“What is he doing?” Rawn asked when Cassiel stopped to look at something in the distance.
Lightning streaked across the sky. He ducked nearly a fraction too late. Dyna gasped and jerked toward him.
“Get down from there!” she shouted, though he was too high to hear.
Thunder boomed, followed by a streak of lightning. It struck Cassiel with a violent blow, and her entire body spasmed with a cry. He plummeted out of the sky. Dyna screamed his name as her mind raced for ways to save him, but she had no power. Her lungs heaved for air, the weight of terror crushing her chest. She could do nothing as his smoking form fell. He was going to die.
But Cassiel’s wings broke open at the last moment, slowing his descent, and he slammed into the ground. They ran to him, and the weight lifted off her to find him alive. Cassiel sucked in ragged breaths, his chest rapidly rising and falling. Smoke and the scent of burned skin rushed her nose. His clothing and wings were torn and scorched.
“Cassiel! Oh gods!” Dyna dropped by his side, not knowing what to touch first. Flesh charred black and red covered his chest and half of his face.
“I’m fine,” he groaned, his face scrunching in pain. “I’m healing.”
His skin began weaving new flesh through the burns. He would live.
She exhaled heavily and brushed his wet hair from his forehead as she checked his head and eyes. At this moment, not caring about anything else between them. “What happened?”
“I do not know,” he said as the last of the wounds healed. His gaze focused on her as he searched her face. “Something hit me.”
“Lightning hit you,” Zev said, his voice caught between a growl as he shifted back to his human form.
Suddenly aware of how close she was to him, Dyna stepped back.
“No.” Cassiel grimaced as he sat up. “It was something else.”
The heavens shook with a forceful boom of thunder and released a torrent upon them. Rawn helped Cassiel to his feet and Zev yanked on a pair of trousers. They scattered, grabbing their packs, and ran toward the trees for cover. The rain beat down, seeping through her clothes. Water slid off Rawn’s cloak, though. It must have been enchanted.
“Marvelous.” Cassiel glowered under the feeble shelter of his wings. Without looking at her, he extended a wing above her head. He shifted his stance to face Zev, and his back took the brunt of the storm, blocking her from the assault of the wind and rain. “I assume you did not think to purchase a tent?”
Zev snorted. “No, but I made sure to buy your costly rice milk, Your Highness.”
Dyna yelped when another boom rattled her skull. “Where did this storm come from?”
“This is not a natural occurrence, my lady,” Rawn said as he studied the eye of the storm.
Cassiel nodded. “I saw something beyond the forest. Lights. I’m not sure how else to explain,” he added irritably when they all frowned at him in question.
The dark clouds spanned the sky. The eye of the storm was not too far from them. Streaks of lightning crashed on land beyond the forest as static prickled across Dyna’s skin.
She raised a hand to the clouds, and sure enough, traces of power crackled in the air against her. “You’re right. I feel it. Someone has invoked the storm.”
And the power felt familiar.
Cassiel frowned. “What—”
The sky exploded with blasts of green, purple, blue, black, and red. Their explosions shook the ground, vibrating through Dyna’s legs. Her Essence hummed in response to the violent torrent of magic. It churned through Dyna’s senses with several distinct traces.
Rawn’s eyes widened. “This … this is a battle of mages.”
She could feel the immense depth of their power, whoever they were. But one of them was tremendous, and she had experienced the likes of it before.
From the sorceress she met in Corron.
“It’s her,” Dyna shouted over the noise. “The sorceress. But why would she risk using this much Essence?”
“Who?” Cassiel shouted back. “Do you mean the witch?”
“Why do you think it’s her?” Zev yelled past another blast. “It could be anyone.”
