Kinlear was still sick, back in his bedroom in a runic sleep...and Soraya hadn’t even been allowed to visit him. Not once, since he’d fallen in front of her in the Eagle’s Nest.
The shadows beneath her eyes revealed how utterly haunted she was by it.
Arawn said a prayer, begging the gods for strength as the shadowstorm crackled, and dark wings rose form the distant Sawteeth, outlined by the Acolyte’s magic.
And the war began.
The battle plan was simple, tonight:
Kill as many riders as they could, by taking down their raphons first, with Sacred magic. The darksouls weren’t affected by it, not withthe first many hits – as if the Acolyte’s protection worked the way their own runes did.
But blades would always do.
Arawn was confident as he led his aerie into the sky. They flew faster, bolder than they had in weeks, taking down darksouls as they went.
Gods, Arawn hated the monsters, every single one of them. Their strange shadow magic, their awful fangs and claws, especially their bloodthirsty raphons. Too many war eagles and Riders had been ripped from the skies by them.
They fought as the night darkened, until Riven, through his Ehvermage magic, had gotten word from the ground forces that a darksoul troupe had accompanied a pack of shadow wolves away from the battlefield...and to one of the few remainingnomagecamps that hadn’t been overtaken by the war. It was an hour’s flight to the west, where a lone Ravenminder’s tower stood at the steps of an old temple. Recruits often stayed the night there, in hopes of a safe rest until morning, for it was heavily runed.
A small fortress, but aneededone, in times of war.
They flew far, and fast...and found the Ravenminder’s tower blown apart, with smoke trailing towards the stars, and little hope that there would be any survivors left.
Somehow, it looked like the enemy had gathered their shadow magic together and sent a dark wave of it surging across the camp, for everything had beenmeltedin the war path. Like a great scar in the earth. The very temple itself had been cut in two.
Even the stones of the Ravenminder’s tower had been melted...the runes stripped from their surface. It was a sure sign that the darksouls and their magic were growing stronger. There were bodies strewn all over the camp, blades useless and forgotten beside cold, dead hands. The snow in the courtyard was stamped down with shadow wolf prints, and Arawn was about to signal to his aerie to leave. There was no reason for them to stay here, not when the warfront needed them back.
But then...
A light in the darkness.
A torch, flickering to life at the edge of the rubble.
“Survivors!” Riven shouted. “But—” He shook his head. “There are shadow wolves hiding among them. Too many to count, Arawn!”
As if the beasts were just waiting in the woods that surrounded the camp...eager toplaywith their wounded prey. As if war was all a game.
Arawn’s stomach dipped as he caught sight of the group of survivors, a torch between them. Foolish nomages, it was a surefire way to be spotted and thenshredded.But they were scared, and cold, and alone...
“Dive, Soraya!”Arawn shouted as a familiar howl rose from the treeline behind the ruins.
She was a blur as she dove to defend them, her eagle faster than his. He turned back to Riven and Indriya, who searched the sky for hidden riders, clouded by shadow magic. “You two, stay aloft and watch our backs!”
He’d just turned Cyrra towards the camp when the wolves poured from the trees.
There were far too many to count. They headed right towards those survivors, who still struggled through the deep snow, not a single damned weapon between them.
But the wolves were too fast.
They reached the survivors just before Soraya did.
And that little light went out.
No,Arawn thought, as the snow and wind clouded his vision.
Soraya leapt from her eagle’s back, landing in the midst of the chaos. She rolled to her feet, her blade and her magic already in her hands. And she gave all she could to defend the one survivor left.
He was anomage,a young man with dark hair and a frail body. He was tall, and thin...and his leg was bleeding, so that he had to limp.
