“Shit,” Koa cursed, raising his hand and calling his blue healing flames over her bone-showing fingertips until it healed.
The sucked-in gasp was instant as Aura blinked tears away. “Thank you.”
“We need to gonow,” I snapped at everyone. I didn’t know why the cult wasn’t descending on us immediately, but I didn’t care to find out.
“No shit,” Rune bit out, face twisting in pain.
“Rune, hold it together or drop it,” Aura told her. “I know it hurts.”
“I’m not dropping it,” Rune grated. “I can handle it.”
Hisses came from every cultist in the area, and we bolted.
We ran for the cliff we’d come down and climbed faster than we’d ever climbed before.
The cultists didn’t chase us at their vampire speed. They walked. Not dramatically slow or fast. Justinevitability, and their feet struck in unison as they formed an intimidating group.
The rune-light in the clearing stuttered in time with the relic’s pulse, and every throb slapped the inner part of my ear and stole a fraction of balance.
Koa’s hand missed the rock. “Shit.”
“Got you.” Raze grabbed him, yanking him upright by the back of his collar before tossing him up on the cliff.
“Left!” Hawk called, throwing a punch at a random arctic wolf that was literally just walking by.
It whimpered before running away.
“It wasn’t attacking,” Eleanor scolded him.
“Not the time,” Lorian told her calmly.
That narrow bridge of ice waited ahead, made of rib-like planks of old ice spanning a black crack. We hit it single file, feet drumming over them as we rushed across.
Rune skidded to a stop after us, Koa being the only one behind her. One hand cradled the relic, and the other smeared venom along the ice with two fingers. The ice sheened over, hissed, and the bridge spidered with fractures.
“Rune!” I barked in shock.
“It’s for the cultists,” she snapped, pivoting on her heel as the bridge shuddered.
Somehow, thewalkingcultists caught up. I had no fucking clue how since they were just walking, but they had.
One of them stepped onto an ice plank before the whole bridge collapsed in a roaring cataract of broken ice and snow.
The cultist vanished into the dark crack as the three behind him just stepped into the void after him. The rest of the group just stared ahead at us.
The collapsealmosttook Koa.
He swore and burst into his phoenix form with a wave of heat that slapped us. He flew over the gap, dropping into a run beside us a second later with steam evaporating off his hair.
Another pulse hit from the relic as it fed on us.
My feelings and emotions were fucking everywhere. My chest pounded as the pulse from the relic hit harder; my vision ghosted.
I knew I wasn’t the only one feeling this way.
We stumbled as one.
Eleanor slammed a shoulder into a nearby boulder, and Lorian hauled her back by her shoulder.
