Five.
A dozen at once.
They ripped through the air with shrieking force, slamming toward us from every direction. Gideon threw both hands forward, magic exploding into brilliant shields that curved through the room in sharp arcs.
The first three spears shattered against it.
The fourth broke through as Keegan shifted. His claws ripped through the shadow spear before it could strike Celeste. The force hurled him into the wall hard enough that the stone cracked beneath the impact.
“Keegan!” I shouted.
The Priestess moved her fingers again, and the shadows answered as the walls split open behind her.
Symbols ignited along the floor beneath her feet. Everything felt ancient and wrong enough that my birthmark burned sharply.
“She’s feeding from below,” Gideon warned.
“No kidding,” Twobble squeaked.
The Priestess’ eyes locked onto me again. “You shouldn’t have removed the pendant.”
I swallowed against the pain crawling beneath my skin. “I’m still standing.”
“For now.” Her hand snapped upward, and a beam of black magic tore across the room directly toward me.
Keegan lunged as I threw up my hands instinctively.
But Celeste stepped in front of me, and my grandmother’s beam struck the pendant.
The moonstone erupted, and light burst through the chamber so brightly that every shadow recoiled violently from the walls. Silver wings spread outward from the pendant in shimmering layers that wrapped around Celeste’s body. I was watching living magic protect my daughter.
The attack slammed into the barrier before ricocheting backward across the room, hitting the Priestess.
She staggered as shock flashed across her face.
The reflected magic struck the wall behind her and exploded through the stone in a burst of golden rays and shattered rock.
For one stunned heartbeat, nobody moved.
Celeste looked down at the pendant glowing against her chest before returning her gaze to her great-grandmother.
“You missed,” she whispered.
The Priestess’ expression darkened into something terrible, and the room exploded.
Shadows burst from the floor in violent waves while the symbols beneath the Priestess ignited fully. Every candle in the chamber flared black instead of blue, and I felt the ice hit my body as shadow magic swirled around us.
“She’s angry,” Twobble announced unnecessarily.
“Thank you, Twobble!” Keegan said through gritted teeth.
“I contribute where I can!” But then he dashed behind the Priestess as she thrust both hands outward.
The shadows bolted toward us in spinning arcs sharp enough to slice stone from the walls. Gideon shouted something in the old mage language and threw up another shield while Keegan shifted back into human form long enough to grab me and Celeste both and move us behind a fallen section of broken rock.
Twobble wrapped himself around the Priestess’ ankles and bit firmly as the shadows hit Gideon’s shield hard enough to drive him backward across the floor.
But the shield held.
