“Let’s dissolve this curse,” Artemis said as Lora shrieked and wriggled in Brayden’s grasp.
What the heck? We hadn’t really talked about a plan. Now he was just throwing me to the wolves?
Brayden grunted beside me and everything in the room froze except for Lora. The battle around us just ceased to be. Over fifty wolves and a dozen fae warriors were frozen.
Holy crap, he was powerful. I had no idea this entire time…
“What do I do?” I sidled up next to Artemis, who now stood in front of the Fae Lord, pinned in the air like a sacrifice.
Her hands balled into fists, and then Brayden grunted as if he’d been punched in the stomach.
Artemis urged me on: “I will reveal it. You need to use sunlight magic to burn it up. I’ll help.”
One by one, the ghost wolves made an arc around me and I looked up at the rabid Fae Lord.
“I’ll kill you all,” she said through gritted teeth.
The ground shook, a crack running the line of the entire space, and Brayden whimpered. “I can’t hold her much longer!”
“Reveal yourself!” Artemis cried out and then splayed his hands out before her. A shockwave of green magic burst from his palms and knocked into her, making her body shudder in midair.
I wanted to just cut her head off right now while we had her pinned, but I knew that would result in my own death due to the killing curse.
I gasped as a sickly, black, spider web-type of curse began to form in the air in front of her. I instinctively knew this was dark magic, a far cry from the curse I’d seen at Erwin’s. This felt cold and like death.
“Burn it!” Artemis cried, keeping his hands out and looking strained under some unseen power.
Dissolve, don’t break.
Taking a cleansing breath, I pulled up the sunlight magic within me and then pointed my fingers at the black web. One by one, beams of yellow light burst from my fingertips like lasers, cutting into the web like it was made of paper.
“NO!” Lora screamed, her voice barely human.
The ground shook again, and out of my peripheral vision I saw Brayden fall to his knees.
He’s okay, keep going,I told myself.
The ghost wolf pack around me raised hackles of fur, getting into a crouched position.
I knew instinctively that the moment I dropped this curse, they would attack her and help us bring her down.
I shaved off the edges of the curse, and then feeling emboldened went right for the middle. Pain seized my arm and Lora grinned.
“Be gone!” Artemis cried, and a light bomb shot from his palms, exploding outward into the web of curse magic and eviscerating it completely.
Three things happened simultaneously:
Lora screamed with such agony it made my heart sing.
Brayden lost his control over everything and the entire room burst into movement again, including Lora.
A shockwave of Lora’s power flew across the room and slammed into my stomach, lifting me up and throwing me fifty feet into the air.
Sothiswas how I died.
I’d been flipped into the air and tossed upside down with Lora’s wrath, and was now heading face first for the marble floors.
Could a wolf survive a broken neck? Crushed skull? Brains splatted everywhere? I was about to find out.
