In an instant she’d slipped into her wolf form, baring her teeth in a snarl as she slammed her paws down onto the ground. A sheet of ice began to ripple out from her at lightning speed, spreading across the cavern and into the distance, covering the floor.
And everywhere it reached, one by one, the warriors began to lift their heads.
Chapter Thirteen
THE ROWS OF ARTIFACT WARRIORS CAME TO LIFE,shifting and clicking as the ice reached them and gave them Sigrid’s instructions.
An instant later the warriors were lumbering toward them, arms outstretched, unseeing faces turned toward the twins.
“Quick, transform!” Rayna cried, throwing herself into dragon form. She was far too big for the space, and she collided with rows of warriors as she grew in an instant. She trumpeted her defiance as she swung her tail at another row of them, sending them tumbling into one another with a series of crashes.
Anders was only a moment behind her, the ice all around them only strengthening him as he shifted.
I exiled you from the pack, Sigrid growled behind him.You should have stayed away.
Rayna swung her tail again, and Anders ran underneath her for shelter as the first warriors reached him, one leaning down to clumsily grab at him. There were so many of them—hundreds, thousands, and there was no way he could fight them all.
But his sister had nowhere to hide, and she bellowed in pain as the warriors began to swarm her,grabbing at her legs, one reaching up for her far more delicate wing.
It was that sound—her pain—that mobilized him. He ran out from beneath her with a snarl, launching a wave of icefire without a second thought, and sending a row of warriors tumbling backward. They lay still where they fell, their runes melted, their power gone.
But there were more behind them, and more behindthem.
How long could the twins possibly hold on?
Another warrior made a grab at him, and he skittered sideways, then threw another gout of icefire toward it. He couldn’t do this a thousand times—he’d exhaust himself, or one of them would grab him, and then...
Suddenly there was a howl from the far side of the cavern, and Lisabet was racing toward them.The ice!she howled to Anders, her ears up, her tail flying back and forth as if to propel her faster.Melt the ice!
He instantly turned his silver flame on the icesurrounding his mother. A moment later Rayna joined him, not understanding their howled communication, but trusting the wolves.
Anders had seen chunks of ice fall from the cart of the ice man onto the streets of Holbard in the summer. On hot days, the street children ran after him and picked up the pieces that were left behind. The ones that weren’t picked up, though, those pieces of ice shrank as the pools of water around them grew larger, and then, eventually, they were gone.
That happened now, the great square of ice dissolving, the dragon within it slipping lower and lower until she finally lay on the ground.
For a moment, she was perfectly still. And then she seemed to vanish.
It took Anders a moment to realize that she had simply shrunk from fifty feet in length to six. She was human again.
Her mop of curls lying wet around her still face, their mother was motionless on the rock.
And so were the warriors, their power source suddenly cut.
He, Rayna, and Lisabet shifted back to human form, three small figures amid a pile of debris that had once been an army of artifact warriors.
Sigrid transformed back to her human shape even as she ran forward, grabbing hold of two of the leads that were no longer connected to Drifa. She gritted her teeth, throwing her head back, the muscles in her neck taut as the outermost warriors began to power up again, the glow growing.
“Let go of them,” Anders said urgently, “it will drain you dry.”
In that moment, it was hard to care what happened to Sigrid, but he was thinking of Lisabet.
“She can’t hear you,” Rayna said quietly.
But Anders thought perhaps she could. She was staring at him, mouthing words he couldn’t make out.
“Mother, stop!” Lisabet cried. “Please!”
Sigrid dropped to her knees, letting out a ragged breath.
