“What is it?” I asked.
“You’re floating,” Ryker said in awe. “And your eyes…they’re silver again.”
I looked down, only to see the wind had carried me a few feet away from the ground. I hadn’t even noticed, caught in my own incantation.
My overheated skin felt tight, like it was too mortal to contain me fully.
Through the trees, I saw Beren, Lioran, and Edrin charging forward. Not in the first lines. Never ones to risk their own lives. Not fully.
They were guarded on all sides by lines upon lines of soldiers, shields propped up high.
“Their leaders are coming,” I said.
Ryker’s head whipped back at the wall of shields. “Cowards, as always.”
But if they were here, it meant the mist would not come again.
I sucked in a breath, commanding my powers back into me. But the wind had become greedy, pulling at them.
The same way the purple light had tried to sap me.
Worst of all, some reckless part of me wanted to feel more power.
I wanted to be endless, floating in the sky for all eternity.
Perhaps this was why people did heinous acts.
Power could become intoxicating.
But it took one look at Ryker fighting the soldiers off to regain my senses.
True power was not selfish.
Gnashing my teeth, I tugged on my tendrils once more.
They didn’t control me. I commanded them.
I looked up at the stars. How many mortals had they watched fight against each other throughout the eons? How many had they ignored?
Despite what some humans thought, we would never be as limitless as them.
Slowly, I began to descend, the screams and chaos blaring around me once more.
As I hovered in the air, I saw some of the Northern soldiers in the back rush into the forest, away from the battlefield.
“They’re running away,” I said.
Ryker cursed, flinging three soldiers off his back. “Beren and Nadya can’t leave.”
“I don’t see her.”
I stepped back onto solid ground, in the sea of chainmail, statues, and swords. The peace I felt dissipated, replaced with the roar of violence.
I barely had time to suck in a breath before a soldier charged at me. I gripped my bow and flung an arrow toward him right as my knees gave out from the strain. Even then, I knew Ryker was inhaling some of my exhaustion, slowed down, but still fierce.
I didn’t need to be standing to fight.
Whatever soldiers managed to pass the statues and warriors was met by my arrows. Through the chaos, my eyes tracked Dax as he sprinted through the invaders, daggers gleaming in the moonlight.
