Sneaking a group this large out of the city stood a great risk of attracting attention, but what choice did we have? We took the spiraling staircase upward, and returned to the ruined streets. Arthur and Finlay shifted into wolves, boosting their sorceresses onto their backs. Jasper shifted into an alicorn.
“Gods, I haven’t gotten to stretch my wings in about a month,” Jasper moaned. He let out a groan as his wings unfolded at his sides.
Ozzie tried to change into a dragon, but couldn’t manage. He stumbled forward and said, “Jas, I’m weak. I haven’t eaten in—”
“I know. Get on my back,” Jasper ordered. Ozzie pulled himself onto Jasper by use of his mane. I counted quickly and scowled.
“The rest of you should fly out of the city. It’ll be the quickest way,” I said.
“We shouldn’t split up now,” Finlay growled.
“Arthur doesn’t have wings, and I can’t carry him and Vara both,” I said. “We’ll proceed on foot.”
“Are you sure?” Amantha asked.
“It’s the only way. We can’t waste precious time arguing about this. Finlay can make a portal once you’re in the woods,” I said. “He knows where to go.”
Finlay nodded, though reluctantly. He spread his wings and flew Amantha into the air. Jasper and Ozzie followed him into the gray clouds above.
Arthur turned to me with a low growl. “You have wings now, Ethan. You can go with them,” He was the only fae among us who couldn’t fly, as he hadn’t earned his wings, and his mate wasn’t able to fly herself… she was just too weak.
I gave a humored smile. “If I come back home without her brother, my wife will have my head. I’ll stay with you.”
My time as the Phantom gave me expert knowledge of these city streets, even ruined as they were. I could get Arthur and Vara out of here quicker. Tygrys hummed at my side as we proceeded toward the eastern gate.
We had to pass by the impaled soldiers again if we were to get out of here. My gut grew hollow as their lonely forms loomed above us. Vara gasped as she saw the mounted bodies and turned her sights away.
“I never left the Hall of Wonders because I was too pregnant to hurry through the streets quickly,” she hushed. “I didn’t think—”
“Don’t look at them, Vara,” Arthur rumbled. He set his gaze ahead, as if he too could not bear the sight.
I could see the trees. We could escape, and leave this cursed city behind us.
There was a loud noise, and Vara let out a wail of pain behind me. I spun around— a spell had knocked her from Arthur’s back. She clutched at her belly, face twisted in pain.
“Vara!” Arthur struggled to help her up. I turned in the direction the spell had come from. Black Claw enforcers prowled out of the shadows, black cloaks and skull masks streaked with blood. These streets were ripe for picking sacrifices.
Hatred unlike anything I’d felt before erupted inside of me. I wanted to take the anger of losing my city out on the first unlucky bastard that strolled in my path. I’d been waiting for weeks to get such an opportunity, and now that it was presented, my grief became unbound— and uncontrollable.
I snarled and changed into a wolven. My teeth ripped out the jugular of the first cultist I got my paws on before I plunged my teeth into another. Unseelie spells began flying against the night, but I dodged them all and ripped apart whatever cultist was closest bit by bit.
Tygrys flew forward, giving a yowl. His magic exploded out of him, and when it hit the nearest cultist, immediately blew him to pieces.
Vara remained curled on the ground. She clutched her belly and didn’t get up— she was too weak. Arthur gave a vicious snarl, and his form became a dark shadow. His body turned into black smoke as he flew forward, slamming into the cultists one by one. They gave dying gasps as they hit the ground, Arthur’s Unseelie magic stealing their lives the moment his shadowed form made impact.
We killed them all. There could be no witnesses left alive. I stood over their corpses, dripping with gore and heaving with bloodlust.
I felt manic. Nearly like a monster. But this was a small taste of revenge. It wasn’t quite enough.
“Can you stand?” Arthur had changed back into a man, and went to help Vara.
“No,” she gasped. “I don’t have the strength.”
Arthur hefted Vara into his arms. “Ethan, we need to get out of here now.”
“We’re almost there.” I kept my eyes, ears and nose on the lookout for cultists as we fled through the eastern gate. We hurried through the trees, to create some distance between the city and us before we dared making a portal.
Arthur and Vara were terrified, but not I. I felt a kind of madness overtake me as my wolf raged inside. Where were Gabby’s soldiers, more cultists, Droga himself?
