“Easy there,” Rose said with a wink. “We brought backup.”
74
Nox
Vera descended on Everett and me in a cyclone of fire, her phoenix wings ablaze and her eyes as molten as the sun. When her feet hit the ground, it sent up a shockwave of light. I quickly shifted my wings and spun to cover Everett right as she struck.
I braced against the impact, the force of her light sword scorching the outside of my scales.
“What happened to her?” Everett asked, eyes still fixed on her over the tip of my wing.
“I have a few questions of my own,” I grunted. “Namely, what do you mean,that’s your girl?”
His neck jerked up. “Watch out!”
A shower of shadow blades fell from above, and we barely leaped apart before they embedded themselves into the ground, one after another with quickthwacks.
I whirled to face my sister. She blinked out of existence, then reappeared mere inches from my face. Her expression was blank. Unknowing. Unseeing. Just another one of Scarven’s puppets. She wrenched out a hand and wrapped her long fingers around my throat.
Searing pain surged through me as she pushed her light magic into my skin.
“Come on, Vera. We’ve done this before,” I hissed as I gripped her wrist and yanked it back, shoving her chest with all my might.
She went flying backwards. Her blades of shadow and lightning soared from her reach as she hit a tree all the way across the property.
“Nox!” Everett snarled. “Don’t hurt her!”
I cracked my neck back and forth. “Trust me, I didn’t hurt her. I just pissed her off.”
A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky. Flames erupted along my sister’s entire body as she stalked toward us, fury in her gaze.
“That doesn’t seem any better,” Everett mumbled.
“If you have any ideas, I’m all ears,” I snapped back as I grabbed my blade from its sheath. My hand brushed over the blood bead in my pocket.
Vera threw out an arm, and her discarded light sword flew into her grasp. She raised it to the sky as another bolt of lightning crashed around us, illuminating the entire battlefield.
I growled and broke into a run, unfurling my scales across my skin—not a full shift, but enough to give me protection. My talons and fangs shifted to partial length as I lunged for her.
We clashed in midair. Fire with fire, lightning against steel. She brought her sword down, and it sang through the air as it bounced off the hardened scales on my upper arm.
She summoned a small shadow dagger and tore after me. Her blows were deadly and precise. She aimed to do whatever her master commanded. She aimed tokill.
I never struck back. I countered with my own blade and talons, redirecting blow after blow, waiting for an opening. Our motions were a blur in the night, with her fire shimmering around us.
“Comeon,” I gritted out. She spun in place and delivered a strike to my stomach with the hilt of one sword, then swung high to reach my throat. I instantly shifted the scales on my neck to blockthe blade and seized her outstretched wrist. “Come on, Vera. This isn’t you!”
Her eyes flickered. Just for a moment, barely a breath, but something changed.
Then she vanished.
I stumbled forward and let out a roar.
I felt the heat from her flames behind me. I spun to catch her, only to find a bloody finger raised to her lips, a spell on the tip of her tongue.
“Wait—Vera, wait.” I dove at her, and she turned both hands toward me in defense. Shadows and light coiled around her fingers, the opposite magics forming beautiful, glowing threads. She weaved a net of light and darkness between her palms and shot it at me.
I unfurled my left wing and rammed the edge of it into her.
