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“I see it. On my way.”

Rowan sidestepped the slicing power of air magic aimed at a blue behemoth of a dragon overhead; the force of it slapped her hair back in a wild torrent.

While it wasn’t unusual for the dragons to take to the skies around Black Cove, seeing them engaged in battle rather than passing through was a much more horrific sight to behold. She couldn’t imagine what the scene would be like if the biggest and baddest showed up and joined the fray.

His absence disappointed the part of her that yearned to meet, but the sane part of her knew it was better if the world never knew that kind of fear.

Underneath her feet, the ground trembled before piles of dirt exploded from the earth, became compact, and hurled toward a red, spiky-tailed dragon that moved through the sky with a speed that made her lose her breath as he passed next to her.

Rowan jumped from the debris before the makeshift weapons slammed against a fireball thrown from the back of a great maw five times the size of her body.

She landed on her feet, back in one of the newly formed craters. The rain was falling so heavily that pools of mud were being created.

Nausea from her quick descent rolled up in her throat. Rowan emptied her stomach, which eased a portion of the discomfort.

She cut her celebration short as a giant wall of fire appeared overhead and settled on the perimeter around the Estate and some portions of Dragon Alley.

Kin’s spell was complete.

“These reporters don’t seem to care if they get fried to get an exclusive look at the battle. Hurry with whatever you have up your sleeve.”

Taking the words of her pseudo-PR manager into consideration, Rowan unclasped one of the two golden necklaces at the base of her throat. Her restrictions fell as she carefully tucked the piece of jewelry into her pocket.

Clarity rolled in as frantic magic filled her pores. It restored her body to the state before her intoxication. With unfiltered magic thrumming through her veins, Rowan was in peak form. Her senses kicked up a notch.

The smell of char was prevalent over the wet dirt. She heard the moment wings sliced through the air. Felt the magical signature of each creature alive on the field.

From the rain, the earth, the fire, and the howling wind, Rowan plucked even the tiniest morsels of elemental magic.

There was such a volume of it flying at her that her hands throbbed with their desire to lose it all back into the world. Her body was not used to accommodating so much at once, but she found it in herself to push past the discomfort until she absorbed every trace of magic around her.

A flash of her time at Spellcaster’s Academy passed through her mind. As elementals, the dragons drew their power from these sources; it would take hours for the magic to fill back up.Therefore, it would take hours for the dragons to have access to their powers again.

In theory, it was a good plan. In practice, it was taking a lot longer than she expected for their already accrued power to run out.

It wasn’t until a whole five minutes later, full of her casting spells of contrasting elements to divert some of the more lethal blows, that the rain pattered to sprinkles and the wind died down.

The howls and growls from the dragons turned into whines as the sky - bound bodies began to drop and transform mid-flight to the usual humanoid form dragons of modern times preferred. Wielding the enormous amount of magic she had taken, Rowan urged the Earth to beckon her call, and roots erupted from the grounds all over the estate, catching the bodies before they splattered on the ground. They retreated into their original pockets of earth as they laid the dragons down.

Even with their magic and energy wiped, the dragons were trying to crawl towards one another to sink their extended claws into each other’s flesh. The oddest realization hit Rowan as she walked through their ranks, observing their half-hearted attempts.

Trails of tears rolled down splotchy red and purple faces.

It was only with the sudden silence following their onslaught that the notes of the song she’d heard in their minds hit her ear. She frowned as she walked past the bodies, pushing each of them apart with roots that re-emerged at her behest. It was the same song that she had heard rolling through their heads when she tried to communicate, full of notes so high and fervent it was a bid of desperation.

She had to launch herself past the dragons once she realized the sound was moving. As if it knew she was on its trail, it fell into silence.

Along with the sound leaving, the dragons also halted their attempts to harm each other. She watched as they fought against her spell and wailed through the silence, desperate to check on one another.

What in the endless hells?

Rowan had never been so confused in her 26 years of life. She, a Master Spellcaster from the top spell-casting academy, a pro at solving the most head scratching cases of magical incidents, had no idea what had just happened.

Slowly, the dragons seemed to realize there was an outsider in their midst, and they turned to her, weak but growing defensive. With practiced ease, she re-clasped the necklace, shrinking her connection to magic. She tried to ignore the hollow feeling the null charm filled her with.

Louisa appeared beside her in a smoky mist, her eyebrows coming together at the rise of the tension in the dragons.

“What’s with the mood swings?” she scowled.