To my surprise, a figure stepped out of the battle beside me. Everett’s eyes were wide as he stretched out a hand, reaching for Vera.
“Songbird?” he whispered, his words choked. “Is—is thatyou?”
I blinked. “How do you know my sister?”
He looked as if he’d seen a ghost. “She’syour sister?” When I nodded, he droppedhis arm.
“That’s my girl. My songbird.” His eyes were glued to Vera. “She’s the one I left behind.”
Without warning, my sister launched at us.
73
Devora
Everywhere we looked was chaos. Blazing, burning, deadly chaos. Arowyn and I had outrun the web of dark magic and gotten our powers back, but the Hollow was slowly turning into a vacuum, a pit of darkness that consumed magic with hunger.
I wondered if it would keep spreading. If it would soon overtake the entire battlefield. The entireprovince.
I shoved the thought out of my mind and focused on what lay before us. In our absence,hordesof Scarven’s mutant creations had joined the fray. Not just Veridians, but also the creatures he’d created in his labs. Our side was fighting valiantly, yet for every one of the mutants they took down, three more took their place.
My eyes darted from fight to fight. Kieran battled a two-headed dog with one sword while evading an attack from a Shadow Wielder with another. Next to them, two Illusionists on our side stood back-to-back, blades in their hands as their opponents dodged illusions only visible to them. Another refugee was kneeling on the ground beside a crumpled body, tears streaming down their face.
A hawk Shifter with the legs of a deer charged the grieving refugee. I shouted in warning, but before I could reach them, therefugee looked up. She shielded her face with her arm, then grabbed the dead body and strode out of sight.
But not before the hawk Shifter sliced his sword through the air and cut her hand clean off.
The severed hand fell to the ground as she disappeared, leaving trails of flowing blood and the echo of a scream in her wake.
I gasped and halted in my tracks. The Shifter turned to me and let out an ear-splitting squawk. I clapped my hands together and pulled them apart to form a wall of shadows right as he jabbed his sword at my chest. The blade ricocheted off my shield. In turn, my shadows surged, wrapping around his body.
I felt that same rush of violence that was always creeping at the surface of my magic, but I shoved it down hard. I knew now I was the first of this particular brand of Scarven’s experiments, and I didn’t want to become like his others. Icouldn’t.
I wouldn’t let it consume me this time.
So, while my shadows shrieked inside of me, showing me visions of all sorts of torturous ways they could end this Shifter, I ignored them. I yanked them away from him and brought them back to me. He lost his balance and swayed on his four legs, and when he opened his eyes, I was struck by howhumanthey still were.
I furrowed my brow. All of them were just…humans. Veridians, like the rest of us.
I could’ve easily been in his place. One of Scarven’s vicious puppets. These mutants were once innocent people with lives, families, and homes to go back to.
I dropped my dagger even as the hawk Shifter’s gaze latched on to me. He barreled through the short space between us.
I quickly threw up another shadow shield and found Arowyn, still nearby but locked in battle with a spider. “Arowyn!” I called. “Arowyn, come here!”
“Little busy at the moment!” she shouted as she blew a strand of hair out of her face.
With one hand holding my shield steady, I thrust my othertoward her and sent a wave of shadows over the spider. They muffled its high-pitched shrieks, and when I flicked my wrist, they sent it flying across the property.
“Well, that was easy.” Arowyn brushed her hands off.
“Can you stride me and this guy to the Hollow?” I asked, straining against the force of the hawk Shifter trying to break through my shadows.
She raised an eyebrow. “Any particular reason why?”
“He’s not the enemy,” I grunted. “Scarven made him this way. He madeallof them. It’s not their fault, and we can’t keep killing innocent people. But that magical suction charm thing down there?—”
“You think it can suck the dark magic out of him,” she finished for me, realization dawning on her features.
