He heard her words like they’d come from underwater. Like he was drowning, and she’d sank to the bottom with him.
So, she gripped him by the shoulders and spun him around...and he suddenly understood why it took magic to defeat the Acolyte’s power. Because an entire troupe of darksouls had appeared among them, right there at his back. Like the undead, they emerged from the snow as if they’d beenwaiting,hiding beneath the thick layers to avoid the sunlight.
They looked frozen, like corpses dug up from the tundra with their monstrous claws tipped in ice, their bared fangs, and their skin,oh gods, their skin...for it shone with black lines that revealed the spoiled power in their blood.
Shadow wolves soared to land among them, an entire pack of winged monsters that rippled as they moved, as if they truly were made of the absence of light.
Nomagesoldiers fell in their wake, as the wolves howled and snarled and dove for their throats.
Blood stained the battlefield.
It was a sea of steaming red.
“Magic!” Soraya shouted. “Use your godsdamned magic!”
She thrust out her hands, lips moving in an invocation as she sent a blast of wind barreling into thenomages.They went sprawling, narrowly avoiding the shadow wolves that had lunged...and it was enough that Soraya herself dove forward, borrowed blade and all, and cut the head of the closest wolf clean off.
The sight of her...magnificent.
Fearless.
It was everything Arawn wanted to be.
Everything you are,he reminded himself, for he was Arawn Laroux, Crown Prince of Lordach...
And, like Soraya...he refused to be afraid.
Something exploded behind him.
A blast of dark magic, a darksoul that had shadows for a face, and claws as long as knives where his fingers should have been.
It moved through the sea of soldiers like a wraith.
Mine,Arawn’s magic hissed. His hand curled over his sword as his very veins crackled with Vivorr’s power. As itbeggedto be unleashed upon the monster before him.
Guide me,Arawn prayed.Show me the way.
And without a second thought...with a prayer on his lips...he could not fail, he must never fail..
Arawn called fire to his sword and dove into the fight.
He lived.
But so many others joined the long list of dead.
Arawn stood beside Soraya in the Citadel’s courtyard, blood still steaming on his sword. He had char marks on his palms, and he smelled like smoke, and deep in his veins...
A weariness slid over his soul in a cold embrace.
He could feel it...the price of using his power. He could feel it in a way he never had before. Like the embers of his own fire had dimmed, and he’d need to sleep fordaysto bring them back to burning again.
Like magic of its own, a deathly calm had swept over the Expanse as daylight arrived, and the darkness was chased away. The darksouls fled along with it, soaring back to the safety of their hideaway behind the shadowstorm.
Arawn glanced to Soraya.
She had blood splattered across her face, and a gaping cut on her neck. Her cloak was tattered, and she shivered as the icy wind whipped through the courtyard, for her warming runes had long since been shredded by claws and fangs...but shelived.
She lived, and so did he, which meant they had earned their swords.
