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Black blood spattered across the forest floor.

The gust of an arrow kissed Wilder’s cheek.

Still he didn’t stop. And he didn’t look back.

He lit his swords ablaze and fought darkness with fire, not caring if he set the whole damn forest alight.

‘Hawthorne, to your left!’ Kipp’s voice sounded from above.

Wilder moved without question and thrust his left sword through the throat of a wraith with enough force that it came out the back of its neck. Hot blood spurted across Wilder’s face and chest, and he spat the putrid taste into the dirt.

Behind him, he could hear the brutal sound of Thea slicing through flesh, bone and tendons to wrench hearts from chest cavities —

‘Left again, Hawthorne!’

He blocked an incoming slash of bloody talons with both his blades and then decapitated the wraith with a double cross-swipe to the neck, the creature’s clouded blue eyes widening in shock before its head toppled from its body. Darkness swept in and the beginnings of a new head started to take shape, the sight utterly gruesome, no matter how many times Wilder had seen such a thing before.

It leaked shadows, regenerating where it needed to, until Thea leapt upon it to carve the rest of it up.

Wilder didn’t look at her. He couldn’t, or else he might lose his focus, his edge against these fucking monsters.

Somewhere nearby he could hear the wet, sickening thud of Torj’s hammer pummelling a creature to a pulp —

A scream sounded.

A human scream.

Wren.

Wilder whirled around in time to see Kipp throw himself from the canopy onto a wraith’s back. The monster had its claws around Wren’s throat, her hands clutching and scratching at its grip, her legs kicking out underneath her —

Wilder readied to throw his sword, but Torj’s spear soared through the air, piercing the wraith from the back of its skull through its face, the tip nearly kissing Wren’s nose.

The wraith, Wren and Kipp all collapsed to the ground, Kipp scrambling for Wren. She was already on her feet, panting, her pretty face splattered with black blood.

But onyx threads of power surged from the wraith’s unmoving body, coiling around Wren and Kipp like vicious snakes. Both alchemist and Guardian’s eyes bulged as they gasped for air, darkness lashing at them.

‘Wren!’ Thea’s panic was like a knife to the heart.

Wilder was already sprinting for them, but Wren’s hand shot out of the magic’s grasp, a lone flash of skin in a swirling black mass.

Thunder cracked.

Wilder’s heart squeezed painfully.

‘Wren, no!’ Thea screamed.

But Wren was beyond listening.

The second lost heir of Delmira called the storms down upon them all.

Lightning hit the forest floor in a brilliant flash of white. Wilder felt it vibrate through his bones. He scanned the woods for Torj, who was battering a wraith into the ground with his hammer, while another moved towards him.

There were more than a dozen of them now. Wilder didn’t know if Wren’s magic had attracted them, or if they had been lying in wait all along.

It didn’t matter.

What mattered was that they needed to finish this.