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Flames of orange and white, blue and black, lit up feathered wings, forcing the seraphs to land on the platform or drop to the melee below. And when Sorin and Scarlett found their magic doused by wind or water, their blades did the rest.

Scarlett spun, kicking out and landing a clean quick to a seraph’s chest, sending him stumbling back. He slipped on the platform edge, nearly careening over it, his wings flapping to keep him balanced. His hand snapped out, a rope of vines exploding from his palm and wrapping around her throat, squeezing tight. She had starfire burning it away a second later, but the seraph was fast, already before her with a dagger aiming for her side. She whirled, but wasn’t fast enough. The blade grazed her skin before her shadows latched onto the dagger, yanking the seraph forward.

The male’s eyes flew wide when he couldn’t yank his arm back, her shadows fusing him to his weapon. Scarlett smiled before she let her shadows have him fully. They wound around his chest, squeezing just as tight as his vines had, before they went down his throat, darkness invading his being. This time when she kicked at him, he went toppling over the edge of the platform.

Scarlett straightened, turning in time to see an arrow coming for her. Her hand shot up, catching it by the shaft less than an inch from a clean shot to her heart. She blinked once, not quite believing it. Then she turned to Sorin, whose blades were currently locked between two seraphs.

“I caught it!” she cried.

Sorin’s gaze flicked to hers as he dropped a sword to wrap flaming fingers around one of the male’s throat. “Caught what?” he called back.

She dropped low, sensing the seraph who was diving for her, her shadows coating his wings in black and snapping them clean off.

“An arrow!” she hollered, still clutching the thing in her hand while her sword went through the seraph’s gut.

“Great, Love,” he yelled back, the other seraph he’d been fighting dousing his flames with water before managing to get him into a compromising hold. “Care to send it my way?”

In the next blink, there was a swirl of shadows by his hand, and he pulled the arrow from it, stabbing up and back directly into the seraph’s eye. The seraph howled, immediately releasing Sorin, who set the arrow tip flaring as he drew it across the seraph’s throat before plunging it into the male’s chest and pushing him off the platform.

They fought and killed. Blood sprayed and magic flared. And then Scarlett heard her name being screamed. She was looking around for the source of it when she spotted Talwyn on a balcony of one of the tallest towers of the Citadel. There was a griffin on the ground beside her, but she was pointing frantically down at the grounds below.

Scarlett dodged another blow, swiping out to deflect a blade as she made her way closer to Sorin. He saw her a second later, a knife of fire appearing and lodging into the seraph’s shoulder to give her the reprieve she needed. Sorin grabbed for her, spinning them so he could continue combat with the seraph, clearly sensing she was trying to work something out.

The ground forces had rallied as more and more Avonleyan forces had joined them, but at the back of Alaric’s soldiers was a group who appeared to just be…standing there. Until one peeled off. The figure was smaller than the others, but she would recognize how she moved even from hundreds of feet in the sky.

It was Nuri.

Her gaze jumped ahead to the direction she was traveling in, and it landed on a flash of silver hair that matched her own.

Cethin.

Nuri was going after Cethin.

How Talwyn had put together what was happening, Scarlett didn’t care. She was only grateful, once again, that Sorin had convinced her not to kill the female.

But she couldn’t leave Sorin and the Witches up here to keep fighting the seraphs alone.

Until two dragon roars ripped through the air. One belonging to a spirit animal and the other to the Legacy he was bonded to. Ranvir and Tybalt were soaring up, and the seraphs were scattering as dragon fire left those in its path in ashes.

That was all she needed

She leapt from the platform, free-falling through the air at the same time she said to Sorin,I need to go help Cethin. Cover me.

Her shadows were forming beneath her, the dragon taking shape as she fell. She flipped in the air, seeing the seraphs diving after her, but Sorin was already there, already catching up to them.

Not on a fire dragon, though.

No. He had godsdamn wings of fire.

He tackled a seraph from behind, the two of them rolling in the air before blood was spraying, and the seraph’s wings went one way while the male himself plummeted.

Gods. She could watch him like that all damn day. Fire and blood and—

Right.

Cethin. Nuri. Death to bestow.

She could swear she felt Sorin chuckling darkly down the bond as she flipped around, not even realizing she’d landed atop her shadow dragon.