I grin back at her. “That’s what happens when you have a great teacher!”
She laughs and gives me a salute in appreciation. Then a devilish glint appears in her eyes as she jerks her chin towardsthe ranks of enemies that are trying to re-form ahead. “Let’s hit them together!”
“Yes!” I call back, wicked delight in my own eyes as well. “Let’s show them why emotion magic is the most dangerous magic of all.”
Draven lets out a roar.
Dragon fire shoots through the air as his clan members attack at the same time as Draven throws a vicious thunderstorm right into the ranks of enemies before us.
Jocasta and I slam our magic into them.
Cries of pure terror echo across the entire landscape as the mass of red, silver, and white dragons flees in fear.
Next to me, Jocasta lets out a villainous laugh.
“When this war is over, you and I are gonna have a drink, kid!” she yells at me, her eyes glowing with magic.
“Deal!” I call back.
A hole opens up right in front of us as our combined emotion magic forces our enemies to panic and flee from us in pure terror.
And suddenly, the route to Empress Jessina is clear.
Only a long stretch of open sky now separates us from the massive silver dragon at the back.
Imposing mountains flash past on our right as we speed straight for her.
Empress Jessina jerks back as if in shock. Then she throws her head back and breathes a torrent of ice flames straight for us. But Draven, Galen, and the other black dragons just open their jaws and shoot real dragon fire back at it. The ice flames crash into the fire, making the air before us explode into hissing steam.
Hope surges inside me. We can do this. We can?—
A deafening rumble comes from the mountains on our right. My heart leaps into my throat as I snap my gaze towards it and find that the tops of the mountains are moving.
No, it’s not the mountains that are moving.
Dread stabs through my chest like a searing blade.
Using her ice magic, Jessina has yanked out the mass of ice that covered the peaks. It rips the snow with it too and crashes out into the air right above us.
“Isera!” I scream as the avalanche of ice and snow slams straight down over us.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Draven and the other dragon shifters twist their heads up and breathe fire at the deadly wave, but it’s too wide and too thick. I throw my arms up over my head as the tidal wave of ice and snow crashes down. Isera yanks her arms up and slashes them through the air as if she is trying to cleave the sky.
The thick sheet of ice at the bottom of the attack splits in two with a violent crack. Snow slides along both sides, tumbling down over us. It slams into the dragon shifters’ wings, forcing them down towards the ground. But the massive ceiling of ice that would’ve crushed us plummets down on either side of us instead, crashing harmlessly into the ground below.
Isera slumps down on the black dragon’s back again, breathing heavily. But before I can call out to her, snow thuds down over all of us as the rest of the avalanche tumbles downwards. I shiver violently as the thick clumps hit my body, and I shake my arms to try to get it off before I sweep my hands over Draven’s scales to clear the snow there too.
All around us, the entire squad of black dragons is forced towards the ground as the mass of snow weighs down their wings.
“Hold on,”Draven says into my mind.
I grip the spikes before me hard as he rolls in the air. My stomach lurches, but the snow falls off Draven’s body as well as mine.
The other dragons around us do the same.
Right as Draven levels out again, something silver-colored flashes in the corner of my eye. On instinct, I slam a violet flame of pain into it.
