This was my fault.Ibrought them into this. I led my people straight to their demise.
We had to hold on. Just alittlelonger.
More shouting and clanging steel rang through the air, and I saw our two other groups that had split off at the beginning now being pushed back to us by Scarven’s mutant creations.
“Nox!” Tessa shouted, wielding two shortswords against a Shadow Wielder covered in dark veins. “What are these things?”
“Mutants,” I growled over the noise. “Stronger than normal Veridians. Looks like he has an army of them.”
“You can say that again.” She grunted, lunging forward to pierce the Shadow Wielder’s wall of magic.
There was a tremble at my feet right as a brilliant white stag burst through the clearing, impaling someone in a lion’s mask with his antlers. Kieran flung the body to the side and chargedagain. Several of Scarven’s men backed away in a group to avoid the sharp antler tips.
“It’s like they’re lining up for me,” I said to Tessa, watching them gather together.
“How nice of them.”
“Kieran,move!” I bellowed, and he darted out of the way. I unleashed a stream of dragon fire on them. The air heated, the red and orange flames illuminating the fight around us. I closed my mouth and watched their ashes fly away in a gust of wind, then turned back to the others.
More mutants had arrived, along with some of Scarven’s men in their lion masks. I lost track of how much time had passed as I barreled through mutated shifters and hybrids of all kinds while still keeping an eye out for Devora and Arowyn to return.
“Tessa!” I called to my third as she took out another opponent. “Go check on Arowyn and Devora. Make sure these things don’t get to them.”
With a nod, she hurried through the fray, disappearing in the wave of fights.
Someone shouted my name, and I spun around to see the same half man, half wolf Shifter from before launch himself at me. Claws swiped at my face, but I grabbed his wrist and snapped it in half. He didn’t even howl as the bones popped themselves back into place. He was so close now that I could see the black-and-redness of his veins swirling like liquid, the same darkness reflecting in his pure black eyes.
Spit clung to the wolf Shifter’s teeth as he unhinged his jaw and bit at me, narrowly avoiding my neck.
“A little help over here!” I heard Everett yell from somewhere. I rolled my neck along my shoulder, relishing the crack and pop of joints, then shifted my hand into talons.
The wolf threw himself at me again, and I shoved my talons through his chest and out his back, severing his spine. For good measure, I pulled my arm back and yanked his heart along with it.Black blood and red entrails covered my talons. I threw the organ on the ground and pivoted to find Everett.
What I saw stopped my heart.
Was that—was that mymother?How could she possibly have gotten here?
She ran through the flailing limbs and weapons, clutching something to her chest. Her gray-and-blonde hair whipped behind her as she sprinted. She kept glancing over her shoulder with a look of absolute terror on her features.
“Mama!” I shouted. I pushed forward, finally getting a glimpse of what she held in her arms.
A baby.
Confusion blurred my senses, taking me back twenty years ago, when I watched my mother twirl that same baby in the living room of our house. That wasVera. But that wasn’t possible. Vera wasn’t a baby anymore.
I reached for her, so close I could almost grab the ruffled sleeve of her dress, when she let out a scream.
A sword rammed through her chest.
I opened my mouth, but there was no breath left to scream. It felt like someone had ripped the air from my lungs. Her body slumped to the ground, revealing a man with a curved sword in his grip.
I blinked away my shock and staggered backward. Something was wrong. It couldn’t be?—
“Father?” I whispered, taking in his short dark brown hair, the gray streak on the side, the sharp chin and jaw. A face I hadn’t seen in nineteen years.
“So sentimental, brother,” my father said with a sneer. Slowly, his face morphed into Scarven.
Illusions. It had to be. All of it.
