Every muscle in my body contracted in his presence. The four of us skidded to a stop. Oberi began barking as if he was rabid, fury festering through our bond, and Rishi hissed.
Rage overcame me. I didn’t waste a second to stop and think. I threw my hands up to cast a spell, but Marcus shoved my arms to the side, and the deadly blast of Air I’d conjured spun off into the forest, toppling trees but leaving the Warden untouched.
“He’s got a hostage!” Marcus cried.
Only then did I assess what lay before us. A woman cried out in pain from beside the Warden, as if he were dragging her along by her hair. I didn’t recognize her voice, but I sensed the witch magic within her.
The hostage is a witch in her sixties, Oberi quickly noted for me. She’s covered in bruises, has short hair and cat-eye glasses, along with an eye tattoo on the back of her hand. Sound like anyone you know?
Not in the slightest.
“Who is she?” I demanded of Marcus.
“I— I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve never seen her before in my life.”
I didn’t know what sick game the Warden was playing, and why he thought we should care for the life of an unknown woman. And yet, I found myself hesitating to deliver a blow, because this innocent person would surely be harmed by my spell.
Perhaps there was still some good left in me. I had to hold on to that and fight for it, because I refused to go back to the monster I’d once been. If we were going to die here on Darke Island, and that’s where our graves were always meant to be, we’d go down fighting the Warden. I’d perish knowing there was at least some sense of dignity left in me.
“You think you can show up on my island and I wouldn’t know about it?” the Warden bellowed. “You tried to protect yourself from my Seer’s spells, but she knows everything that happens at the Darke Institute.”
So this was his Seer— the one Ava and I had overheard him speaking about all those years ago when we were investigating the Infernal Underground. He’d been certain there were demigods at the Institute because a Seer had foretold it. He’d been using this witch to obtain visions about the future, and by the looks of it, she was anything but a willing participant. This deplorable man had tortured her, and now that she’d outlived her usefulness, he was using her as a shield.
I noticed that besides the hostage, the Warden had come alone. He was unaccompanied by his army of antidemigods, The Mission, or even the dark gods he’d been working with, which meant he was confident enough in his power that he believed he could kill us all single-handedly.
I knew he could. After the power he’d displayed at the camps, it would be all too easy for him to do.
“Hand over the Divinity Keys,” the Warden sneered.
“Or what, you’ll kill the witch?” I demanded. I was stalling, because I knew the Warden could’ve ripped us to pieces already, so he must’ve had some other motive in bringing this witch along. He had to know I’d hesitate, because it was obvious we weren’t going to win this. Either way, I was going to try and save the life of this unknown person, because it was the right thing to do, and I was sick of going down the wrong path.
The Warden laughed. “You think I brought her here to negotiate with you? She’s here as punishment for refusing to divulge the information I wanted from her. But it’s no matter— I got what I wanted, and now, you will hand over the keys. That isn’t a request.”
Ez’s words echoed in my mind. If you take his wings? Then he loses the source of his magic, and he dies.
The Warden was powerful, but without a magical source, he could do nothing to hurt us. I wasn’t leaving here without every last one of his feathers in my hands.
I attacked before the Warden could, blasting a spell so fast he didn’t have time to react. I melded my Air and Earth magic together, causing a column of wind and stone to spiral forward at the same time the ground snapped to form a crevice between us.
The Warden shoved the witch aside, and she landed with a heavy thud on the ground. She scrambled away from him, her hands trembling against the earth in terror.
He spread his wings and leapt into the air, but I commanded roots to whip out from beneath him and wrap around his ankles, dragging him back down. My roots clawed upward, reaching for his wings to rip them from his body.
The Warden flapped his wings with such immense power that he broke free of my roots like they were mere threads waiting to snap. He laughed manically, like he was nothing short of amused.
I ran forward, siphoning power from Oberi. A quick shift into a wyvern would give me the brute strength to get this job done. I’d rip the Warden’s wings out with my fangs. I felt Oberi’s shifter magic tingle through me, then immediately recoil, ripped violently away.
“Oberi, help!” I begged. “I need your magic!”
What do you want me to do? Oberi snapped. I can’t shift because of your dad’s stupid collar, and I can’t send any magic your way! The collar prevents that! I can’t help you!
For fuck’s sake. Cameron wasn’t even here, and he’d all but killed us. He couldn’t screw us over more than he already had.
I ran toward Oberi, attempting to yank the collar off or break it apart, but it just wouldn’t budge. It was stuck around his neck, and we didn’t have any time to figure out how to take it off.
Pivot, I heard my grandfather say, his lessons resonating from somewhere deep down. I changed strategies.
“Everybody hit him at once!” I shouted to my friends, and they sprang forward immediately to cast spells.
