My grip on my weapon tightened until my knuckles ached.
Another demon slithered into Mey’s likeness, her features sickly pale, eyes hollow. “You’re fading already,” it whispered. “The cough in your lungs will finish you before any enemy does.”
Nate took a step forward, voice rough. “Shut your mouth.”
Then it shifted, melted into his form, Nate’s face, but crueler. “Protector. Brother. But what happens when you fail? What happens when you can’t keep hersafe?”
Nate’s jaw clenched, and I hated how obvious it was that the words dug so deep.
A ripple of shadows became Eve, smirking. “Pretty smile. Shame he only tolerates you. You’ll never have him, you know.”
Her eyes flicked towards Lionel, and though he refused to look at her, my stomach turned anyway.
Another stepped out in Lionel’s likeness, voice soft, accusing. “How long will you keep protecting her, hm? Until she chooses someone else? Until she breaks you?”
The real Lionel stayed silent, but I saw his shoulders tense, refusing to avert his eyes.
Another shadow appeared, shifted into Malakai. His sneer made the perfect mirror of the original one. “Lieutenant. All discipline, no heart. I wonder where you left it?”
Malakai didn’t react. Not outwardly. He looked bored, death lingering in his stare.
The air grew heavy with their voices, every word a mirror held up to our weakest parts. I could feel them pressing in, needle-sharp, digging for cracks.
Ashley’s laughter shattered the tension, sharp, chaotic. She pulled a bomb from her satchel, fuse sparking alive.
“You can wear our faces, our voices, hell, even our bad jokes. But you’re forgetting one thing.”
She hurled it into the pack of shapeshifters. The explosion rocked the forest, fire licking skyward. The demons screamed, black shapes warping in the flames.
“You will blow into pieces, like the rest of us.”
The ground shook as the elemental demon roared, molten cracks splitting across its body. Fire and shadow poured out as it surged forward.
“Formation!” Malakai barked. His voice cut through the rising roar of inhuman screeches. “Lionel, guard the flank. Nate and Mey, keep the shapeshifters at bay. Eve, high ground with that rifle or you’re dead weight. Ashley, hold your blasts for the stone bastard. Kitten—” His eyes locked on me, searing, merciless. “You’re with me.”
The world blurred into motion, more demons appearing between the trees.
Eve sprinted upslope, boots crunching through leaves and mud, her rifle barking in sharp rhythm as bullets left its barrel. Each shot rang out, but her demon-double, same face, same smirk, danced between bullets, its laughter ringing in the air like shattering glass.
On the left flank, Nate crashed into a shapeshifter, his blade cleaving through flesh that rippled and writhed like water. “I’ve got you, sis!” he yelled.
“Don’t get sloppy!” Mey snapped back, raising her gun. She fired point-blank into the chest of her own mirror, the recoil making her jolt. The demon staggered, chest cavity smoking, but it kept coming, eyes glowing with that same uncanny calm as hers.
Ashley’s shriek of laughter cut through the clash. “Who wants to explode?” She hurled a bomb, and the blast tore a cluster of demons apart in a bloom of smoke and burning ichor. She danced in the haze, wild and untouchable.
Lionel moved like a tide against the right flank, a relentless wall protecting us. Every enemy that slipped close met his blade. His face was grim, controlled, but hiseyes flickered towards me, again and again, as though tethered.
And then, our problem—mine and Malakai’s.
The elemental loomed, stone skin cracked and pulsing with molten seams. The earth trembled under its steps, every movement heavy as thunder.
Malakai and I struck together. His blade crashed against the elemental’s fist, sparks flying as molten stone shuddered.
“Focus on the cracks!” he roared.
I found them, glowing seams across its chest, thin as veins of light. My sword bit shallowly, I hissed as the heat seared my arms. I faltered, nearly losing my grip, but Malakai was there, his blade intercepting the blow meant to crush me, the impact reverberating through my bones.
“Stay on rhythm!” he barked, driving forward.
