I rarely use it, mostly communicating with whistles.
But if we’re about to meet our deaths together, I will respect her bravery.
As we catapult toward the first ridge, I take quick mental stock of my weapons. Two long swords in crisscrossing scabbards at my back, each blade with a pearly-white hiltand a razor-sharp edge, two pearl-handled daggers at my waist, and two smaller daggers, each inside one of my calf-high boots.
Finally, my frost power, which I’ve learned to control to pinpoint precision, not only to wreak maximum destruction on my enemies, but to avoid hurting Nara in the process. She can walk on the ice I create, her paws resistant to the cold, but if my power touched her, it would freeze her flesh and bones as surely as it would shatter any other living creature.
I may not be able to feel the emotional weight of the trust Nara shows me, but I recognize its importance.
I won’t allow my ice to hurt her.
The stream of vampyrs that broke off from the larger group reaches the nearest mountain ridge at the same time as we do.
They pour down the slope toward us, but Nara doesn’t slow her pace, her strong legs carrying us up the rocky incline as quickly as if she were running on a flat surface.
The stream of undead spears toward us, their screams harsh in my sensitive ears.
“Blood!”
“Fresh blood.”
“Time to feast?—”
I wait until the first creature is within twenty paces of us, its hands outstretched, mouth open wide, the gap between us closing in heartbeats, so close that I make out the wispy strands of yellowing hair on its mottled head and the mangled tips of its pointed ears.
Then I release my power.
Sharp stalactites shoot from my outstretched hands, three from each palm, spearing straight through the first six vampyrs before ramming and sticking in the bodies of the next six. Powdery snow explodes across them all.
Undeterred, they give gleeful cries. “Your spears can’t kill us!”
A smile tugs at my lips as the vampyrs reach me, on the verge of colliding with us.
Impaling them wasn’t the point.
A split second later, the snow carried on the spears does its work, freezing their innards and their undoubtedly brittle bones, shattering them from the inside out.
Their bodies separate as quietly as whispers.
As Nara speeds through the gore, I pour my power ahead of us, creating a tunnel along our path, an icy barrier that drives the remaining vampyrs back.
Nara runs along the tunnel, reaching the top of the peak within seconds, racing across its jagged top, navigating the uneven ground as she streaks toward the cliff’s edge.
I glimpse the valley below us as she leaps from the edge toward the ridge on the other side.
Into the air we fly.
Darkness yawns below us, the wide ravine oozing with black sludge that can only be the decomposing bodies of the undead who have finally succumbed to starvation. Or been killed by other vampyrs. I have no way to know.
But I certainly won’t become part of that ooze.
As powerful as Nara is, her momentum won’t carry us all the way across the ravine.
While the air rushes past me and the remaining vampyrs regroup behind us, I extend my right arm, ready, waiting another second…another heartbeat…until we’re close enough to the other side.
Ice pours from my hand, shooting across the air in a plume that latches on to the outcrop directly ahead of us, creating a jutting ledge of ice.
Nara lands lightly on it, her stride unfaltering as she reaches the safety ofthe outcrop.
