When the shadows fade, my heart leaps at the sight of the three sirens in front of us and the ten guards standing in front of them. The sirens’ mouths hang open in song as they walk slowly towards us, the guards under their control prowling ahead with their swords extended. Nox helps me stand, his magic still cupped around his ears as the shadows he is wielding twist and wind around our feet.
“I don’t want to kill you,” he shouts, his hand squeezing tightly around mine. “But I will if you come closer.”
One of the sirens stops singing, her head tilting and rustling the short light blue curls that touch her shoulders. She wears the armor of the legion, though the other two sirens do not, and she carries a spear made of silver, but its unstained tip tells me she hasn’t had to use it yet. “We do not wantyou; we wanther.” She points to me, and Nox growls low in his throat. “Come with us, Rhea Maxwell, and we will withdraw from this city before more blood is shed. After all,” she smirks wide enough to show a single elongated canine, “you cannot protect them all.” They all move closer as a unit, and Nox stands his ground, though he takes a half step in front of me. I struggle to form words, my fingerscurling in towards my palms as that cold and bitter half of my magic floods my veins, begging to be used. And my indecision costs me.
One of the guards shifts, his sword lifting as if he’s readying to attack, and that’s all it takes for Nox to act, despite the protest that leaves my lips. His shadows are quick, as they were when we were ambushed by the King’s Guardsmen. He forms them into onyx spears, and they rise as one and pierce through every guard’s chest, as if the leather armor they wear is inconsequential. As if their verylivesare. One siren with pink hair shrieks, the fear in her eyes matching my own before she turns and runs, but Nox spares no one. Within seconds, no siren remains singing and no guard remains standing. My heart beats harshly as I look over where they lay, crimson and dark blue blood seeping from their lifeless bodies.
“Rhea?” There’s a different softness to Nox’s tone, one that might be pleading as he steps in front of me, the shadows behind him dissipating. I signal that it isn’t okay for him to drop the shield around his ears yet, but he gently tilts my chin up, his eyes scanning my face and seeing the shock there. The fear. Theguilt. “Your life above all else.” He repeats his words from last night as if he can hear my thoughts. “Always.”
I nod, knowing that he is right yet wondering if taking a life will ever get easier. If I evenwantit to. Despite everything that’s happened. Despite what I had once vowed to myself in the mortal castle. My humanity seems like a weakness I just can’t properly shake.
It feels wrong to leave the bodies out in the open, but Nox insists that we hurry to Galdr, the terror permeating from all of us at what we might find propelling us faster as we round that final bend past the thickly spaced trees to where businesses line the forest clearing. Running between two of the free-standingstructures, we finally meet the open air of the square, but what greets us isn’t something we could have prepared for.
I gasp as we skid to a halt, right in front of a man lying lifeless, the skin split at his neck and rivulets of red leaking onto the ground. I stumble backwards at the sight, my eyes moving away from the gore on instinct only to be met with something worse. Bodies,somany bodies, litter the ground of the once bustling space. Some are siren—the colorful hair an easy giveaway—but most are mage, a lot of them without armor. Rubble from toppled fountains and statues at the center of the square is dispersed between heaps of armor-clad men, and I scan their faces, unable to look away even as Nox tugs me closer to him. The sirens’ song is loud but not enough to drown out the grunts of the few remaining guards fighting against them. But the bodies…Gods, some of the men look young. Barely teenagers. And it isn’t just men. Women also lay slain with gouges in their sides and chests, no doubt their only crime being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“It’s a massacre,” Daje says hoarsely, even though I’m the only one who can hear him. “It’s—Gods.”
I watch as, in the distance, a mage guard blocks the swiping claws of a yellow-haired siren, only to have a second female swoop in and impale him with her spear from behind. My scream echoes out, my hand covering my mouth as jewel-toned eyes flick in our direction, magic flaring within me in response.
“Fucking stars above,” Xander says, his own sword held in his hand as he readies his stance. Nox lets go of me to take a step forward as a handful of the dozen or so sirens still attacking pivot in our direction from across the square. My stomach knots as he stretches his hand out, drawing shadows from the ground and shaping them into weapons. The sound of bare feet hitting the ground as the sirens run matches the discordant beating of my heart, but my gaze is stuck on Nox. On how he’s preparedto take on the weight of killing the sirens, even though it isn’thisfault they are here. I can’t allow him to do that alone. Even though my stomach sours at the thought, even if I have toforcemyself to step up to his side and lift my own hand, my glittering black shadows born not from the things around us but from somewhere within me, gathering in my palm.
