He commanded Ruxnoth’s soldiers to speed up toward him, basically intending to force them to absorb themselves back into him and stay there.
Ruxnoth had made a mistake with not knowing about T’s Command of Beasts ability, because in using our animal essenceto create those dragon-like entities, it had enabled T to use it on them—a loophole to driving them back.
It had Ruxnoth trying to take them out with shots of his power, disintegrating scores of them as they rushed toward him, threatening to inundate him.
Either way they were being defeated, and it came with a whole lot of satisfaction that some of that was coming by his own hand now.
It left us finally able to deal with the rising part of Sanctus forcing its way onto our realm, trying to latch on, feed from its lifeforce, and give that fucker an entrenched foothold here.
The troops started firing at the structures that had pushed through, more that still were. Zayn, Fanor, and me worked to heal the cracks and fissures that were widening all too quickly, fusing his Ifrit flame, her dragon fire, and my ice and frost to create a sealant.
But it didn’t work. Our magic just bounced off it.
The same happened with the troops trying to force back the carnage.
“It’s the necromantic protections. The shields are all over the place!” Zayn called out.
Dad rose to his feet and I heard him ordering two of the dozen dragons safeguarding him, “Get me Sylas Morgrave,” my dad barked. “Now.”
Dad didn’t know that Sylas haddied, just that he’d been injured severely in that battle with Ruxnoth on Loxley Academy campus grounds just before Winter had been taken from us, snatched away by this fucking maniac. I guess knowing Sylas’ fortitude, he’d figured he’d healed up by now.
Ruxnoth was too busy, thanks to Torvek turning his own assets against him, to pay attention to that.
I sent my voice across to him quietly with a spark of my magic, “Sylas isn’t coming. He’s not combat-ready.”
He jolted and eyed me incredulously, securing his response inside my magic, because this wasn’t exactly a conversation to be having in front of everyone. And if Ruxnoth did catch any of it, I couldn’t risk him coming to know that Sylas was actually alive. It was an advantage to us that he thought he was dead. And he could even try to kill him again if he knew. “You’re telling me that there is no functional necromancer, while a necromantically-protected construct is decimating our Realm?”
I swallowed. “Yes.”
If people hadn’t reacted the way they had to Winter, there would be. Winter would be here. Instead they’d come at him, and Ruxnoth had used that as an opening to drive him into Sanctus, stealing him away.
But I was sure that was coming through now as it was.
To everyone.
Big time.
As more spires shot through the earth, one close to me and Zayn, it looked like, after all of that, we’d have to retreat after all.
The only comfort was Ruxnoth’s screams as his constructs slammed into him, forcing him to dissolve them rapidly once after the other, over and over, as Torvek offered no mercy, overwhelming him, hurting him, punishing him.
Fanor was with him now and grabbed him and darted him out of the way every now and then when Ruxnoth sent out a blast at him to try to knock him out. Her doing that meant T didn’t have to break his control on the constructs.
I saw my dad and Flame conferring and overheard them strategizing a full evacuation plan, using the army to mass evacuate clusters of civilians through the Realm. We had a standard plan in place obviously, but this situation was beyond, so they needed to… tweak it.
Zayn was cursing and looking all around, his arm wrapped around me, as he stroked a glowing hand up and down my fractured one, healing it for me.
Something caught my eye through it all.
The shimmering opening… sparks started infusing it.
No… attacking it.
Amber sparks.
They filled up the opening, ran along the outside, then it dissipated entirely.
“Win,” Zayn breathed, squeezing my good arm excitedly.
