Talon kept fighting, then a blast of energy had him bracing, covering his face as he pivoted in time to see a rush of trees heading straight for them. He lunged for Raevina, wrapping them both in ice, angling himself so that the moving forest collided with his body first.
The force of the impact stole his breath away. The ice he’d cocooned around them shattered. Raevina clung to his tunic, and Talon rotated them again so that his back hit the ground first. Talon tried to summon his magic again, but the greenery climbed over his body and tore his mate from his arms.
He roared, reaching out for anything that might steady him. The dark creatures screamed in agony, their bodies torn apart before his eyes. Talon covered himself in a sheet of frost, preparing for the same. He tried to fight the current to no avail.
His body scraped across branches and roots, leaving shallow lacerations along his skin. A vine snatched his wrist, pulling him from the swirling chaos. Another circled his ankle, then another wrapped around his torso, leaving him suspended in midair. Talon’s mind spun, his world completely upended. He tried to focus. To find Raevina. Talon pulled on their bond, relieved to find it still intact. He stretched and pulled a knife from his boot, then sliced through the vines holding him in place.
Talon hit the forest floor hard. He stumbled to his feet, falling to one side as dizziness rocked through him.
“Raevina,” he called, clenching his eyes for barely more than a second before attempting and failing to step again.
The Dark Fae were being … devoured. It was the only way he could describe the way vines and branches had pierced straight through their bodies. He grimaced at the sight of the dark, bulging branches beneath their skin. Most were still alive.
Talon finally stopped, leaned against a tree, and closed his eyes. He couldn’t panic. Raevina could take care of herself. She was a warrior with far more experience than he held. He could feel her down the bond. She wasn’t panicking. She was alive.
He took one breath, then another, and slowly his mind recalibrated. Talon opened his eyes, watching as vines and trees and shrubs crawled over one another, expanding on both sides as if they were reaching toward the outside world beyond. He glanced up into the thick canopy above. It blotted out everything, even the rain that had been pouring down moments ago. He also noted the carcasses above, some still twitching after death.
Talon could feel the magic pulsing through the air, almost crackling like a static charge. He knelt and pressed his hand to the ground, letting his newly realized abilities tug at the power.
It wouldn’t yield to him.
Talon furrowed his brow, then stood again. He’d lost his sword in the sudden rush, but still had a few daggers in his belt. He wouldn’t dare cut the ever-moving greenery, not when he saw more vines crawling through a beast’s stomach, the creature still alive.
But … where had it come from? Who could wield magic of this caliber? It couldn’t be from a single Fae. It wasn’t possible. Even Avalon didn’t possess strength like this. Had those from Brónach finally arrived? Had they banded together on the opposite side of the battlefield to create a barrier betweentheir capital city and the horde heading their way? Likely. It also explained why his body hadn’t been torn apart like the dark creatures, though that level of control—were Weavers involved?
Talon climbed over another root, staring down at the carcass of a Dark Fae with massive canines. Would this power be strong enough to stop all the creatures that had been heading their way, or was it only a temporary measure?
Talon kept moving and pulled at the bond again. It was small, barely more than a thread, but it gave him enough to find her and, more importantly, know she was still breathing. He gazed up into the trees. If she were hurt—Raevina tugged back and relief flooded through him.
Minutes later, she jumped from an upper branch, graceful as a cat. Raevina stood to her full height, examining him just as closely as he did her. Good, no major injuries, though he still hated the cut along the base of her throat.
“I assume Brónach is here,” Talon said, his gaze scanning the treetops once again.
“No,” Raevina whispered, almost in reverence. She placed a single hand on a nearby trunk. “The High Lady took matters into her own hands.”
The—he looked around again, noting the absolute mass of it all. “But she’s only one person.”
“She’s a highly skilled warrior who has had her magic suppressed for nearly a century.”
Talon swallowed hard. If this power had come from a single Fae, their chances for survival—
“This way,” Raevina said, already moving toward their right.
“How do you know?” Talon followed.
She looked him up and down with disapproval. “You haven’t sent out your magic to scout the area?” Embarrassment flooded through him. He’d only been thinking of her. Raevinapointed behind them. “I haven’t found the exit on that end yet. It’s still expanding.”
“How is that possible?”
Raevina shrugged. “If we begin questioning our limits, we never grow. Seeing possibilities like this just opens the door for us to increase our own strength.” She paused. “Though I’d personally never like to be bound in a cage for it to happen.”
“You won’t.” She studied him again, but didn’t respond.
The pair moved quickly through the trees, reaching for the exit even as it kept moving away. It was slowing at least, and when they finally emerged, the mass of Dark Fae they’d been battling had dwindled to nothing more than small skirmishes littered throughout the open plains.
Talon’s gaze immediately snapped toward his High Lord and the warriors surrounding the male. Avalon knelt in the trampled grass, bodies littered throughout the landscape. Talon couldn’t count how many they’d eliminated.
Avalon stared at the forest, still braced for combat, as if expecting the creatures to burst through any moment. Talon approached quickly, if only to inform them of what Raevina had discovered. It would buy them enough time to get everyone to Nàdair.
