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Wrath’s gaze was directed elsewhere, looking over the crowd like he could see something.

I panted as I caught my breath, wanted to wipe the sweat from my forehead with my sleeve, but I couldn’t do so in my armor. “What do you see?”

Wrath didn’t speak.

My breath quickly returned to normal when a wave of adrenaline surged. “What do you see, Wrath?”

He turned to look at me, and his eyes were heavy.

“Not my father…” An unbearable pain that was far worse than the tiredness of my limbs struck me. I’d only been worried about surviving the battle myself. My father felt invincible to me, immortal like Wrath. I pushed through the others engaged in battle to see.

Wrath grabbed me by the wrist. “You will be killed?—”

I twisted out of his grasp then shoved him hard in the shoulder before I broke free, moving past the next line of fighting closer to the center of the clearing.

My father stood his ground with his sword gripped hard at his side, but chunks of his armor had been cut away by the ruthless assault of a blade. He was bleeding…and he was tired.

His assailants were three Barbarians. But they weren’t like the others I’d fought in the battle. They were taller and bigger, and their armor was completely maroon with beautiful accents of gold, crown emblems on their chests like they were the kings or generals of this army.

Queen Eldinar lay on the ground with a sword to her throat, a heavy Barbarian pressing his foot into her chest so she couldn’t move.

I quickly realized that my father had intervened to save her life.

After the pause in battle, they came for my father again, and he wielded his sword with Khazmuda’s strength, deflecting three blades alone. But the fatigue in his muscles gave way and left an opening he couldn’t prevent. One of their blades went deep into his shoulder.

“No!”

My father stumbled back, the golden blade still sticking out because it was so deep in his flesh.

The three halted their advance and stared down at him—like he was offal at their feet.

My father didn’t get up again. He lay there then tried to prop himself up on his arm, but something about the wound made itdifficult for him to move. He didn’t look afraid, just angry that he’d been cut down like this.

I gripped my sword and ran forward.

But Wrath grabbed me with iron strength and held me back.

“Let me go!” I twisted out of his grasp and punched him in the face.

He grabbed me again, but then the world changed.

The battle was frozen in time. The ash that drifted through the air had gone motionless. It was silent, the cheers of the triumphant and the screams of the dying muted. I glanced around quickly to see that everyone had gone stiller than a winter morning, before I looked at Wrath again.

“Listen to me.” He had a naturally intense look about him, but now he looked more focused than he’d ever been, with a hint of ferocity in his hard stare. “I have but a moment.” His hand was so tight on my arm that I could feel him begin to dent the metal. “I can’t fight for you.” He pressed his hand to my chest, on top of the dragon crest that signified my family’s line. “But I can give you my army.”

A rush of heat left his hand and flooded into my body, burning hotter than flames. It made me wince from the pain, but then a blast of coolness followed. The burn continued to singe long after the heat was gone, but the pain was minimal.

His hand remained on my chest, and he looked me in the eye. “And I can give you my strength—the strength of a god.” The heat returned, but this time, it was hotter than it’d been a moment ago, so hot it made me give a quiet scream. “Defeatthem.” He pulled his hand away, and before I had the chance to ask exactly what had transpired, the world resumed its chaos.

I was nearly knocked to my feet by the screams and the pandemonium. I looked at my father again, confined to the ground, the massive sword sticking out from his wounded body—and the Barbarians descended.

“The dead are yours to command.”

I didn’t know how I knew what to do. Once the gift had been granted to me, it became instinct and intuition.Rise. All those who had died in the battle suddenly rose, elves, men, and orcs. Somehow they accepted my thoughts as orders, and those nearest suddenly converged around my father to form a line of defense. There was an orc without a head, an elf whose eyes had been stabbed from his face, a man who had lost one of his legs. Beaten and bloodied from the battle that had claimed their lives, they raised their swords and shields and surrounded my father, protecting him on all sides.

The Barbarians halted their progression.

My father looked around frantically as he watched the dead come to his aid, fight for him even though he had forsaken that power long ago. He looked far more afraid at being saved than he had on the threshold of his execution.