Page 25 of A Bond of Ice and Glass (Crowned By Wings #2)

“Loch, this isn’t you.” I step forward, my eyes pleading with him. “None of this is you.”

For a moment, his hand lowers. I’m getting through to him.

“This is him,” Nymala spits, dragging his attention back to her, his features twisting. “It’s always been him. He just kept it hidden from you.”

The shadows gather again, darkening around him. No! I almost got through to him. I almost reached him! I can still?—

He raises his hand to attack her. I lift my own instinctively and throw a blast of ice at him.

It fizzles the moment it touches him, but it’s enough to make him pause.

He looks at me again, and for a brief moment, his eyes soften.

I can see the old Loch trapped inside them, screaming for help. For me.

He always helped me at the convent. It’s time for me to help him.

“Don’t do this, Loch. It’s not too late. You can still turn back.”

He opens his mouth to say something. He shuts it when Erax snarls at him.

“No, please do it,” Erax growls, “so I can fucking kill you.”

The glimmer in Loch’s eyes vanishes, and his mask drops back into place again.

He disappears into thin air, leaving nothing but a dozen wraiths on their shadow dragons, flying towards us.

Nymala grabs my hand and pulls me away from them.

“What are you doing?!” I glance back at Erax preparing to fight. Noble stands behind him, their backs facing each other. “I have to help them!”

“You’ll just distract them,” Nymala says, casting a spell. “Believe me. The last thing they need is you getting hurt. Or them getting hurt worrying about you.” A gold orb appears above us and drops down, sealing us inside. “I know you can fight, but I promised Noble I’d get you out of here.”

“No! I don’t want to leave him.” I clench my dagger, half-tempted to turn it on her. Would it work? I don’t want to hurt her, but I will not leave Erax. “I’m not leaving him. Erax!”

I should be out there. I should be fighting.

Every second behind this shield feels like cowardice carved in gold. I can’t. I won’t .

“ERAX!”

“He can’t hear you. I’m sorry,” Nymala says softly. “We can still hear them, but the magic traps sound inside. Nothing can get in or out. It’s for your protection.”

I ignore her and lift my hands, letting my magic flood to the surface.

The shield just flares against my frost, melting it and making it useless. I’m trapped in a cage.

“I will never forgive you if something happens to Erax,” I promise her.

Even Noble, as much as I hate him right now.

I focus on them standing back to back. They don’t look even the slightest bit worried.

“Well, this is it, Goldeye.” Noble’s voice carries excitedly through the shield. “Time to fight these bastards. Just like old times, huh?”

Erax doesn’t hesitate.

He leaps , landing on one of the creatures mid-air. His blade slices through the rider’s chest as the dragon screams and disintegrates beneath him. They burst into ash that floats on the wind in a flurry.

“That’s one,” he grunts, landing in a crouch.

Another shadow-dragon whips Noble with its tail, sending him crashing against the inn before he can move out of the way. The stone crumbles behind Noble. Two wraiths shriek and shatter into dust when he hits the ground, his blades buried in their skulls. His weapons clatter beside him.

“That’s… two,” he gasps out. “Already… beating you… Ha.”

Erax scoffs at him, but there’s a smile tugging at his lips. I can tell he’s missed his friend. I wish Noble had never betrayed him.

I watch them fight, half in amazement, the other half in fear. They’ve completely fallen in sync with each other, slashing and parrying with perfectly timed movements. It’s like a dance they’ve done a million times before.

“Think we’ll survive this one?” Noble asks, pulling his blade out from another wraith.

Erax saves him from being lunged at by two more. He uses his power to incinerate them.

“Not with that technique, you won’t. But I will.”

“Oh, yeah?” Noble ducks from an arrow twisted in shadows. “What makes you think that?”

Erax looks at me then, and my heart leaps.

“Because I have my wife waiting for me.”

Just when I thought he couldn’t make me want him more, Erax says that .

But he’s bleeding. His shirt is torn, and the claw marks on his shoulder drip blood down his arm.

“I can help,” I say, glancing at Nymala, my voice desperate. “Let me help them.”

“You are helping.” She looks at them bringing down a dragon together. “Don’t you see how he fights for you? Every move, every enemy defeated—that’s all for you. They’re both fighting for you.”

I follow her gaze to where Noble slides under a wraith.

He slits its neck with a flick of his wrist, then his eyes cut back to the orb.

They don’t land on me. They land on Nymala.

She follows his every move, and for the first time ever, I see her nervous.

She cares about him.

I thought they hated each other.

“I don’t think Noble is fighting for me,” I say.

Nymala blinks at me, her cheeks flushing. She doesn’t say anything.

“Every move? Every enemy defeated?” I quirk a brow at her, turning back to the fight. “That’s for you.”

The last dragon tries to crush Noble under its talons, but Erax shoves him aside and takes the hit himself, slamming into rubble. Noble slashes its underbelly and drags Erax to his feet.

“See?” he pants. “It’s your technique that needs work.”

Suddenly, a whip made of shadow wraps around Noble’s throat and pulls him back. Erax slices him free and then grins down at him.

“You were saying?”

“I think… I liked you better… when you hated me,” Noble chokes out, gasping for air.

Erax helps him up, but his tone shifts. It drops lower.

“I still fucking hate you. Don’t get it twisted. I just didn’t have the time to kill you.”

“Funny,” Noble says, grinning at him. “I said something similar like that earlier. Maelena really wanted to kill me.”

Erax stabs the last wraith in the skull. Silence follows, and the shield drops away. Smoke and ash swirl in the wind. I run to Erax.

But just as I reach him, he turns his blade on Noble.

“I warned you what I’d do if you ever touched my wife.”