“Shriekers won’t give you a minute,” I shot back.
“That’s my girl,” Rowan said, his voice full of pride. In his eyes, I could do no wrong.
“Slave driver,” Silas muttered, but he flicked his wrist, ready for another round.
I made them run through the drill again and again, barking instructions. “That was less jarring. Good. Heirs, pay attention. You need to give a moderate amount of power without losing yourselves to Barbie’s hunger. B, you mustn’t take more than you need, or you’ll drain them dry.”
“Who made you the authority?” Barbie barked at me.
“I can see every aspect of your magic!” I retorted.
“Listen to Sy,” Cade chuckled. “Her heart is in the right place, too.”
“We’re unstoppable with Barbie joining us,” Louis bragged after the fifth round.
“We’re powerful,” Barbie corrected. “We can send the Shriekers to kingdom come, but it isn’t enough to take down my father. We need something else.”
“What else?” Silas asked.
“I’ll have to talk to Isis,” Barbie said. “You want to go in with me to the Red Room? Anyone?”
Silas’s face paled.
Just then, Bea appeared at the edge of the clearing, covered in soot and looking exhausted but triumphant. “We’ve done it. Here’s a blood-forged weapons that can kill Shriekers.”
She held up a sword that hummed with latent power, its black metal glinting with runes written in our mixed blood.
“How many have been forged?” Cade asked.
“Close to a thousand now, Your Highness,” Bea replied.
Every house had sent their blacksmiths to assist her.
“How many can we expect by week’s end?” Rowan pressed.
“Ten thousand, I hope,” Bea said.
Cade nodded in approval. “And we have an extra eight hundred demon blades from the arsenal in House of Chaos.” Killian’s foresight had paid off—he’d scavenged those weapons after the demons joined our cause in the last battle. He’d never trusted Lilith and never planned to rely on her. “We’ll stand a chance, even if the enemy outnumbers us ten to one. First, we blast the Shriekers with magic channeled through Barbie, then our warriors cut down the rest.”
“Good practice,” Bea said. She hugged Barbie briefly, then hurried out of Underhill to return to her work.
Killian remained apart from us, engrossed in his own special training. I wondered what it involved.
“Can we go back to the part where I’m not allowed to fight?” I asked, crossing my arms, bored and pissed. “Because it’s bullshit.”
“You’re the last drop of old magic,” everyone chorused in unison, clearly having rehearsed this argument.
I was sick and tired of hearing that.
“I can shield the entire army! I can literally grow back limbs.” I looked around hopefully. “Anyone want to volunteer? I need the practice.”
No one volunteered, not even my mate. One day, we would need to talk about his trust issues.
“Come on, just a finger? A toe? I’ll grow it right back, I promise.”
“Sy, you need to understand that we can’t afford to lose you,” Barbie chimed in, as if she were the mature one. “If we fall?—”
A sudden panic choked me. “You won’t fall! Not on my watch.”
