The impact sliced through muscles and tendons, sending a spray of black ichor into the air.
The Korythid shrieked and jerked around violently as another of its skeletal limbs crashed to the ground. Hot obsidian blood oozed onto the fractured ice, each fissure widening even more.
“Fall back!” I shouted as the ground split and swallowed the giant skeletal leg.
The sound of it falling echoed for far too long, like it was tumbling to Aerivelle’s very core.
We scrambled backward as fractures in the ice crept beneath our feet, stretching toward the palace walls. Fury and panic swelled inside me, and I focused my mana on freezing the ground before it could swallow the Winter Palace.
A blood-curdling scream echoed through the air as the Korythid scrambled on six shaking legs. It slipped on the ice, sliding through the inky blood pouring from its open wounds.
And still, it refused to die.
Instead, it writhed, its barbed tail thrashing and spraying venom while its eyes blazed with mindless fury.
For a moment, as the monster slipped over its own inky blood, scrambling on the ice and the frozen corpses beneath its feet, I thought we might win. That this fight might be over before anyone else exhausted their mana or died. But our small victory was short-lived.
Nevara’s mouth was half-open, her next order dying on her lips just before she gasped. Her gaze sharpened, her head tilting toward Redthorne and the barbed tail coiling above him.
No.
She moved before I could stop her, throwing herself in front of him, her arms wrapped around his body protectively as the Korythid’s stinger slammed into her spine. The impact threw them both backward, a wet, suckingthwicktearing through the storm as it wrenched its stinger free. Venom hissed as it landed along the ice, and the sounds of battle faded to the far corners of my mind.
For several, thundering heartbeats, time itself slowed. I raced through the ice.
“Damn you, Nevara,” I growled as Soren sat up, gently cradling the body of my best friend in his arms.
His lips were moving, but the words were lost to the howling wind, the monster's screams, and the unending sounds of battle.
Nevara didn’t answer him. And she didn’t move.
Chapter 5
Everly
The fire swept straight through to my soul.
My skin was untouched, my body unblemished, but the flames burned into my mind, dancing lights and shadows that formed hazy, ethereal images.
A female skaldwing stood in a cave, obsidian wings braced against an onslaught of flame not unlike the one that I had faced.
My mother.
Much of her dark hair had tumbled free from her warrior’s braid, flying behind her like onyx flames as she braced for another endless inferno. Ash stained her cheeks and forehead in sweeping patterns, as if she’d tried and failed to wipe it away.
Terror curdled in my stomach as I watched her face down the Dragon’s wrath. But she looked so determined. Her features pinched, but resolute, her emerald eyes desperate and furious.
Why are you here?
The words echoed through my mind just as they had so many times since I had entered the cave, but they were further away now. A memory, just like she was.
My mother clenched her fists, lifting her chin.
“I’m not leaving until you give me a way to keep her safe.” Her voice was rough, like it had been overused. How many times had she asked for this? Demanded it?
A deep growl echoed off the cavern walls, one I felt in my bones more than heard. “Binding her power will not keep her safe.”
My mother stepped forward, her chest rapidly rising and falling as gleaming talons broke free from her nails.
