Toward Draven fighting beside me with everything he had left.
Toward Batty and the wolves and every other life bound to this night in ways I couldn’t untangle.
We were all playing our parts. All of us stretched thin, holding together pieces of a world determined to come apart in our hands.
And what other choice was there if we wanted to survive?
The Gorenvyr roared, shaking the ground as it tore free of my shadows, acid spraying wildly as it thrashed. Draven didn’t hesitate. He slammed both hands into the earth, his mana answering in a violent surge as ice erupted beneath the beast, locking its legs in place long enough for me to act.
I drove my shadows in deep. Past hide and past bone—threading them through its massive body, binding each joint, choking each movement, as I dragged its weight inward.
Another roar rent the air, the force of it sending soldiers and monsters toppling over.
Batty shrieked and dove, releasing a crackling burst of frost-laced mana straight into the Elderborne’s eyes. Ice cracked as it coated the beast’s pupils. The Gorenvyr staggered, blinded and raging.
Now, Draven growled.
I gave him everything I had left.
I wrenched the shadows tight, collapsing them inward as Draven called Winter down in its purest, most merciless form. Ice surged from every direction at once. Spikes. Walls. Chains. All of them crushing, piercing, and freezing the Elderborne from the inside out.
Acid hissed and burned, but the cold swallowed every last drop, locking it in place until the Gorenvyr’s roar broke into a hollow, shuddering silence.
The beast collapsed with an ear-splitting crash.
For a heartbeat, neither of us moved. We stood, panting out each breath as steam curled into the night air. And for the briefest moment, I had the nerve to feel something like relief.
But bright, blue light erupted across the sky over the mountains.
I glanced up just in time to see the smoke clear and to watch a shadow tumbling through the air. It was wrong. The shape of it. The speed at which it fell. It took me several moments to understand what I was seeing.
Then my stomach lurched.
My jaw went slack as the shadow continued to spiral—down and down and down—before it struck the mountain with a bone-shattering force.
The impact hit me like a physical blow.
Pain lanced through my chest, sharp enough to steal the air from my lungs, to knock my footing loose, to tear the fight from my hands for half a heartbeat too long.
No.
Flames surged again, brighter this time, along the far horizon.
Grief crashed through me, hot and disorienting, and the battlefield dulled at the edges. Time dragged, thick and wrong. Draven’s voice slammed into my mind, raw with panic—but I couldn’t answer him.
Not when I had just watched my mother fall from the sky.
Chapter 52
Everly
Everything around me slowed to a crawl.
Monsters were still pouring from the ground, climbing over the dead, over someone else’s mother and father, over their brothers and sisters and children, tearing through the field in endless waves.
There was no space to fall apart. Not now. Not here.
My pulse slowed, each beat heavy and numb. Draven reached for me again through the bond, his voice raw and frantic, but I still couldn’t respond. I just kept fighting. Kept moving. Afraid of what would happen if I stopped.
