I can’t let them hurt Raef and Daegan. I won’t.
I stride closer, staring at the side profile of the first one, his slender face and red beard imprinting on my mind as I thrust my knife into his throat, spraying blood.
And still, no one around him notices us.
I feel the heat of the blade as Kezra brings it to life, guiding me like a legendary warrior that moves with an ease and speed that I never earned. I’m not complaining, though. I’ll use every advantage I can.
I grunt as I slice a throat, refusing to look into the male’s face this time. Actually, as I glance away, I think it might have been a female.
It doesn’t matter.
I release a battle cry as the small group around me begins to take notice of us, and I see Rhydra doing damage close by. I steal a sword off one of my fallen kills.
It was calling out to me.
It feels right as I raise it, and Kezra jumps over from the dagger I sheath. With a graceful swoop, I ram it straight through a soldier’s armor, right into his chest.
With my left hand, I shoot a wall of water out, protecting me as I see a barrage of fireballs coming my way.
Once my power douses those I immediately turn the water into a thousand tiny icicles as I ram the sword into another body, and I release them onto the soldiers to my left with my other hand. Some of them block them. Some didn’t stand a chance.
I risk a glance back, relief hitting me as Daegan and Raef tear through the battlefield and Rhydra clears out a group beside me. She really is skilled with her staff and daggers, holding her own against every element thrown at her—and somehow, she’s still surviving. Still, I don’t stray far. She could easily be overrun.
I see a soldier near me trying to flank her, and I drop my sword, reach for a dagger, and thrust it in his neck before the flames gathering in his hands touch her.
I pick the sword back up.
The speed with which I’m moving is still shocking.
The fairy magic must be preventing me from getting sore and fatigued, because my sword arm should be burning right now. Instead, I feel great. I feel like I can take on an army.
A searing heat hits my arm, and I cry out, immediately throwing water on it. I turn and find the perpetrator, casting a ball of water out and securing it around his head. I watch as he flails and panics, but I’m not breaking my concentration. I keep it encircled around his head until he drowns in it, eventually dropping to the ground.
The soldiers around me have dwindled. Many of them have worked their way toward Daegan and Raef, trying to sneak up from behind.
I glance at Rhydra. “You good?”
She grunts, pulling her knife out of a soldier’s neck and then cutting a vine that’s wrapped around her ankle. “Yep.”
“How can we help them?” I ask.
“I feel like it’s more helpful to steer clear and let them do their thing.”
I don’t like it. I can’t stand here and do nothing while Daegan and Raef are fighting for their lives. I also don’t want to get burned to death in their fire, though. Or get in their path so they can’t blast anyone around me.
“Maybe we should have climbed on their backs?”
Rhydra shakes her head. “Look at everything being thrown at them. They’re a massive target. He can’t protect you up there with everything going on around him. And he will try to protect you. Over everything.”
Fair point.
A horn sounds in the distance, and my heart sinks. More soldiers march toward Daegan and Raef from far along the walls. This time, they have their water elementals at the front, casting some sort of combined water shield to protect the whole front line. I don’t know if it will help.
The night is still dark, and some areas are still impossible to see. All the soldiers I killed lost their torches, so I can barely see Rhydra in front of me. A small fire orb on the ground nearby is the only light around us. But the soldiers in the distance carry countless torches, making it easy to track them in the night, and the endless assault of dragon fire is helping to illuminate things too.
“Fuck,” Rhydra says.
“No one sees us over here,” I tell her. “Let’s flank the ones coming from the far side over there and take out as many as we can.”
