My hands tighten. “You summoned the hounds,” I say, ignoring his words. “Why?”
His head cocks the other way, like a curious bird. “Because I was bored.I’ve been trapped here for far too long.” I can hear the smile in his voice, though his face holds no skin to shape it. “But now…Now,I have a fae, a vampire,anda human to play with. A rare hand of pieces. The others will be quitejealous.”
Others.What others?
I don’t have time to ask because the nemorakraises his wand, and the orb at the top flares bright green. A ripple of force explodes from him, knocking us back.
I hit the dirt hard, rolling through damp moss and tangled roots. Dimitri is already back on his feet, vanishing andreappearing behind the nemorakto strike, but the wand flicks, and a wall of bone bursts from the ground, blocking the blow.
I lunge and send shadows from my hands. They meet the nemorak’s magic mid-air with a burst of color, black against green, shadow against rot.
He holds his ground. Unflinching.
Dimitri’s blade finds an opening and slices through the tattered robes, but instead of being weakened, the nemoraklaughs.
“You think these bones are all I am?” he hisses.
The forest shifts andthe roots tremble.
Hands begin to claw up from the ground around us, skeletal, gnarled, and draped in remnants of armor or robes.
Bile rises in my throat. “Graveborn,” I whisper.“Of course.”
I fling my hand outward, and a wave of darkness slams into the rising undead, shattering some and staggering others. But for every one that falls, more clawfree from the earth.
The nemorakturns slowly toward me again. “Your shadows hunger, little fae. They remember that the human once fed them.”
I freeze.The human?He couldn’t mean—
A beam of gold light explodes through the trees. Searing, beautiful, blinding. It slams into the nemorak’s side, sending him flying into a half-collapsed tree.
I spin to see Koen standing there, panting, his arms extended, his palms smoking. The light vanishes as quickly as it came, leaving a look of horror on his face, like he didn’t even know how he’d done it.
The nemorakrises from the rubble, laughing again, but slower this time. “Oh, yes,” he rasps, “the human isinteresting.”
The skeletal creatures surge toward Koen, Dimitri vanishes into the fray, and I leap forward with my shadows roaring. I dodge an uneven blast of green fire, body aching and breathing ragged. Shadows lash from my hands and dance across the battlefield, slicing into skeletal limbs to make the space Dimitri needs to cut down another wave of the undead. But there are too many.
A grip like frozen iron closes around my upper arm, the nemoraksuddenly right in front of me. Closer than he should be. Faster than he has any right to be. His bonyhand crushes my arm. I scream as rot flares through my veins.
“No—” I gasp.
My shadows fight to free me, but his magic swallows mine whole. It sinks into my bones, heavy and cold. My knees give out, but the nemorakyanks me upright.
“Such power,” he croons. “Wasted on a weak girl who doesn’t understand it.”
A roar rips through the air. The world flashes gold. White. Gold again.
Light. Blinding and endless.
The nemorakscreams as his left side erupts in white flame.
I drop to the ground, choking. My shaking hands claw at my throat as I gasp for air, my vision spinning. Koen stands over him. His eyes—wild and far-off—glow faintly. Gold light spits and snaps across his skin as his hand stays outstretched. He’s not just flaring magic. Heisthe magic now. A storm made flesh.
“By every god that hears me,”Koen growls,“I will unmake you for touching her.”
His words hit the air like blades—measured, sharp, and unrelenting. The nemorakstumbles back, bones scraping stone. Koen doesn’t move like a man. He stalks forward, slow and deadly. Magic coils from his fingers, setting the air on fire.
A beam of light erupts from him, searing across the nemorak’s chest. Bones crack, joints twist unnaturally, and the skeletal figure screeches—a sound that is more of a hollow echo than a cry. White flames spread over him, crawling down his limbs and torso, reducing what little semblance of form he had to ash. All the undead stop moving, dropping into piles of bones in the water.
