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Bryn looked at the crow on her shoulder, surprised at the lack of usual snark, but the crow was battle ready and focused.

Snark was for days off from battle. Got it.

“The name is Bryn, and your job here is to distract the wraiths as much as you can so I can manage to behead a few.”

“And so it shall be. Don’t die... again. It’s annoying.”Cyerra took off and dove in and out of the black mass, separating from the wraiths before any of them could physically harm her.

Once the whole of the black cloud was in the inner gate, Bryn watched them separate into well over a hundred more sluaghs.

Daran and Arioch were covered in the black ichor, fighting the newest wraiths in the middle of Saints’ Road.

It would be a massacre, and she had to wonder if they could survive this even if she were at full power. These beings were far too difficult to kill, and at most, they had only dispatched twenty so far.

Her friends looked as bad as she did, each of them tired and weary as the battle raged on.

How much longer could they hold out?

“Be safe,” she whispered as the crow swooped down toward a wraith fighting one of the town merchants before the man went down in a spray of blood.

“The people will be safer indoors! The wraiths are here for us!” she yelled out to her friends, and watched as Justin nodded, backing away but still aiming his rifle. She knew he would take care of it.

Declan was reloading each of the rifles now when the men ran out of bullets, and she realized they would never want for anything with him around.

“Get inside!” she yelled at a line of townsmen along the sides of Saints’ Road, their weapons aimed and firing at the wraiths, but it changed nothing. The bullets hit them, but it was as if the wraiths themselves felt no pain.

“Shut it, witch! You brought them here!” one of the men yelled back.

Touché.

“Let them fall on their own swords, Bryn. You are doing your best,” Niamh whispered, and somehow Bryn heard her clearly over the loud clashes of metal on metal and the booming discharge of the guns.

A tingling sensation made her turn as a sword barely missed her. One of the wraiths had been midswing to take her head off, but Niamh was already on it, dispatching the wraith as efficiently as she had the others.

Focus!

It was a ghastly soundtrack of bullets flying, the wraiths killing, the flames of buildings on fire from broken sconces, and children yelling for their parents as they were taken to safety. Justin was covering people as they made it into the buildings on the side of the road that were not on fire.

Travis, Caden, and Kessler were aiming at the heads of the wraiths in unison from between the buildings.

Callum was with Danu, holding her and giving her the power she needed to sustain her in whatever it was she was doing.

It was then that Bryn realized there was a push of power coming from Danu to her.

The woman was going to kill herself helping Bryn, and all because Bryn couldn’t access her powers.

Trauma, Callum had said. Her trauma was making her push her true self deep down.

Turning to face off against the ones focused on her, more of the wraiths spilled over the gate, multiplying.

It was never ending.

They couldn’t last.

“Get everyone to the truck! I will meet you all outside of the gate!” Bryn yelled, as she swung her knife like the amateur she was. She barely cut anyone or anything, only managing a few lucky strikes. She had no training to be some master at killing assassins, and it was all too obvious.

The cut of a blade into her side told her she was getting too close to death.

“Bryn!” Declan yelled, and his voice was closer than it should have been.