The ground vibrated, a constant tremor from thousands of metallic feet pounding the hard dirt.
“Steady!” Killian’s roar shook dust from the rocks around us.
“Steady!” the heirs echoed down the line.
Our warriors gripped their blood blades, knuckles bleaching white, but not a single soldier broke formation. These were no green recruits; they were hardened veterans and survivors of the last Shrieker assault.
The enemy crashed into the tips of our U-formation like a tsunami. Up close, the Shriekers were worse than memory served, a horrific fusion of machine, animal, and humanoid, all wrong. Bones leaked black oil, tentacles writhed from their backs, and scorpion tails dripped acid that hissed and ate into the stone. They were creatures held together by nothing but my father’s will and pure malice.
“Hold!” Cade’s voice carried over the beginning carnage. “Wait for Goddess Barbie’s signal!”
We let them push deeper, drawing them into our kill box.
“Channel!” I screamed.
The first group of magic users, a dozen including America, slammed their power into my back. Fire, air, metal, earth, water,and raw rage merged in my core. I shaped it, compressed it into a single, apocalyptic point, and released.
A vertical line of annihilation carved through the Shrieker ranks. Where it passed, nearly a thousand simply ceased to be, vaporized into drifting piles of ash. A triumphant roar went up from our forces.
“Group two!”
The first wave of mages staggered back toward the Veil, utterly spent. The second group slid into place, power already coalescing around their hands. This time, I unleashed the energy in a horizontal arc, scything through the enemy’s front line. Hundreds more vanished, their death shrieks a symphony that made my ears ring and my smile widen.
A third blast punched a hole straight through the center of their ranks, shattering the abomination army’s formation.
“Now!” Cade screamed.
“Charge! Mighty vampires!” With a piercing battle cry, Louis led his warriors into the breach, a streak of crimson lightning under their flapping banner.
Shifters poured in after them, some outpacing the vampires in fierce, unspoken competition. Blood blades sang through the air. A wolf warrior decapitated a Shrieker while simultaneously dodging tentacles aimed at his spine. Another shifter wasn’t as lucky; a scorpion tail caught him mid-leap, its venom dropping him to the ground, convulsing. In response, an enraged vampire buried his blade deep into the Shrieker’s faceted eye.
The battle dissolved into controlled chaos. Our strategy held firm. Fae warriors at the top of the U-shaped line showcased centuries of swordsmanship, turning slaughter into a grim art form. Mages at the bottom-left flank cut down any Shriekers that tried to circle around. But for every abomination we destroyed, three more clawed their way forward.
I worked through the fourth group, then the fifth and sixth. Each magical blast bought us another sliver of ground, but my channels were burning out fast. Soon, I would need the heirs to channel, and then…
A new darkness rose from the heart of the Shrieker army.
My father had arrived.
He didn’t walk onto the battlefield; he manifested like a blight upon existence itself. Our forces faltered as Ruin’s foul power pressed against their minds in a wave of pure despair.
Instinctively, my goddess power surged upward, merging seamlessly with Killian’s blazing starlight. Together, we wove a shimmering barrier over our army’s collective consciousness, a shield against the psychic onslaught. We pushed back against Ruin’s crushing presence, holding our forces from the brink of collapse.
“Don’t look directly at him!” Rowan’s voice boomed across the field, even as he himself stared down the god without flinching. “Focus on your tasks! Trust the warrior beside you!”
Killian raised his starlight sword high, its light a defiant challenge to the gloom. “We don’t kneel! We don’t bend! Warriors, steady! Today, we defend our home!”
“Today we make each other proud!” Silas roared in response, a sharp, acknowledging nod passing between them. The rivalry was gone, forged into brotherhood.
With a thunderclap, lightning erupted from Killian’s blade as he charged, a demigod dragon hurling himself against a god. The chaos warriors rallied with a unified cry, following their king with blood blades held high. They would not let him face the evil alone.
The two armies met with a cataclysm of sound, a collision that felt like the world was ending.
“Kill them!” I screamed, hurling a wave of dark flame ahead of my mate’s charge. Where it touched, two thousand Shriekers ceased to be, turning to ash. “That’s for Texas, you piece of shit!”
“And California!” a voice shouted from the ranks.
“And so many places they’ve laid waste to!”