After all, it wasmymagic that had given them access to this place. It only makes sense that it’s mine that takes it away.
I feel Nox’s gaze on the side of my face, as if we have the time to talk about this. But we don’t, not as I watch the magic flicker around the ears of the mage guards still fighting for their lives. Yet Nox knows me so terribly well, and my heart breaks when he quietly says, “You don’t have to do this.”
I shake my head just as he laces his fingers with mine, and though I know he can’t hear me, I say for myself, “Yes, I do.”
Our magic surges at the same time, shadows reaching out in either direction. I focus on that tether to my power, my intention guiding it around the mage guards and over the scattered dead, until it reaches the first siren. I shiver at the scream she lets loose, but she’s nothing more than a pile of black ash when the sound finishes echoing out.
“What the—” Daje cuts off his own shock from where he stands behind me, but I know he’s reacting to what I’ve just done.
Like storm clouds rolling in, my magic travels the length of the plaza, Nox’s shadows more tangible beside mine where he uses them to kill the sirens just as quickly as I do, a horrific combination of falling bodies and black ash left in our wake. I squeeze Nox’s hand hard as fear ratchets up my spine. Unlike when I killed the mortal guards on the beach, I am choosing to use my magic in this way.Choosingto end lives for the sake of saving others, but even that rationale feels flimsy in my head.
Though it can only be a matter of minutes at most, it feels longer as our shadows work until no siren is left standing. Nox is the first to release his magic, turning to face me as the dark purple surrounding his ears fades. Scanning my expression, he takes in the cold sweat coating my skin and brings a hand up to cup my face. “I love you,” he says, low and just for me, thumb brushing over my cheek. “Everypiece of you.”
“I loveyou.” My voice breaks, but I hold back the pressure building behind my eyes. Now is not the time, not as decimation surrounds us. Daje and Xander remain near us, but both seem to be frozen in place.
“Your Majesty,” a man says from where he stands in front of a tavern, next to a half broken statue.Your Majesty. I had nearly forgotten that Nox is nowking. Leaning his hands on his knees, he looks up from where his head was hanging between his shoulders. “Thank you.”
“When did the attack start?” Nox asks. “And how far into the kingdom have they gotten?”
I look around at the shops and businesses on either side of us as the guard answers, taking in the broken windows and doors and the people who wait just beyond them. Women hold children in their arms or stand in front of them protectively, their wide eyes darting from me to Nox and back again, their mouths parted in wild shock. I pull my gaze away to hear Nox’s next words.
“Those of you that remain, search for survivors.” The guard nods, running a hand through his dark brown hair before shouting the orders to thesixother men that are spread out amongst the bodies.
“They had no warning,” I surmise, once more devastated by the sheer loss of life.
“How could they? By the time they realized what was happening, they would have been under the sirens’ song.” Noxflexes his jaw. “It’s an effective way to kill.” And they had been soveryeffective. “Daje, I need you and Xander to go to the palace. If the sirens’ mission was to find Rhea, I can’t imagine they wouldn’t go there.”
“What about you two?” Xander asks, his voice rough. “We aren’t going to lea—”
“Your Majesty!” To our left, closer to the center of the square, a guard calls for Nox as he kneels next to a body, clutching his arm to his chest. We sprint at the urgency in his voice, at the way horror twists his expression.
As we approach, my gaze falls to the body he kneels beside. Blood pools around the figure, black tunic shredded and revealing the ribboned tan skin beneath. But when my eyes shift higher, when I take in the familiar wavy onyx hair that sticks to the man’s temples, when I see the silhouette of his face, devastation pries my ribs apart and latches on to my somehow still beating heart.
One step ahead of me, Nox comes to an abrupt halt, his intake of air sharp as his body grows rigid.
My hand reaches for his back just as a steadythumpingfills my ears. I think it might be my heart, the truth of who lies dead before us making it beat in a broken rhythm, but then the sound grows louder—harsher—and reverberates through more than just my chest as a massive shadow not made of magic cloaks the ground. My head tips back just as the sky is eclipsed by pure black, heat barreling over us as a gust of air knocks me back a step. Nox pulls me to him as we duck, the sun abruptly shining over us again as the creature’s wings clip the front facades of the businesses surrounding us, sending chunks of wood and shattered glass flying. The ground rumbles as it crashes abruptly into the ground, feet tipped in claws digging in to slow its speed as it slides to a stop, right on top of the destruction left by the sirens.
