He darted between the pines. A surge of light revealed Reagan, only for him to vanish a second later.
Lightning cleaved the sky, followed by a crack of thunder.
“The idiot is chasing him,” Gwinifer said through gritted teeth.
Then she vanished, and the three of them were gone.
My mouth went dry.
I spun, only to have Finn’s hand secure me by the elbow. “Stay here. You cannot help him right now.”
He was right, but my heart thrashed inside my chest, and I wished I could humiliate Varian myself, strike that insufferable, hateful face with my own fist. Madness, surely, that I’d felt even a sliver of empathy for him tonight.
Cerridwen and Barracus reached us just as the place fell deathly silent. The music stopped; the murmurs faded.
The aurora lights disappeared, swallowed by grey clouds, letting darkness fall over the courtyard. The temperature dropped, as if the weather spells had faded, and a foul scent blew past on a gelid gust of air.
A scream tore through the darkness. Loud. Terrified.
Finn went unnaturally still beside me. “It’s an attack.”
Then, the courtyard erupted into a turbulent frenzy.
A chorus of growls and screams and cries muffled everything. The reek of rot, iron, and decay clogged my nostrils. People surged in from every direction, eyes wide, mouths open in shouts as they pushed toward the gates.
“Grims,” Finn warned, stretching his neck and pulling me out of the stream of citizens.
Barracus began barking orders. “I’ll set the squads in motion. Cerridwen, evacuate everyone.”
There was no time for an answer. She was already moving toward a cluster of guests.
Screams broke louder through the darkened courtyard, and feral growls sounded closer. Several of them.
“Come on. I have to get you out of here,” Finn said.
“No.” I halted, pulling Finn to stop. “You need to help them evacuate everyone.”
“I’ll just bring you to the Hall.”
I shook my head. “I’ll run. Go help them. Everyone needs to leave now.”
A banquet of food was overturned by the crowd. Before I could ask why everyone wasn’t flinging, I remembered Gwinifer once telling me that not every mage could.
Dread churned in my stomach, my chest tightening with each overwhelming heartbeat.
“Fine, then run fast and lock your room. Stay there until someone comes.”
I nodded and did as he said.
It wasn’t easy to flee against the tide of desperate faces. Still, I pressed forward, guiding those in my path toward the gates. My eyes kept darting towards the woods, half expecting the creatures to emerge at any second. The growls layered over one another, making it sound as though there were countless of them.
Darkness closed in, people screaming and moving in frantic blurs, yet none appeared harmed. It wasn’t until I ascended the stone stairs leading to the castle’s entrance that I saw it.Them.
The horde growled from the eastern woods. Glowing red eyes and shaggy black fur sent ice coursing through my limbs. They were here, but not one of them attacked.
They couldn’t.
A thick, shimmering wall held the beasts at the edge of the trees. They thrashed and leapt against it, but the ward would not break. Reagan stood directly before them, hands spread wide, weaving the immense barrier that rose as tall as the pines.
