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Wilder had his swords unsheathed in seconds as a deep, resonant tremor coursed through the ground beneath their feet, reverberating in the sandstone all around them, shaking the very foundations of the university.

‘What the fuck…?’ he muttered, glancing at Dratos. The air around them pulsed with the aftershocks, and the leaves of the nearby oak tree shivered.

Thea was already slipping her armour back on, tightening its ties with steady, efficient fingers. Then her blades were out as well, and she was scanning the skies. Wilder followed her gaze and cursed under his breath as he saw what she’d already spotted.

Fault lines now appeared in Talemir’s shadow shield around the university. Its protection was straining against whatever impact lay beyond it. A barrier forged with darkness now fought against its like. Dread bloomed in Wilder’s gut as flakes of shadow fell from the sky towards them.

‘We’re under attack,’ he said, turning to Dratos. ‘What’s the protocol?’

All three of them recoiled as another rumbling barrage of sound clapped overhead, and a quake gripped the earth beneath their boots. Loose stone fell from the walls around them and the telltale scent of burnt hair filled the air.

The wraiths were coming.

‘To the fields,’ Dratos shouted, bursting into a run. ‘We have to protect them at all costs.’

Wilder sprang into action, his pain and exhaustion long forgotten in the face of such peril. If the fields of sun orchids were compromised, the war would be lost before it truly began.

Thea sprinted at his side, her blades swinging in her hands as they cut through the university grounds and made straight for the crops. ‘Do you think they have Ryland?’ she asked.

‘Furies save us all if they do,’ Dratos replied.

Heart pounding, Wilder crested a ridge and reached the field of sun orchids first – just in time to see onyx power exploding as three shadow wraiths breached Talemir’s shield.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THEA

Adark chaos bloomed before them, a shocking contrast to the golden glow of the sun orchids and their delicate petals. Soaring through the air, the trio of wraiths unleashed vicious tendrils of shadow, lashing at the figures defending the crops below. The crops that were vital to the defence of the midrealms, that gave their allies an edge against the darkness.

Thea surged forward, instantly spotting Drue and Talemir at the heart of the madness. Talemir was wielding his own blasts of obsidian power, while Drue cleaved through any whips of shadow that came for her husband. Talemir wasn’t attacking the wraiths, Thea realised; he was trying to patch the fractures in the shield.

‘He needs help!’ Thea shouted. ‘Someone get Anya, and the other shadow-touched!’

‘She’s leading the defence for the northern perimeter. It’s under attack too,’ Cal called, making for the high ground. ‘It’s just us!’

‘Then we have to bring down these wraiths so Tal can mend the tears.’ Thea threw herself into the fray, severing those dark arms of power that threatened to stir nightmares into reality before them. Wilder and Dratos joined her, their great swords carving through any pulse of magic that came for them.

‘Cal!’ Thea yelled. ‘Hurry!’

The creak of a bow answered, and a flaming arrow speared through the sky, right through the skull of one of the wraiths. The creature screamed, the noise high-pitched enough to shatter the glass of a nearby greenhouse.

Its grotesque form fell from the clouds, limbs and wings flailing, its sinewy frame convulsing. Bone cracked as it hit the ground hard, and Thea leapt upon it in an instant, her dagger at the ready, Cal’s arrow still protruding from its monstrous face. She had lost count of how many wraiths she’d killed, but each time her Naarvian steel pierced one of their chest cavities, she relished the screams as though it were her first. As the others fought around her, she sawed through flesh and bone, reaching into the monster’s torso with her bare hand, her fist closing around its still-beating heart, warm and wet. With a few flicks of her dagger, the final tendons and arteries were severed, and she tore the organ from the wraith’s body, casting it onto the scorched earth beside them.

With the creature’s foul scent in her nose, she was on her feet again, her steel dripping with black blood, scanning the mayhem for her next victim. She had energy to burn, debts to repay. She’d slay wraiths all fucking night if she had to.

An eye-watering screech sounded and the second wraith fell through the air in Thea’s peripheral vision, but Drue was there in an instant, delivering the same justice. Her blades deflected clumsy slashes from the wraith’s talons as two more arrows shot through the creature’s wings, pinning it to the ground while Drue leapt upon its torso and carved out its heart.

All the while, Talemir stood in the centre of the orchids, defending everything they had fought so hard to protect over the years. His large hands moved skilfully before him as he wove an intricate pattern of shadow and sent it skyward, attempting to mend the tears in his shield. Beads of sweat trickled down his furrowed brow as he braced himself against the relentless assault of the third wraith. Wilder and Dratos guarded him against the onslaught of shadow magic as he worked, the pair of warriors slicing through every strike of shadow, the wraith above hissing and shrieking with every blow.

Thea whirled around, trying to spot Cal once more amid the surge of black tendrils as she fought back the lashes of power that came for her. They struck like vipers from a nest, vicious and determined to inflict as much pain as possible. But her steel cut clean through them, like severing a head from a snake’s body.

There! She spotted Cal on the next ridge over, his chest expanding as he took aim, his eyes narrowed in concentration. With a swift release of the bowstring, another flaming arrow streaked through the shadow-filled air. It found its mark, engulfing the leathery flesh in flames. Like its brethren, the monster fell from the sky with an agonised shriek, smoke trailing in its wake as it hurtled towards the earth.

‘This one’s mine,’ Wilder’s voice boomed across the field.

He has debts to repay too. Thea watched him move with predatory grace. Before the wraith hit the ground, Wilder’s bare knuckles punched through its chest, tearing its heart from its flaming body. The rest of its corpse collided against the dirt with a crash, splattering black blood all over Wilder and the sun orchids at his feet.

Thea watched in fascination as the flowers shifted, seeming to recoil at the contact, before burning the blood from their petals.