I nodded, steeling my nerves, and charged to meet them head-on. I struck the first one’s blade, deflecting it with everi enforced steel and sliced at the next one, making a clean cut across his midriff, but not before he reached for my neck. His hand narrowly missed my throat but grasped my amulet into his fist.
As he fell, his face lost in shock, the jewels of the necklace scattered across the ice.
I stood, my lungs working overtime as I scanned for any immediate threats.
There were too many and their brute force was felt in every attack I countered. I summoned another blade, blocking what would’ve been a deadly blast of red and fiery everi by crossing the blades and shielding myself from the flames. My dress was being torn to shreds, and before I recovered, there was a dagger at my throat.
“Ruthless,” the voice muttered, the same as before. “But not enough.”
The hilts of the swords were burning in my palms. I gasped and dropped them. They clattered loudly on the ice and the blood mage wrapped his arms around me like a clamp was being applied to my everi.
“What are you doing to me?” I asked, straining against his hold, but it was useless.
“Invading your essence,” he said.
I searched for Blake, seeing a trail of blood mages before finally seeing him be taken down by three of them. They kicked him into the ice; his skin covered with smeared blood and sweat. A strangled scream paralyzed me as black thorned everi vines wrapped up his arms as a blood mage twisted his arms behind his back.
“Let him go!” I screamed, but he only held the blade to my throat tighter.
“Quiet,” he said. “You will come with?—”
His voice cut off abruptly.
The chill in the air began to ease and the mist began to lift. The blade at my throat loosened as the blood mage’s hold on me lessened. The resounding crack of his body as it struck the icemade me wince. I looked down at him seeing no visible marks or sign of life.
What was happening? I rushed to Blake; my feet numb as I skid through the blood across the ice. The three blood mages around him had fallen as well.
“Blake!” I cried, as he sat up, his expression twisted in shock and panic.
The ivy was glowing again and I could hear the creatures singing in the night as I kneeled at Blake’s side. I looked for wounds, finding several cuts, but nothing life-threatening.
“Blake, what happened to them?” I asked, trying to get him to look at me, but he was focused on something over my shoulder.
I whipped around, my everi flaring and panic flooding my being as I saw someone emerging from the mist. I must have lost too much blood or got caught in some illusion.
Because there was no way I was seeing who was standing there at that moment, admiring the fireflies that floated around as if there were not dozens of bodies atop the frozen lake.
No.
Perhaps I needed to go back and see my old therapist again. Because without a doubt, before me, standing on the ice in the finest retail polo and cargo shorts money could buy, was my best friend.
And that was impossible.
Wasn’t it?
“Eiryn?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
He slowly settled his gaze on me. He blinked a few times and smirked.
“Hey, Anna,” he said, hands in his pocket, strolling over to me before stopping several paces away. “I waited to see if you two had it under control but then it seemed like you didn’t, and then it seemed like you did, but then it really seemed like you didn’t, so I intervened.”
He stared at one blood mage on the ice and his lips twisted in disgust.
He flicked a look of sheer irritation at me and sighed emphatically, “One moment.”
Eiryn closed his eyes.
The moment he did, steam rose across the lake, and the body of every blood mage began to sink. Blake and I shared a wide-eyed glance as the ice melted and reformed over the dead, leaving nothing but red streaks of blood captured in the solid surface of the lake.
