She seemed confused about being there though. She hadn’t landed gracefully on her feet. Instead, it looked like she’d fallen out of a plume of smoke and ashes. It wasn’t until she’d gotten back to her feet, dusting off her pants, that she’d realized she stood among danger. It wasn’t until her gaze landed on Cethin that her eyes narrowed, features twisting into something filled with fury and loathing.Thathe understood completely.
Her bow appeared in her hand, two arrows a moment later. She stared at the two of them the entire time as she nocked the arrows, lifted her weapon, and released them. They found their targets, and Razik would be lying if he said he wasn’t impressed. Because how in the fuck? Who had trained her?
They’d been battling the phantom creatures for the last hour, Cethin once again drawing their entire attention and forcing the rest of them to keep his royal ass safe. The only reason he washere to begin with was because he’d shown up at the Greybane Estate and insisted on speaking to him. Asking questions about Ash Riders and these phantom beings and something else that, quite frankly, Razik had forgotten because he tried not to listen to Cethin whenever possible. But Cethin had been there when word had arrived of the attack, and there’d been no time to argue with him about the stupidity of coming to the fight, so here they were.
The female fired off another set of arrows, the phantoms all taking notice of her now. Irritated hisses echoed among the sounds of battle. A group of them split from the horde, half a dozen going her way while the rest continued to make their way to Cethin.
“Shit. Everyone needs to protect Kailia,” Cethin said, his eyes on the female, who was currently firing off another arrow.
“I know you’re trying to impress her and all, but she’s not the one who needs protecting here,” Razik retorted, drawing up more dragon fire. He’d been conserving his power as much as possible, which was a pain in the ass. Having to concentrate so hard onnotusing too much of his power was distracting.
“She does need protection, you ass,” Cethin growled back, holding his sword as though he was going to accomplish anything with it. “She told me her power isn’t working properly right now, which is affecting her ability to conjure arrows.”
“Why isn’t her magic working properly?”
“Does now really seem like the time for this conversation?” he replied, parroting words similar to what Razik had thrown at him the last time they were in this same situation.
Rather than punching the king in the godsdamn face, Razik released a flare of his power on two advancing phantoms, feeding his flames and feeling his power drain with every passing second. Their keening wails sounded, the ashes thatremained in the wake swirling around them and settling onto their clothing like peppered snow.
“Fallon and Ariadne!” Cethin bellowed, the two females looking to their king from where they were stationed on the right flank closest to the female. The female Cethin was suddenly very protective over. “Cover her,” he ordered, pointing in Kailia’s direction.
They didn’t question the orders, immediately sprinting to the other female as they dodged and parried gold swords. The moment they reached her side, Kailia tossed them each something small and dark.
“What is she—” Razik started, but the question died on his tongue as the female Cadre members struck out, whatever they were holding sinking deep into two of the phantom creatures. Their heads tipped back, white wisps pouring from their mouths.
“She gave them the arrowheads,” Cethin said, his shock evident in the words.
The creatures also seemed to realize what was happening, more of them breaking away to converge on the females. They ducked and spun, throwing the arrowheads like daggers as Kailia fired off more arrows. Ariadne swiped up two more arrowheads from the ground, tossing them to Fallon before retrieving two more, phantom spirits being decimated one after another.
“Do we…help them?” Cethin asked, his sword arm having lowered to his side.
“Does it look like they need help?” Razik grumbled. “We help everyone else.”
There were still warriors in the midst of battle. There was still brethren blood being spilled. Death was still taking and devouring good males and females who were fighting against beings they could never beat.
“We need her weapons,” Razik said, sending a wave of dragon fire to a group of overwhelmed warriors.
“I’m working on it,” Cethin grunted back, sending his own magic to try and create a shield between their forces and the beings. The beings simply brushed it aside, but it did slow them down, if only for a moment. “We need to call a retreat for the forces. Get as many of them to us as possible, then a shield of dragon fire so we can move as one towards Kailia until this is handled.”
That wasn’t a terrible idea. Razik hated that Cethin was the one who’d come up with it, but it would save as many of their people as possible. The issue was that it put the entire burden of victory on the females.
“Or,” Razik gritted out, “you shield our forces, and I shift, taking out these fuckers from the sky.”
His dragon fire couldn’t penetrate the dark magic Cethin possessed, and it would take less of his power to rain down targeted attacks from the sky rather than a massive wave of power. But the problem was the phantoms being able to break through, which would leave Cethin vulnerable.
“We don’t have time for that,” Cethin argued. “Call a retreat, Greybane!”
They were wasting valuable time arguing about this, which was costing more warriors their lives.
Razik surveyed the battlefield before them, making a choice that he might regret later.
Sounding the retreat signal, he then shifted. Not just summoning his wings, but transforming into his full dragon form. With scales as dark as Cethin’s magic, he flapped his black wings, the talons on the ends glinting in the sun. With his vertical pupils, everything was sharper. Even the edges of the phantom beings seemed more solid.
He stretched his neck, releasing another roar to tell the warriors to move their asses before he twisted in the air, circling tightly above Cethin. Seeing some phantoms rushing for him, Razik loosed a stream of black flames, keeping the fire as tight and as controlled as he could. Warriors gave them a wide berth, Cethin’s power arching over them in an attempt to give them more time. Still some fell as they made their retreat. Still the females fought near the lake. Still Razik rained down black fire, feeling his magic drain more and more with each onslaught.
Knowing he couldn’t keep this up forever, he widened the radius of the circle he was keeping, soaring as low as he could. A ring of fire followed, encircling Cethin and the forces and keeping the phantoms on the other side. As warriors neared, Razik parted the fire enough for them to pass.
Fallon had caught on to what he was doing, and she left Ariadne to keep up with Kailia while she ran to the warriors who were struggling. There were a handful of the phantoms left, their dying wails seeming to echo around them until finally there was silence as the last one fell. The final kill went to Kailia, not that Razik had been keeping track or anything.
