“They’re watching. Give them a minute,” he answered, squeezing her fingers.
It was then she realized they were still holding hands.
She hadn’t pulled away from his touch the moment they got here.
That was when the earth beneath their feet shook, sending a violent tremor through the ground. She stumbled right into Cethin, his arm looping around her and keeping her on her feet.Razik had done the same for Wren, the female nestled into his side like they’d done this before.
“Where do you think it’ll surface?” Razik growled, his eyes glowing and scanning the night.
“No idea,” Tybalt answered, his eyes glowing too. “Ariadne and Bram are monitoring farther north. This was the area with the most activity.”
“Cethin, I need direction here,” she muttered, for the first time in a long time feeling out of her element in a fight.
“Just stay close, wife,” he said, his fingers flexing where they still held her to him.
She was about to protest, to shove him off, but the ground shook again, jostling all of them, before things went silent and still, as if even the winds were holding their breath.
Then, a streak of bright light burst from the ground, shooting into the sky.
No. Not light.
A giant winged serpent.
It twisted in the air above them, bright multicolored wings flapping and keeping its glowing body airborne while it elicited a bone-rattling hiss, fangs bared. Its massive body coiled more, preparing to strike, and she had three arrows nocked and aimed.
But she didn’t need to.
Cethin’s magic was growing, twisting and swirling like a cyclone of darkness. He’d released her when she’d pulled her arrows, but now he was solely focused on his magic. More than his eyes were glowing. In the trickling moonlight and the light of the sky serpent, she could see the faint outline of his veins.
The serpent hissed again before it struck, diving straight for them, but Cethin met it with his power. Dark and light collided, exploding outward.
Kailia was yanked to the ground, Razik covering her and Wren with a shield of black flames, but she wanted to see.
“Lia!” Razik growled as she pulled free of him.
If she could just get past the flames…
Without thinking, she tried to step into her ashes. Felt her body go weightless, floating among the smoke of Razik’s flames.
Then she was being tossed around once more, her body flickering in and out of existence, before she was dumped back on the ground. Having gone nowhere once again, Cethin was a few feet away.
Scrambling to find her bow, she looked up as another bone-shaking hiss rent through the night.
But Cethin was…
She could do nothing but watch, her mouth hanging open. Cethin’s magic was coiling around the sky serpent like inky vines. Cethin himself was off the ground, his power beneath him like a moving platform of sand dunes. It rose and fell, lifting into the sky and avoiding the strikes of the serpent.
Then all those cords of black yanked simultaneously, dragging the serpent back to the ground. The shudder when it hit the earth had her losing her balance again, even on her knees, and her chin hit the ground, teeth sinking into her lip. She tasted blood, but hardly noticed as she managed to get her feet under her.
Only for an arm to loop around her waist.
She shrieked, her bow still on the ground a few feet away, and she couldn’t grab her daggers because her arms were pinned to her sides.
“The creatures of old wake. It is a sign from the Fates,” a female voice crooned into her ear. “We cannot let this be.”
Kailia kicked and thrashed, hearing the female grunt when her bare foot connected with her knee, but she didn’t release Kailia. Instead, she dragged her backwards a few more feet before shoving her at another. Someone bigger. Someone stronger. Someone with fire gifts because his touch burned andthe smell of charred flesh reached her nostrils. Pain flared along her middle. Bile filled her throat, but there was a hand clamped over her mouth, so there was nowhere for it to go as she gagged on her own vomit. The palm keeping her quiet was burning as torturously as the one keeping her still.
Desperately, she slipped into her smoke and ashes, hoping to at least be released from their hold. She was pulled this way and that, her body twisting and tumbling, and then she was being dumped on the ground again, her stomach convulsing as she pushed onto her knees and retched.
