ChapterSeventeen
Riley had never beenin any kind of combat before. Not even the chaos of an emergency in a busy hospital ward had prepared her for the sweating, heaving blood thirst of battle.
People grunted and shouted. Shadows swarmed, silently but with lethal accuracy, from the hands of powerful Dru-vid. Swarms of bees, spinning blades, teeth, swords, knives, and fists were formed from Shadows threaded with greens and reds and blues, pulled from the air, and launched violently at one another.
And through it all, James never left her side.
Blood still trickled down his face and neck, marking the vicious severity of Gordon’s attack on his mind, but he didn’t seem to care—or notice. And, for the first time, his Shadows flowed clear and sharp.
Finally, the self-loathing that had poisoned him for so long had burned away. But there was no time to celebrate. No time to even think. Everything she had was concentrated on dragging her hands through the air again and again, fighting to defend her Circle.
“Use your fucking talents,” Gordon growled at his Council as he launched yet another flight of sharp-clawed Shadow ravens through the air to rake and stab at everyone in their path. “Seers! Pull yourself together!”
The Council Seers fumbled to reach for one another, joining hands. They staggered, clearly unused to working together. But a deep red-hued Shadow still rose between them like mist, swirling and churning.
Images seemed to glow and move within the fog, and in seconds, demon shapes and screaming mouths surrounded her Circle like nightmares.
Riley twisted her palm and launched a sweeping net of thorn-covered blackberry vines toward the Seers, cutting through the churning darkness of the projected visions. But she couldn’t hold against their combined power. Soon she was overcome. Her vines withered and fell as the misty figures prowled closer and closer.
James grunted, stepping between her and the Seers, releasing flight after flight of shuriken, cutting the red mist to tatters, only for it to reform once more. For a moment, they were surrounded, cut off by cruel Shadows. But then Kay and Zach fought their way through to them with Ethan and Emma at their sides. They all carried Shadow blades, sweeping them in long arcs through the malevolent illusions the Seers were projecting.
Kay called a sharp warning to Elizabeth, and Riley twisted to see what she had noticed. A new and even more ferocious Shadow crept through the mist. A mutant hybrid—half thorny bramble, half predator—uncoiled from the hands of the Council Healers before flying forward through the red mist of nightmares.
Riley pulled a massive, curved scythe into her hands—the long blade familiar from her childhood—and hacked at the brambles with wide sweeps. But for every branch she destroyed, three unfurled in its place, all covered in snapping, tooth-filled traps.
“Emma!” Elizabeth shouted. “Join me!”
Zach and Kay turned to battle through the mist. Swords and daggers flashed as they carved a path through the ravening nightmare beasts and twisting brambles to unite their own two Seers.
Riley didn’t have time to watch. It took everything she had to keep her scythe swinging. Her muscles burned, and she grunted with the effort of slashing at the winding Shadows, keeping them from her friends.
“Riley?” James’s voice called roughly from behind her. Too far behind her. Somehow, they’d drifted apart as they fought.
The mist surrounded them, shifting and glowing disturbingly, as the Council fought viciously to divide them. Gordon’s followers doubled their efforts with flurry after flurry of violent Shadows. Dark nightmare mist. Writhing, snapping brambles. And through them both, flight after flight of blood-thirsty ravens, their claws and beaks slashing.
Everything was confusion. Her panted breaths sounded loud in her ears. She was cut off, alone. She was—
A sky-blue Shadow snaked its way across to her, wrapping itself around her waist with firm reassurance and she took in a shaking breath.
James was with her. And they had something the Council never would: each other.
Riley sent tendrils of Shadow sailing back through the air to find him in the confusion. She reached for the Shadows she knew almost as well as her own, and then she followed the intertwined rope they’d created, guiding herself back until she was beside him.
On the far side of the foyer, Elizabeth muttered something to Emma, her voice echoing strangely. A second later, a silent vibration ran through the room.
Everything hung suspended for a long moment, and then, suddenly, the Council Seers’ mist imploded. It collapsed down into a spinning funnel siphoning into a smaller and smaller ball of blood-red Shadows.
Elizabeth and Emma stood together. The older woman, confident and experienced, and the younger, now truly tasting the extent of her power, side by side. They leaned together, a coordinated unit working to drive the ball of nightmare mist back toward its creators. Beside them, David held a shifting cobalt shield, protecting them from the diving ravens and churning brambles.
Gordon’s Seers fought back. Sweat ran down their faces as they heaved their Shadows back toward the Circle. But Emma lifted her hands, forcing the spinning ball through the air. It twisted and turned, caught between the opposing Seers, both groups desperate to retain control.
Bryn stepped up and settled his hands on Emma and Elizabeth’s shoulders. His eyes closed, his wiry arm muscles bunching as he poured his energy into them, giving them the support they needed. And with one last push, they flung the misty red ball across the room to explode in a mass of twisted Shadows over the Council Seers.
Brayden, Patricia, and Evelyn collapsed to their knees, puppets with their strings cut. Their faces twisted as they screamed at the visions they had created. Even the vicious brambles began to shrivel and fade as the Healers, Maeve and Aiden, staggered away from the nightmares consuming their fallen colleagues.
Only Gordon still fought. He’d been abandoned by Diedre, who was slinking toward the stairs, her Guardian-blue Shadows coiled into a tight shield, focused only on protecting herself.
But Gordon didn’t urge his Council onward this time. Instead, he circled alone through the foyer, stepping away from his fallen supporters. He lifted his hands and hurled another turbulent flock of inky ravens at Emma and Elizabeth, snarling as his long strides took him closer and closer to the front door.
