Sebastian growls in frustration, and I know his magic has failed him again, so I extend the shield to include him. Shadows fly in all directions.
“Don’t kill them!” my mother yells.
“It keeps cutting in and out,” Sebastian calls to me, already moving to intercept a guard charging at my flank. He catches the male’s sword, twists, and opens a gash along the guard’s forearm. The male drops his weapon and staggers away. Many more guards take his place.
“I’ve got you,” I tell him. And I do. I throw fire and shadow at everything that comes close while he waits for his well to open again. We turn and move together, reading each other without words. When his magic is flowing, his power is breathtaking, and the guards give ground. When it vanishes, he fills the gap with steel and bone-breaking force, and I cover whatever his blades can’t reach.
But my well is draining by the second. Every bolt of fire costs me more than the last. My shadows are thinning, taking longer to gather and holding less force when they strike. The flame that leaves my hands sputters where it used to roar.
“I don’t have much more,” I whisper as his back touches mine.
I feel utterly despondent as more guards arrive. Then more. They pour from the forest on horseback and on foot, filling every gap that we punch through the line.
Sebastian’s magic erupts again in a huge pulse of shadow that sends a whole group of guards sprawling. In the next moment, it’s gone, and he curses.
A guard comes at him from the left, and he puts the male down with a savage combination that ends with a blade through the guard’s thigh. Another charges from the right, and Sebastian drops him with an elbow to the throat.
I throw one last burst of fire, and it fizzles out halfway to its target, dissolving into smoke and sparks.
“No!” I say.
The shadows I call respond in a thin, sluggish trickle that a single guard’s magic bats aside with ease.
I have nothing left.
Sebastian steps back until his shoulder touches mine. His chest heaves. There is blood on his hands, on his face, on both his blades. Shadows move around us. They’re his, but they’re too thin; they, too, dissipate into the air like smoke.
We are done.
The guards sense it. They push in closer, tightening the ring. More riders fill the gaps.
I meet his eyes. Sebastian shakes his head.
I raise my hands. A moment later, so does he, dropping the bloodied blades to the ground.
The guards don’t stop advancing. They push closer still, weapons raised, shadows writhing, until a voice breaks over the tumult.
“Stand down, Shadowfae Guard!” My mother’s voice, sharp and commanding, carries across the open ground. “Stand down! All of you! They have surrendered.”
Some lower their weapons. Others take a step toward us, their eyes narrowed.
My heart is sinking. I can’t believe that after all that, it ends like this.
It’s all my fault. I should never have come here.
No, that isn’t true. He should never have come.
Why did you come?
Why?
My mother rides through the ranks. The guards split apart to let her pass. Her horse is tall and black, its coat gleaming. She sits straight in the saddle, her jaw set.
She pulls the beast to a stop a few paces from us and looks down. Her eyes sweep over Sebastian, over me. Her face is impossible to read.
“Seize the once-king. You are free to go, performer.”
A few of the guards mutter. Others frown. The confusion is clear.
