I whip my head around and freeze. A crowd of cambions faces us, hollow eyes fixed on us, sharp teeth glinting. There are at least fifty of them. Horror spreads through me. We can either fight them or turn around and take our chances against the First Witch, Marik, and his power-thirsty parents.
Elle steps in front of me, drawing a dagger from a hidden sheath attached to her thigh.
“Whatever you do, do not let them touch you. Got it?” she says, not looking away from the hollowed-eyed dead children that stand before us.
I swallow the rising fear and nod.
Elle holds the dagger out to me. “Rely on your magic first. If they touch you, aim for their heads. Be quick and efficient. Stab them in the head, then yank it out and prepare to defend yourself against the next—"
They sprint toward us before she can finish her sentence. I grab the dagger, gripping it in my left hand, while I reach for my magic. I use my free hand to focus and aim my magic toward the crowd.
There are so many of them. One cambion is scary. Twelve was downright terrifying at Willa’s—Cora’s—house. This is…downright spine-chilling.
In my frozen panic, Elle has already killed two of them. They’re crawling over each other to take her out, my only line of defense. Get rid of Elle, and they’ll get to me.
But I’m not as helpless as I used to be.
One of them races toward me, his hands outstretched. I summon fire and fling it toward him. It sprays too wide, nearly catching Elle’s right side. She doesn’t even notice, actively fighting off five cambions at once.
She spins, shooting concentrated balls of fire toward each one that rushes toward her. It doesn’t kill them, though. It slows them down, but it’s as if they don’t feel pain.
Asmo killed those cambions in the forest by decapitating them. With his magic.
Nobody ever taught me how to dothat.
The cambion coming for me gets up, clothes melting into his pale body. He sprints at me again, and I shoot another blast of magic at him. But this time, I channel frigid wind and water. The combination hits him straight in the chest, ice immediately spreading over his body. Once it reaches his legs, he stops, unable to move.
He stops and stares at me, screaming in anger. It travels up his chest, to his neck, then finally to his head. His screaming stops.
I sprint toward him and stab him in the head with the dagger. Shards of ice explode as the cambion’s body disintegrates. I want to jump and smile at the kill, but another one comes screaming toward me. I spin, just managing to get out of its way before it can grab me.
Out of the corner of my eye, Elle is still fighting off multiple cambions, but corpses lay at her feet. Their heads have been melted off.
That’s one way to do it.
Quickly, I fire another blast of ice toward a small group of cambions running toward me. It catches all of them, freezing them in place. This time, they freeze instantly. I use the dagger balled in my fist to stab them all in one swoop, left to right. They disintegrate as soon as the blade touches them.
“Mae!” Elle shouts.
I spin in time to see another cambion heading toward me. I summon wind in a panic to get it away from me, buying me enough time to freeze it. Instead of running toward this one and stabbing it, I summon one of the shards of ice lying next to me and hurl it toward the frozen cambion using my mind. Luckily, my aim is good enough, and it shatters as soon as it makes contact.
Together, Elle and I have killed roughly half of the cambions.
But that still leaves so many.
And they’re getting closer and more frenzied with each one of them that we kill.
I hear laughter behind me, and I spin, dagger out and ready. A cambion runs directly into the dagger, but it reaches for me. It makes contact, and my magic flickers out instantly. I shove the dagger away from me, the cambion still attached to the dagger. My magic flares back to life.
With barely a thought, I freeze the cambion, but it freezes the dagger, too.
Fuck.
I rip my crown off my head and hurl it at the frozen cambion. It makes contact, shattering the creature to pieces. Well, that worked.
I dive for the crown, placing it back on my head, but stop when I see the branches interwoven into the crown. The crown was made to complement the throne. Small, delicate branches are woven between the rose gold branches.
I break off one of the wooden branches and summon my earth magic.
