“Wait. Raxx,” Faye gasped, reaching out to grab his forearm. Her fingernails dug into his skin through the thin undershirt.
“I...” she opened her mouth, but the words she wanted to say caught in her throat. Faye coughed. “Be careful.”
Raxx simply grinned at her before slipping away into the shadow realm.
He and Lephas jumped out from their hiding place and sprinted into the fight. Raxx heard the commander’s sword clash with another’s behind him, but kept running forward. Lephas would be able to handle himself from here, Raxx needed to get to the king.
Raxx materialised as he reached Zelrus’s side, launching his blade through the neck of a faerie knight close by.
The king didn’t speak, but grinned at him before spinning to hack through another assailant.
“I take it the meeting with Cirro went well?” Raxx shouted as he parried an attack.
“Oh yes,” Zelrus yelled back. “Can’t you tell?”
Despite the grizzly setting, Raxx laughed and turned to continue to defend his king.
Lephas was beside them moments later. He glanced at Zelrus, who paused for a second, confused to see him. As Lephas darted forwards, clashing with a knight, Raxx spotted the satisfied smile on the king’s face before he turned away to fight on. The three demons fought side by side, slicing down any opponent that approached.
A scream cut through the battleground like a knife. Raxx’s head shot up, watching with horror as Faye was dragged from her hiding place by a faerie knight. Raxx parried another attack, yet couldn’t take his eyes from the scene, unfolding in slow motion, at the far side of the courtyard.
Faye raised a palm and blasted the knight with majick, but instead of recoiling as he should have, a silvery barrier of majick erupted from the knight and Faye’s attack fizzled meekly against it. Raxx’s blood ran cold. The knight was a majborne.
“Raxx!” a familiar voice yelled across the courtyard.
The shadow demon kicked the knight in front of him. A blast of majick shot before his eyes, practically disintegrating the faerie.
Tabitha stood a few feet away, palms smouldering. Her eyes were brighter than he’d ever seen them, hair whipping wildly around in the blustering storm.
“Raxx! Faye – get to Faye!” she screeched, her voice laced with panic.
The shadow demon took no persuading. Disengaged from combat for a split second, Raxx was able to disembody. He sprinted with all his might towards Faye, watching in horror as the princess struggled to free herself from the hold of the majborne knight. Lori too had been dragged from behind the logs by her hair, kicking and screaming.
As he approached, Raxx materialised and Faye’s eyes widened as she caught sight of him. Instinctively, she reached out her hand for him and, uncaring that neither of them wore gloves, Raxx dropped and skidded to her.
His hand clasped hers tightly, and that was when everything changed.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The first Faye was aware anything was amiss was when her ears began to ring. What started as a distant, annoying buzz quickly became deafening. Soon, it drowned out everything. The battle crashed on in the background; faces contorted with silent screams and blades clashed without a sound.
The princess looked down at her hand, clasped within Raxx’s. Though she could feel the warmth of his skin against hers, she scarcely believed it. For a split second, everything around her was forgotten; the King’s Guard knight with his hand around her ankle, Lori’s screams that made her sick to her stomach...
But it could never last.
Pain like she had never experienced erupted from her arm as majick crackled, like bright bolts of lightning, over the surface of her skin. The blood in her veins turned molten and Faye cried out, or at least she tried to. She could not even hear herself over the roaring in her ears.
The princess gasped, struggling for breath. The pain ebbed away, yet she could feel her majick already building inside her once more.
Capitalising on a moment’s reprieve, Faye tried to pull away from Raxx but his hand had a firm grip on her. She watched as the blistering majick jumped from her body to his, hissing and sizzling as it made contact with his flesh. The muscles in his arm tensed beneath his shirt, pulling the material taught.
The ground began to shake with a low, deep rumbling, and the wind howled. Snow whipped against her skin with so much force, it stung. Faye turned her face to the sky above, a menacing, dark purple cloud swirled like a vortex above them.
Another excruciating wave of majick coursed from her body, transferring to Raxx’s. She shook and screamed, until no air was left in her lungs.
Thunder clapped above them so loudly the air vibrated and a flash of lightning shot down from the sky, piercing into the ground a few feet away. Cobbles, snow and earth flew up into the air.
Faye’s majick eased once more. She sucked in a breath, barely having time to brace herself, as yet another wave hit her. They were coming faster and faster. She grit her teeth as tears streamed down her face and her body buckled beneath the pain.
