I swallowed as I took a knee in the soaked grass to focus on the premonition.
“Castor?” Daxton’s voice dropped as he stood protectively over me, his blade slick with blood. “Stay with me.”
“I am,” I lied, slipping into a premonition.
The battlefield shifted like a living thing as it morphed into a time that had not yet come to pass. Ice curledup my arms as I waited to see what would unfold before me. Sound drowned out first, swallowed by a ringing pitch, so high it felt like my skull was splitting in two. Then the colors bled out until only darkness remained—an endless sea of death sprawled before me.
Well, wasn’t this just peachy?
Blazing white flames roared across my vision, devouring everything in its path. At first, I thought it was Adohan or Skylar’s flames, but this? This was wrong. It burned too hot, too hungry.
A streak of blue cut through the swirls in a violent array, parting to reveal two figures caught in the collision of the flames. Their silhouettes twisted within the inferno, swallowed by a vortex of searing light. Through the haze, I could see their mouths open, screams soundless against a blizzard of fire.
“Daxton?”
My heart stopped, recognizing my brother entangled in the flames. I tried to reach for him, but my hand passed through the vision like mist on a sunless day.
Then came the shadows. They poured from the edges of the blaze, stretching in from a darkness too deep to be natural. They crawled up Daxton’s legs, spiraled around him until they entwined in the second figure clutched in his arms.
Then the flames burned hotter—brighter somehow. Blazing in a blue brilliance that forced me to shield my eyes.
It was almost as if light and darkness were in a standoff.
My brother screamed, “Do it.”
His voice echoed in my vision as the flames surged one last time in a blinding, deafening burst, with Daxton vanishing in a spray of white-blue light.
Gone. He and the second figure weregone.
“No!” A scream tore from my throat as the battlefield snapped into focus. I looked up, and Daxton stood before me,alive.Thank the gods he was alive.
He reached out and gripped my shoulders hard enough to bruise. “Castor! What did you see?”
My breath came in shallow, ragged bursts. “You. And…” I shook my head, unable to disguise the tremor in my voice. “You were lost in flames and shadows.” I didn’t dare say more without concrete evidence. We were in the middle of a battlefield after all.
Daxton’s face hardened, not with fear, but with a determined look. “Was Skylar—?” He paused, swallowing hard. “Was Skylar there?”
“No,” I said at first. “Well, I don’t know… There was a second figure with you, but they were cloaked in shadow.”
Before Daxton could speak, the sky above us erupted in chaos.
High Fae riders streaked across the clouds on their pegasi, each mount a blur of muscle and feather and raw power. Their wingbeats boomed like thunder, stirring the battlefield below with gusts of wind fanning Skylar’s flames into a furious spiral. And tearing through their ranks was the horde of harpies, grotesque monsters that I would gladly give all my finest wines to be rid of.
Alright, not every barrel. I’ll admit that was a stretch.
“On your feet,” Daxton said, hauling me up. “We need to keep fighting.”
As we fought off the onslaught from the ground, the creatures above plunged in savage arcs, claws outstretched to eviscerate their prey, their piercing shrieks rattling my bones. Their wings beat with brutal strength, each downward stroke hurling violent gusts that battered us below as they slammed into our riders in midair.
“Up here,” Daxton said, breathing heavily. “We need to recall our lines and reform our defenses.”
Thank the gods for the slight reprieve. I’d take it.
Adohan’s war cry drew my attention to the skies as Daxton rallied our forces. Fire streamed from his blade in an arc so bright it left an afterimage burned across the sky. His pegasus banked sharply, narrowly avoiding a harpy’s talons, and Adohan drove his flaming sword straight through the creature’s chest. It ignited from the inside out before plummeting to the ground with a trail of ember and ash in its wake.
Idris followed close behind her mate, spear whirling in a halo of heat. Her mount slammed its hooves into a harpy’s face, caving bone, before she impaled another that had dared latch onto the saddle. The creature shrieked, writhing, then went limp, and Idris kicked the corpse free with cold precision.
My stomach twisted as a loud screech pierced my eardrums. My eyes darted toward the source of the sound, widening in disbelief.
