Snow hissed under the fire’s heat. Trees crackled. Hybrids circled, snarling, confused by the wall, frustrated by prey that no longer cowered.
Fenred shoved forward, eyes burning molten gold. “ENOUGH!”
His voice cracked like a whip through the clearing.
The hybrids gathered behind him.
Dani’s fire trembled.
Her knees hit the ground.
Edith screamed her name.
Fenred grinned, stepping through the smoke like it was nothing. “Brave little witch,” he murmured. “But you can’t hold it. You’re not strong enough.”
Dani lifted her head, sweat and tears mingling on her face.
“I don’t need to be,” she whispered. “I just need to be stronger than you.”
And with the last shred of strength she had, she pushed.
Fire arced upward, bright as dawn.
The hybrids flinched.
Fenred hissed, stumbling back.
The witches surged toward Dani, pulling her out of the collapsing heat as the spell finally tore loose and shattered behind her.
She sagged into their arms as darkness lunged for the edges of her vision.
“Dani,” Edith whispered urgently. “Stay awake.Stay awake.”
She tried.
She really did.
But the fire took too much.
And as she slipped under, she heard Fenred roar, a sound of pure, furious promise.
“Bring them DOWN!”
Then everything went black.
Chapter 22 - Arthur
Arthur hit the north ridge already half feral.
Broken wards, burned earth, the stink of hybrid rot and fire, the trail was a wound up the mountainside. The bond tugged in his chest, weak but there.
Alive, the bond said.
Alive. Hurt. Fading.
Not good enough.
They crested the last rise, and the trees fell away into a shallow bowl scooped out of the mountain. At the far edge, the black mouth of an old mine gaped in the rock. In the center, snow had melted to scorched earth and cracked stone, an ugly black crescent where fire had already eaten.
