“Do it!” James screamed from the turmoil of the battle, and Kay took another shuddering step forward, cold sweat trickling between her shoulder blades.
She wanted to scream. To beg. But she couldn’t even say Ethan’s name.
And then Ethan smiled. “I trust you, Kay,” he whispered. “Sijak.”
It was a Taekwondo command. One he must have remembered from his childhood.Begin.
Her body launched itself at his, her movements sloppy and quivering but still lethal. She twisted the knife, ready to slash upward in a long diagonal that would tear through his belly and into his sternum, all the way to his heart, while her Shadows swarmed.
Ethan stepped forward into her attack, smoothly meeting her arm and deflecting her blow, oozing confidence and self-assurance.
Kay turned the blade, aiming for his throat, but he used the momentum to spin her away. She stumbled but caught herself. She was fighting herself as much as him, but she was still the stronger fighter. She flung herself back toward Ethan. He stepped in, closer, and then, as she lifted the blade once more, he closed his hand over her wrist.
His Shadows surged forward into her, wrapping around hers and lifting them, filling her with a vibrant wholeness. The deep forest-green of his Shadows pulsed with vitality as it merged with her midnight-blue, and she was filled with a burning wave of power.
Kay gasped, held in Ethan’s arms as their Shadows joined, blazing through the clinging tentacles wrapped around her neck. The blood Shadow exploded off her, falling away from her skin like ash.
Ethan tightened his arm around her waist and pulled her back just in time to avoid an avalanche of jagged Shadow blades hurled at them by James, and then set her safely on her feet.
They turned together, sending out a blast of combined power that tore through the blood Shadows twisting around Zach’s neck, the last writhing darkness disintegrating into dust and smoke, while Bryn threw off the coils around Elizabeth’s throat.
James stood, panting, his eyes wide and shocked as if he couldn’t believe how quickly the fight had turned.
The Shadows that had fallen away from Kay, Zach and Elizabeth whipped up like ash in a whirlwind—a storm of broken darkness—that lifted up, hovering in the air for one breathless moment. Then it crashed down, pouring over James in a horrifying tsunami. He roared with pain and fury as he stumbled back. His pale face was a contorted mask of rage as he raised his fists, whirling Shadows coalescing into a swarm of angry darts, and rushed toward Ethan.
Kay flung herself between them, raising a huge shield of wild Shadows, batting away James’s darts to fall uselessly to the ground and disappear. Beside her David and Zach stepped closer, all of them raising shields, hemming James in. Together, they advanced on him, step-by-step.
James screamed in fury as he spun, searching for an escape while frenzied Shadows roiled above him like storm clouds, but beneath his rage and violence, Kay could see the boy who had stood by her for so many years. He was terrified and alone. Hurt and raging like a wounded animal.
Ethan raised his hands and drew a massive Shadow before pouring it out in a whirling stream, swathing James in a cloudburst of forest-green and dark gray.
Bryn stepped up, adding his emerald-green Shadows, completely blanketing James, who stumbled, falling to his knees with a broken gasp.
Ethan and Bryn shuddered as they battled the blood Shadows. They worked frantically to drain and heal the decaying cysts in James’s Shadows, again and again. Unwinding clinging tentacles, dragging them out as James writhed and screamed, and flinging them away to be burned into ash by the Guardians.
It felt like hours passed in a haze of blood Shadows and relentless struggle until James’s agonized screams faded into whimpers, and slowly, he fell quiet. He lay, curled on the ground—motionless—as Ethan and Bryn sank to the grass beside him, their faces gray with strain.
The abbey was quiet and still as Kay stood, breath heaving, watching the Healers kneel beside James. Elizabeth stepped up to her side, leaning heavily against her, and they held each other silently. Hoping and fearing in equal measure.
Bryn slowly laid his fingers on James’s neck, checking his pulse. James instantly curled into the fetal position and whimpered brokenly. He was alive.
Finally, Bryn stood up and ran a tired hand through his gray hair. “He needs care. What this has done to his mind… I don’t know. An ordinary hospital can’t help him, and if the Council sees this, they’ll immediately sentence him to be Shadow stripped.”
Kay stepped forward, shaking her head. “We can’t let them do that. Not until we know for sure he deserves it.” Probably not even then, but she didn’t say that. “And we can’t involve the Council anyway. Not with Gordon leading them.”
“Agreed.” David dipped his chin. “We have to protect James. And we have to keep this quiet while we try to understand everything that’s happened, and decide what to do next.”
Zach nodded toward Bryn. “Let’s take him to your cottage. Treat him there.”
Ethan nodded raggedly. “I’ll help. Whatever you need.”
Zach moved slowly, carefully, as if the fight had hurt more than his body, as he wrapped James in a bed of Shadows and lifted him. He carried their friend carefully through the darkness with Bryn at his side, leaving Ethan still kneeling tiredly on the grass where James had been.
He looked utterly wrung out. God. He’d thrown himself into the fight, for her. He’d trusted her with his life, even when she attacked him. And now he’d saved James. For her.
Without even thinking, she threw herself over the wet grass to collapse at his side and flung herself into him. Ethan opened his arms to catch her, and he hauled her closer, both of them kneeling, clinging to each other.
She’d come so close to losing him. To being the one who took him from the world. She ran her hands along his arms, down his back, up his neck, and onto his face, checking that he was safe as his hands searched her just as thoroughly. Equally desperate to hold each other and reassure themselves that they had survived. And then his mouth was on hers, and they shared a drugging, scorching kiss as their Shadows danced around them.
