Chaos surged. Spikes erupted. Ice shards shattered across trees and stone, spraying lethal hail at us.
I fired at the flurry, shattering some of the larger ones to avoid getting impaled. I aimed at the tree line, roundstearing bark where the mages ducked. My pulse thundered in my ears. I’d trained for this, but training didn’t prepare you for the earth screaming beneath your feet or watching your friends in real danger.
Lionel stayed glued to my side, his fire steady. At one point he hooked a hand around my arm, yanking me down right as a wave of ice shards arched overhead.
Meanwhile, Ashley laughed like a lunatic as she lobbed grenades she’d rigged herself, blasts cracking through the trees and forcing mages out into the open. “Dance for me, cowards!”
The squad was holding, but we were scattering, as they kept throwing ice and manipulating the earth around us. Each wave of magical air pushed us farther apart, the forest swallowing us in smoke and shattered earth.
Another surge. Another crack. And suddenly, ice spread underneath my feet, covering the dirt and stone with a blank surface. It was slippery and my balance faltered. I was falling. I tumbled against the hardened dirt, sliding down the slope. I heard Lionel shouting far behind me, but I couldn’t stop, my momentum forcing me further and further down the steep decline.
Once I stilled, dirt dusted the air along with the smoke from Ashley’s grenades. How far had I fallen? I moved slowly, no bones were broken. My boots slid across a torn patch of earth as silence settled heavy. I treaded carefully forward, I was probably closer to the enemies than my own squad after that fall.
Breathing hard, I raised my rifle. Through the smoke between the trees, a figure emerged.
A mage.
His arm lifted, green glowing marks already crawling up his skin, preparing his earthen magic to strike me.
I steadied my aim. “Who are you?”
The mage halted briefly, the glow still pulsing along his arms, but his green eyes watched mine, carefully. My heart began slamming against my ribs.
“Why are you attacking us?”
The mage scoffed and a smile showing his teeth spread on his face. Yeah, it was a stupid question, I’ll give him that one. “I mean—”
He furrowed his brows. “Why are you not shooting?”
The words cut through and my mouth was left hanging. I had no idea, I belonged to the Ashen Corps, and it was my mission to strike against a mage at sight. Yet here I was, trying to talk to him, wanting to understand why we all simply followed orders without stopping to ask questions.
“Why aren’t you?” I stammered in response. His whole stance broke, as if I had said something hurtful, broken him.
“I…” he began, hesitant, weary. “I don’t like killing humans… If I did… What makes me different from the demons? Fromyou?”
I lowered my gun, staring bewildered at him.
“This is my first encounter with anungiftedwho hasn’t fired their weapon on sight,” he confessed, still wary but lowering his arms to his side. “It’s… refreshing.”
I chuckled, caught off guard by his words. “Yeah.”
The air shifted, the mage stiffened, his eyes searching for something to the side. I readied my gun again, was it another mage? Perhaps his fellow magic-wielders didn’t feel the same as him.
But then I froze.
Because from the shadows behind the mage, something faster struck.
White hair danced in the air, red glowing eyes.
Malakai.
He slammed the mage against a tree with brutal strength, his weapon nowhere in sight. His head dipped, teeth flashing unnaturally sharp, and before I could blink he sank them deep into the mage’s throat.
The man’s scream cut short, gurgling. Magic flickered out like a candle. The faint black, jagged tattoos that covered Malakai’s neck and arms shifted, no longer looking like tattoos, but veins, turning into a molten red glow, matching his eyes.
Malakai didn’t let go. He drank, devoured, something dark-red swirling around him like thin threads, until the mage fell limp in his grasp.
My gun trembled in my hands as my heart thundered louder than any gunfire.
