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The monster roared back.

And they collided.

Teeth ripped and claws sliced as the two creatures sparred. Zephyr clamped her jaw down on the monster’s neck, daggerlike nails raking down its chest, and with a flap of her wings, she lifted them both into the sky. The abomination howled as Zephyr took them higher and higher, then released it with what could only be a smirk of satisfaction on her volacarnii maw.

It wasn’t to last.

Because just as the monstrous beast fell away, its one remaining wing failing, fluttering uselessly, its tail lashed out. The sharp, bladed tip connected with Zephyr’s wing, and green-black feathers were suddenly drifting through the air.

The ground shook when the massive abomination hit the ground.

It did not shake when Zephyr followed, careening into the snow a few yards down. Cedric’s face was horror-struck as, with a flash of viridian light, Zephyr’s volacarnii form shimmered back into her sylvan one, and she lay there, crumpled on the ground.

Cedric hauled the sylvan into his arms, screaming for aid. And Kit knew it was terrible; she knew it was perhaps the worst thing she’d ever thought, but she really wished he hadn’t.

Because fuck it all, there was Tenny, urging Fjaethe through the chaos toward them. Kit could not hear the words Cedric murmured as he thrust a limp Zephyr onto the horse’s back, but relief spooled through her body when Tenny nodded, one hand already lifting to her token, and galloped away.

That relief was short-lived.

Just as Kit tore her eyes from the scene below, a wall slammed into her.

Pain radiated down the entire left side of her body as she spun through the air, her wings flailing. And then she was falling, bracing herself for the impact of frozen, rocky ground.

It did not come.

Kit fell into a pool of shadow, like a cushion of air. She plummeted through the in-between for a singular moment, then popped back out a few feet from where she would have hit the ground.

And stumbled right into the firm, steady body of Tenebris Nox.

There was no time to marvel at them.

No time for thanks.

No time to dissect the expression on the nocterrian’s face as they looked at Kit.

Not when the abomination that had slammed into her landed before the two of them.

As did another.

And another.

The three monsters surrounded the pair, folding their demon-like wings against their backs. From somewhere across the field, there was a surge of power that Kit felt in her bones, and she didn’t have to turn toward where Malakar still stood to know it was coming from him. Whether the blood that the dark sorcerer had been gathering from the field had finally reached him or this was a result of whatever his followers were doing with—to?—the mana spring, Kit didn’t know. What she did know was that when the burst of magic washed over the battlefield, something shifted in the already overwhelming fight.

It was not in a good way.

Scales of red crystal erupted over the monsters’ skin, locking into place like plates of armor. Their claws lengthened. The black skin around their mouths stretched, flaked, like their very jaws were unhinging as they released a terrible scream in triplicate.

Despite herself, Kit felt a wild, hysterical laugh claw its way up her throat. She bit it back.

Nox widened their stance, twin batons brandished, shadows swirling at their feet.

“If we get out of this,” Kit hissed from between clenched teeth, a long spear of ice forming in her hands, “I have so much to yell at you about.”

Agony bloomed down the left side of her body as she sidestepped one monster’s lunge, narrowly avoiding its wild, thrashing claws. Nox batted the other two back with a broad sweep of their batons, and Kit slashed at the first with her spear. The blow she’d sustained in the air made her slow, though, and she staggered as a long claw caught her side, slicing at a gap in her armor.

She darted back with a pained hiss, one hand immediately bracing her hip. When she drew it away, her fingers were stained red.

A growl rumbled from Nox’s chest when they saw. “I long for the day when you thoroughly and deservedly eviscerate me,” they said, voice low and chillingly even. “But I am afraid I must first add one more grievance to your list.”