“No more than you expected from me.”
A ripple of unnatural wind pulsed over them. The air pressure seemed to change and grow thick.
“Something’s ahead.” Thorne’s voice was loud so the squad could hear.
Vornokh stiffened mid-flight.“Yes. I feel it too. Shadows gathering. Far ahead.”
Garric’s hand went to the blade at his back. “Do you feel that?” he called out.
“I feel it,” Brynnek growled. “Dark magic.”
Ahead, the sky thickened. Fog moved against the wind, curling around the tower at Godshollow like a living thing. The signal flame that should have burned bright was gone.
“Hold formation,” Thorne ordered, voice tight. “We keep formation and fight it together.”
Ahead, a fissure split the earth, and black figures began to rise, hooded, skeletal, cloaked in unnatural black flame. Necromancers mounted on flying beasts. Some also appeared from nowhere and struck from the sky.
Dark bolts hurled upward and across the skies. Vornokh spun left, shadows whipping out of his wings to shield Thorne. Kaeroth roared and dove, unleashing a pillar of fire that consumed two wraiths in a single breath. Tieren tore left, crumbling a war-beast from the sky. Brynnek vaulted from his back to slam his spear into its skull.
Thorne spun Vornokh in a tight arc, shadow bleeding from his palms. “Cover the left flank! Sorren, ghost the ridge!”
Mirra vanished. Her shadow streaks flickered throughthe fog like knives. One necromancer fell without a sound, throat slit by nothing visible.
The air itself warped. Thaelyn’s vision blurred, every sound doubled, her heartbeat pulsing with Thorne’s through that unbearable bond.
“Thaelyn,” his voice rasped in her mind, uninvited but there, steady. “Don’t fight Nyxariel. Let her guide you.”
“I don’t know how.”
Then learn now,Nyxariel said.Open. Let the storm breathe through you.
Thaelyn inhaled, and the world shifted. She didn’t control the wind; itlistened. Threads of current tangled around her arms, alive, ready. When she released, the sky obeyed.
Nyxariel dove, lightning whispering across her scales. The shockwave shattered the necromancers’ ring, scattering their shadows like ash.
Sorren whispered a spell, Mirra vanished again, reappearing behind enemy lines, and they took out a junior warlock. Sorren’s dagger flicked, vanishing midair. A robed figure fell silently from its perch, throat sliced by something no one saw.
Vaelion twisted in a freezing arc, launching a burst of jagged ice that impaled three shadows. Garric shouted, eyes glowing with a strange shimmer. For the first time, he felt something different. “What the hell?” he shouted. It was faint Aether magic, borrowed from Vaelion’s core. The air bent around him. Water and ice spiraled into a blade in his palm, then exploded outward in a storm of razor hail.
“Whoa, did you see that? Where have you been hiding that power?” yelled Darian.
“I’m as surprised as you are, man! Let’s go!” prided Garric.
A Necromancer flung a shadow bolt through the air. Thorne caught it midair with one of his shadows and twisted it back. The dark magic from the bolt came down and wrapped around his palm and lashed a spark outward like a whip. Thorne struck it with blade and shadows, in tandem. He whipped around, turning his back, sheathed the dagger, and grabbed his second sword. He slicedthrough the air with both swords in each hand at two creatures before they could blink. Both plummeted to the ground.
“Thorne!” Garric shouted. “Behind!”
Thorne spun. Another warlock rushed him; he ducked the strike and sheathed one sword. Fire burst from his free hand and engulfed the attacker in flames. Another shadow bolt of black magic came from nowhere and pierced through his arm. It cracked the bone in Thorne’s arm.
“Thaelyn!” Nyxariel warned.Hold.
“Now!” Thorne shouted, voice breaking.
Thaelyn reached again for the wind, this time with rage instead of fear. The air twisted, surged, and burst in a ring of white lightning. The shockwave tore through the nearest wraiths, scattering their ashes across the sky.
He swung his blade with his one free arm and met a charging necromancer midair. The impact sent both spinning. Thorne caught himself with his free arm, but his injured side erupted in pain. His vision went white for a moment.
The necromancer’s curse lashed out again, another bolt of darkness, this one grazing Thaelyn’s jacket. Nyxariel shielded her with a wall of compressed wind.
