“Are you okay?” she asked as she pulled away.
“Nothing a tonic for pain won’t fix,” Aidon assured her, helping her up as they stood. He looked back toward the battle, dread pooling in his gut as he saw how the Kakos soldiers had driven them back toward the Wall.
“We need to—” His words were cut off as a deafening crack exploded across the sky. His arms went instinctively to shield Dauphine, his body ducking as if the entire realm was exploding.
It certainly sounded like it.
“What the hells was that?” she asked, fear coating her voice as they looked up.
The entire battle seemed to pause as the sky lit up, a layer of shimmeringsomethingsparkling above their heads.
Flecks of it began to fall, like shooting stars dying on their way to the ground.
“My gods,” Aidon breathed. “I think that’s the veil.” He watched as it continued to disintegrate, a million little pieces fading into nothing. “It’s falling.”
***
Josie could smell the blood. The blood, and the fear. Iron and sweat were thick in her nose, clouding her senses until all she could focus on was the way it burned.
Just keep moving.
They’d had a plan. Release the tonic. Attack the front lines. Get a stronghold.
They’d had a plan, but hells, it didn’t seem to be working, because Kakos just kept coming, forcing them further back toward the Wall.
“Take to the Wall!” Liam shouted. “Protect the palace gates! Do not let them fall!”
Josie let out a grunt as she swung her sword, her arm heavy. It cut into an approaching Kakos soldier with a thud, but she didn’t have time to see where she’d hit her or if it was fatal.
She had to keep moving.
Keep moving.
Just keep moving.
Josie stumbled, her boot snagging on a tree root. Strange, she hadn’t seen a tree, just—
She gagged as she caught sight of the bloodied arm beneath her boot.
Someone grabbed the back of her fighting leathers and forced her upwards, their grip firm as they tugged her forward.
“Keep moving!” Cole hollered.
Josie blinked against the sweat in her eyes. Or perhaps they were tears. “We’re going to lose,” she breathed, fear strangling her. “We’re going to lose.”
“We arenotgoing to lose,” Cole argued. She thought it might have been the first lie he’d ever dared to tell her.But then he pointed a finger toward the town, the hand still twisted in her leathers shaking her gently. “See!”
For a moment, all Josie could see was death. But then…
There.Cresting the hill that led from the port, some on horseback, others in a dead sprint, was a unit of soldiers.
No. Not soldiers. Those were citizens—citizens fitted with spare armor and waving the Trahirian flag of war, the spear and sword like a beacon in the midst of this hells. And at the head, their swords raised as they flung themselves into the fray, were Zuri and Enzo.
They’d come. Her parents had come, and they had brought the citizens from the farmlands with them, and perhaps even further, because more and more kept spilling onto the battlefield, their shouts echoing across the mountains.
Hope unfurled in Josie’s chest as her voice rose to meet them, a vicious battle cry leaving her lips as she raised her sword for her people. For all of Eteryium.
She turned back to Cole, her eyes flaring wide as she took in the Kakos soldier coming for his back. She reached for him, but Cole whirled, his hand snatching the knife at his hip and flinging it into the dead center of the warrior’s forehead. The man’s lips parted in a scream that cut itself short as he fell to the ground, dead.
