Just like Kinlear.
And Soraya wasscreamingas she fought the wolves away from him. Five...ten...even as Arawn joined her, sweeping Cyrra downwards so that her wing clipped one side of the line of wolves, sentthem careening backwards into the trees in a tangle of shadow limbs.
He slid from Cyrra’s back, his blade already blazing in his hands.
And together, they fought.
Back to back, with the wolves forming a dark circle around them, and a uselessnomageat their side...Soraya and Arawn fought.
But there were too many wolves. They lunged forwards, and Arawn narrowly missed a claw to his guts as Soraya ducked behind him.
He heard the impact.
Thesnickof a claw against human skin, and thenomagefell beside them...instantly lifeless.
Survivors died all the time. Arawn barely noticed him, but it wasSorayawho screamed in agony as he died...as if she’d known him. But she hadn’t.
No, it was Kinlear she saw, Kinlear she’d replaced him with as he lay there, lifeless in the snow.
And Arawn knew what ran through her mind. He’d shared the same thoughts when he was a boy, when the reality of Kinlear’s future struck him.
His illness.
His death.
He watched as she screamed an invocation, a guttural thing, and let Avane’s power flow through her. It came as a greatblastof wind that surged from her outstretched hands. She spun, pushing it towards the shadow wolves, who yelped. And tumbled away like fallen leaves, a heap of wings and shadow fur on the edge of the trees.
But she didn’t stop there.
No, she didn’t dare release her magic, not one bit. Instead, she screamed her god’s name, begging for more power.
Avane granted it.
She dropped to a knee, weakening, as that wind surged from her in a gale force.
She’d formed a wall, a furious fortress of wind that the wolvescould not breach. The trees bent behind it. Their branches cracked, snow tumbling in heaps upon the wolves...
And still, she did not stop.
“Let go!” Arawn yelled from behind her. “Soraya!” He placed his hand on her back, for she hadn’t heard him over the howling of her magic.
More beasts had arrived in the sky.
He could see Riven and Indriya already fighting them, raphons having picked up on their eagles’ scent.
“Let go!”Arawn yelled again. “Soraya!”
The wolves snarled and snapped as they tried to get to their feet, as they fought against the power of her magic. To get toherfrom behind that veil. But she held them there...
And as she did...
And he realized, suddenly, she couldn’t let go.
He’d heard of this before. Of a Sacred whobeggedtheir god for more, because they knew it would block out the noise of their own humanity within. She was going to burn out.
She was going to collapse under the sheer weight of that magic if it backfired and took every ounce of her energy with it.
“I can’t let go!” Soraya screamed. “Iwon’t!”
