“Good,” I said, positioning myself between Faylinn and Solace. Folami and Ilyas moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with me, creating a human barricade between Fay and the Goddess of Lies.
“Lex,” Faylinn rasped weakly, her shaky hands pulling at my tunic. “Please don’t. She’ll kill you all before?—”
Folami gently dislodged Faylinn’s hold on my tunic, squeezing her hands with low, murmured words of assurance. Faylinn fell back with a sob as Solace turned her enraged gaze upon us, blood dripping freely from the fresh wound on her arm.
I handed Ilyas my sword, never peeling my gaze from Solace as I reached to grasp Folami’s hand once more.
Solace prowled toward us, hands outstretched and fingers clenched, as if she desired to strangle us with her bare hands.
I turned my head over my shoulder to speak briefly to Fay.
“Think of our debt from so long ago in that dungeon as paid in full, Rune Master,” I said with a wink before turning to face our impending death.
Chapter One Hundred Seventeen
The Bondsmith
Battles were all the same—time, distance, place didn’t matter. The smells and sounds, the actions and consequences, were nearly identical. Even now, if you compared the First Sundering to the Second, I doubt I’d be able to tell you the differences.
The scent of sweat and the tang of blood wafted through the humid, stagnant air as Ellowyn and Torin cut a path down the hill toward my daughter. The smells and sounds of battle were much more potent down the embankment, the light breeze we felt earlier woefully absent.
Sweat stuck my blonde curls to my brow and saturated my shirt within minutes.
The smoke from errant fire attacks hung in the air, nearly obscuring my vision with its dark fog. I hacked and coughed as we continued moving at a clipped pace, pulling my shirt over my nose at one point in an attempt to filter the air, but it was of little use.
Many of the lesser Elemental Mages were at the lowest dregs of their power, Air Mages now unable to create windstorms or gusts against their opponents—ones that earlier, kept the air clear.
Now, it was every man and woman for themselves. Steel rang loudly against steel as friend and foe clashed, each desperately fighting for their lives, for the lives of their loved ones.
We were no different.
Torin and Ellowyn launched fresh magical attacks in a frenzy, multicolored light shooting from their palms as their hands and arms swung wide. Even withtheir power dampened by the loss of their tether, they were a force to be reckoned with. They moved as if in a well-choreographed dance, each anticipating the other’s movements seconds before they happened.
Torin released a short blast of wind, knocking back a quickly charging woman with her bloodied sword lifted high, before Ellowyn enveloped her in a dark purple cloud of pain. The woman fell to the ground with a high-pitched wail, seeing terrors only meant for her eyes. Her writhing and thrashing form impeded my progress forward, and I quickly stabbed her through the heart, abruptly cutting off her screams.
Ellowyn and Torin never paused to look or check their handiwork, moving instead to the next attacker, their next victim, before the previous’ heart had even stopped beating.
Their expressions were carefully blank, masks of indifference, though I could see the rage and desperation in each movement, in each burst of power that released from their fingers.
They were a vision, like the gods of old, and a chill skated down my spine at the thought of them having control of every power in Elyria.
One problem at a time.
My eyes pulled away from the gods, quickly clearing a path through the waning battle to where my half sister had my daughter captured in her fist.
I squinted through the dark fog, watching as she was thrown to the ground as three others stepped in her way, blocking Solace completely.
“Idiots,” I whispered just as a jolt of Pain exploded from Lex’s hand, engulfing Solace completely. He held it, his arm shaking with the effort, as Solace screamed, lost to the throes of whatever Lex had thrust upon her.
Shouts rang out as his magic was broken, Solace wrapping a whip of Air around Lex’s throat. Folami and Ilyas instantly leapt into action, the first thrusting with her spear as she jumped straight at Solace, while the latter prowled toward the goddess’ exposed back.
Lex fell against the ground, hacking and spitting, as his Bonded moved and twirled with effortless grace in a deadly dance with the goddess. Solace procured blades of ice in each hand, stepping to the side as she raised both to parry Ilyas’ and Folami’s coordinated strikes.
She spun away, aiming a kick at Folami’s chest that connected with her shoulder as she ducked, sending the warrior back a few paces while Solace turned to engage with Ilyas.
Her white blades were a stark contrast to the black, acrid smoke that still hung heavy in the air as they whirled about her head, nearly a blur with the quickness with which she moved.
Solace struck at Ilyas once, then twice, the bigger man shuffling backwardas he moved his blade sluggishly in an attempt to block both. He parried the strike aimed at his heart and neck, but barely glanced the tip of the second sword. A roar rang loudly through the air as her ice made contact with the side of his thigh, splitting open his pants and the skin beneath. Instantly, his pant leg filled with blood, his free hand moving to clutch his wounded leg.
