And then, he caught her.
His arm locked around her shoulders in a grip so tight it shook them both. Her wings folded in on themselves, trembling as she buried her face against him.
But the Korythid was already lunging.
It surged upward with horrifying speed, the force of it blasting snow from the pit in a white burst. Its mandibles snapped shut around the falling soldier in a single, brutal crunch.
Kaelen didn’t look back.
He wrenched himself upward, his wings beating so hard the air itself seemed to crack. The young female clung to him, quietly sobbing into his shoulder as they rose—too slowly, far too slowly?—
Below them, the Korythid pushed off from the trench wall.
It launched with a terrifying force, its entire body coiling and springing upward like a living weapon. Stone shattered beneath its legs. Snow blasted outward in a violent halo.
Frost slammed down from Draven’s palms in a barrage of jagged spears, layering the pit’s walls in thick sheets of ice. The cold hit the Korythid mid-leap, slowing its ascent just enough to throw off its trajectory.
Around us, the Unseelie moved as one.
Spears whistled through the air, their wicked, serrated blades glinting as they struck the creature’s armored plates. Warriorsshouted orders in sharp bursts—Skaldwing commands I didn’t understand but felt in my bones.
Shadows surged at my feet.
Not Draven’s.
Mine.
They crawled up my legs and coiled around my ribs, responding to the rising panic I couldn’t contain. The ground shuddered beneath us, and a burst of ice exploded toward the source—my ice, uncontrolled and jagged, bursting upward in panicked defense.
The world blurred.
Flashes of mana tore through the air. Draven’s frost, Unseelie steel, my own shadows rippling in painful waves. My skull throbbed. My teeth hurt. Every bone felt too small for the magic clawing its way out of me.
Somewhere through the chaos, I saw Kaelen, his body contorting and twisting with effort as he hauled Keira into the sky. They broke free of the pit just as the monster’s stinger sliced through the air beneath them.
Then lightning ripped through me.
Not real lightning—but Batty.
A hard jolt struck the center of my chest, exploding outward in a brilliant, searing pulse. My mana seized, bucked, then snapped back into place like a whip curling into itself.
I gasped.
My knees buckled. Batty screeched into my hair, her wings wrapping around my neck like a desperate anchor.
Draven’s arms closed around me an instant later.
The world fractured into ice and wind as he icewalked us away from the pit’s lethal reach. Beyond the snapping mandibles and the whip of the Korythid’s barbed and venomous tail. We reappeared beside Kaelen and Keira taking shelter beneath one of the frozen Lupine corpses left over from the Frostgrave Battle.
“Everly, look at me.” Draven’s hands framed my face, his voice a low, controlled growl.
“It’s fine. I’m fine,” I managed. My breath came shallow, each inhale scraping like broken glass. “Batty helped… Just… just need a moment.”
My ribs ached. Every muscle trembled from the backlash. But I was still standing.
And Batty hissed triumphantly, as if she took personal credit for the fact.
Draven’s eyes flashed, frost gathering along his shoulders. “Stay with her,” he said, nodding to Keira. “Do not move from this spot.”
