’s magical influence.
Archer wasted no time running to me and seizing my hand. “Hurry,” he commanded, leading me down the bridge and after the carriage. The revenants were underwater—scattered and scrambling to recover from Owen’s attack—but we didn’t have much time.
My back stung with each pounding step of my feet, the drying blood from the cuts making my torn tunic stick to my skin. Balmy air whipped through my hair and the bridge’s wooden boards creaked beneath my feet. Dark water churned beneath us, the distant moon reflected in the Ivorymist’s depths.
As we left the bridge and our feet met a dirt road, I glanced briefly toward the carriage, circling back around the river toward another route further eastward, one that would guide them to another bridge and the path back to Rainsong.
But Archer’s pace was unrelenting, demanding my attention to return to the northerly path we followed.
My lungs were burning by the time shapes started to appear on the horizon. Duskmarsh.
Free hand still brandishing his sword, Archer finally slowed his steps as we approached, the dirt road giving way to a gravel one that cut through the town.
More buildings—shops and homes and a couple inns—stretched as far as I could see.
It was more substantial than Blackshore, and yet I didn’t see a single sign of life.
No movement. I strained my ears for a sound, but there was nothing.
“Perhaps we’ve reached them first. We can warn them and help them prepare…”
I gave Archer a sidelong look. His optimism and hope for his people was almost endearing, but it was delusional. “There are two of us, and I can’t fight. There’s nothing we can do to help them battle those creatures. Their best chance is to flee.”
And you would rather kill me than see me shift into phoenix form and fly even a couple fae to safety.
We stepped into the town’s borders, gravel crunching underfoot.
The sensation hit me with all the force of walking into a stone wall. Like my magic was screaming a warning at me. Death is here.
“There’s death, so much death,” I managed to whisper around the growing lump in my throat, horror making me shiver despite the humid air.
Archer frowned, lifting his blade and releasing my hand as he walked further down the street.
The signs became clear as we walked onward: the shattered glass of windows, the doors hanging off their hinges.
Bodies lying still inside each building we passed.
I searched with my magic, praying to Sanvo for any sign of life and chance to heal the wounded.
But all I sensed was death. Death everywhere, throughout every street we walked down, throughout the entire town.
“They’re all gone,” I choked out at last, my knees nearly buckling beneath me from the sorrow of such a loss.
Hundreds of lives, snuffed out by that vicious army.
Lives that had fought and been overwhelmed, unable to retreat before they were overcome, or slip away like they were invisible like Archer and I could.
Tears burned my eyes, a heavy weight on my chest.
Somehow, it reminded me of the phoenix shifters in Everhaven who’d lost their magic and were helpless to fight off their own doom—not unless I found an answer. My own hometown would become this quiet, this empty of life, if I didn’t find a way to stop the progression of looming death.