My mind snaps into focus. I reach for the wind—first a breeze, then a steady push, then more. It roars into gale-force strength.
The Kethraki shrieks—a mind-splitting, unnatural sound that claws at the inside of my skull—as the wind slams into it mid-air, wings flailing to regain control.
I raise my arms, feeling the wind swirl tighter around me—aroundit. It howls, slamming into the creature with brutal force.
Then, I drop my arms, hard, as if dragging the Kethraki down from the sky with my own hands. The Kethraki falters as it’s yanked down from the air, spiraling toward the ground like a storm-tossed shadow.
I ready myself, planting my feet, as I watch the Kethraki push upright. It looks at me with fury as it begins to move towards me, clawed feet gripping the earth with each step.
I whip my arm forward, a fireball leaving my hand with awoosh.
The Kethraki dodges—barely. My fireball clips the edge of its wing, singeing its obsidian hide. It shrieks—high, piercing—a sound that makes my teeth ache.
It’s closing the distance fast. Thirty feet. Twenty. Another fireball is already burning in my hands. I launch it.
This one hits square in the chest—an explosion of heat and light. Flames engulf the creature, roaring outward before vanishing in a rush of smoke. Black smoke curls where the wraith once stood.
I stumble back a few steps, the adrenaline fading just enough for my legs to feel unsteady. My chest rises and falls, the heat of the fire still clinging to my skin.
Gods.I did it. But my hands are trembling.
I turn to Valen, ready to hear his thoughts—maybe even breathe for a second. But before I can open my mouth, his hands are already moving.
Shit.
He’s conjuring again. No rest. No pause. Straight into the next nightmare, just like a real battle.
The air shifts—thickens—like the world itself is bracing for what’s coming. They appear thirty feet away. Five of them.
Fellborn.
Valen’s lessons flash through my mind—the hours poured over books and battle theory.Know your enemy,he said.If you want to survive them, if you want to kill them . . . you have to understand who they are . . . what they are.
They’re solid, but twisted beyond recognition. Their forms are humanoid, but wrong. Stretched and distorted. They move on two legs, but their movement is unnatural—too fluid, too precise. Their joints seem rearranged, limbs elongated, torsos too narrow.
They’resilentwhen they move—unnervingly so. Until theystrike—then they scream.
Their arms hang low, fingers grotesquely long, ending in curved, black claws that gleam like ink in the morning light. Too sharp. Those claws tear, rip, slice.
Their mouths are lined with jagged, needle-like teeth—serrated, uneven, made to shred. And when they attack, their lips pull back, exposing every inch of those fangs before they sink them into flesh.
The Fellborn start marching like they share one mind.
I reach over my shoulder and draw my sword, the steel singing as it frees from the sheath.
My feet shift into the stance Thane drilled, again and again, until it became instinct. I bounce on the balls of my feet, dancing from side to side, sword at the ready.
In unison, their elongated arms lift—curved fingers flexing toward me, claws like ebony scythes reaching for flesh. They charge.
The first comes in fast, low, too silent for something that big. I sidestep, pivot hard, and drive my blade through its torso—deep, clean, fast. Black mist bursts from the wound and it crumples.
Another is already on me—its face stretched too thin, jaws unhinging with a wet crack as it snarls. I twist my grip, parry the swipe aimed for my throat, then drive my blade upward—hard and fast.
The steel punches through the soft flesh beneath the creature’s chin, bursting through the top of its skull in a spray of black blood and splintered bone. Its body spasms violently as the snarl dies in its throat. It vanishes into a cloud of black mist before it can hit the ground.
They keep coming.
I duck beneath a clawed strike—it slices the air just beside my cheek—and roll low, coming up behind the creature. Driving my sword into the base of its spine, I feel the resistance give, andwrench the blade free. The Fellborn bursts into black mist.
