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CHAPTER THREE

I SOARED THROUGH THE NIGHT too quickly to be spotted. I landed on the top of the sentry tower—shifting back in a flash of light as I flipped into the room below. I stood straight as the two guards fell with their own blades in their chests and pulled the helmet off the blond.

My heart dropped as I saw Collin’s face. Blood pooled from his mouth, and his cheeks were maimed by fire. I fell back, unable to catch my breath for a full minute until the young man’s true face came into view.

He looked nothing like Collin.

I shook off the panic and pulled the vapor from the air. A small orb of water grew, taking the form of a male body before freezing to hard ice. I set the helmet on top of my statue and stood beside it. To anyone below, it looked like the guards still stood at their post.

The troop turned down an alley to the center of the city. Small groups broke out from the main march, inspecting the side streets for strays that had gone inside. I scanned the alleys for the poor and homeless who usually filled the streets. My stomach clenched against the truth. They had already been rounded up on the first night of curfew.

A small weed grew in a crack along the tower, its flagrant fight for life almost undetectable. I brushed my finger along the white petal and let that newfound earth magic surge inside me.

The weed grew larger, wrapping around my wrist as its roots scurried down the weather-beaten stone in search of soil. They buried themselves into the earth and I felt it.

I felt everything.

The mountain top had been overwhelming, but this was all-consuming. Like most Fae, I could feel the connection the flower had with the earth, the network of roots and blooms that spanned out across the entire city. But my powers had grown. The land pulsed with life. I could feel every creature walking along the earth and burrowing in the soil; somehow I could feel the cold plunge of every swimmer in every lake and river, the strained muscles of the flyers, big and small, commanding the sky. Everything was connected in a way I could never fathom before. What had once been a useful gift was overwhelming now. It took all my concentration to focus in and glean what I needed from the connection.

It was too much for me to discern any specific being. I didn’t have enough control of my gift for such nuance, but I could feel the Halflings and soldiers moving as two giant entities across the city without needing to look.

Gerarda was leading the group toward the eastern side of the river.

I let out two low owl calls. She would know it was a signal for “not that way.”

I felt the group shift farther east, taking the alley back to Gwyn and Fyrel, but it would not be enough. The soldiers were crossing the main bridge, and there was no way to disguise a group as large as theirs.

I ducked, hiding the flash of light, but I did not soar into the skies. Instead I let out one long piercing eagle cry.

Run .

I transformed back, the weed wrapping around my ankle as I saw the soldiers searching the sky for a bird. The entire city was expecting me in eagle form.

I tightened my weapons belt. It was time for a show.

I raised my arm and let thin tendrils of water form along the surface of the river. One by one they coiled, readying for an attack. I released the building tension in my stomach, and the tendrils pounced, wrapping around the limbs of the soldiers on the bridge and dragging them into the depths of the canal.

The remaining soldiers shouted and unsheathed their swords as I dragged them over the bridge to join their comrades. By the time they surfaced, the current would be too strong to make it to the riverbank, and they would plummet to their deaths over the falls.

A horn sounded, and one by one the oiled beacons over the sentry towers were engulfed in flames.

I closed my eyes, focusing my gift as best as I could. The Halflings had moved farther south, but a group of soldiers was coming up the hillside pass and another approached the Halflings from the north.

They would be trapped with nowhere to go.

I raised the water from the canal into a towering wave, but I didn’t let it fall upon the armored men. Instead I reached my icy hand out and shaped it into a wall of ice that divided the city in two. My powers were draining, but it would slow them down. I needed to get to the Halflings and help them to the portal.

I assessed the situation from the skies. Gwyn and Fyrel were shooting arrows at the men climbing the hillside path while Gerarda and Elaran prepared for a fight in the north.

My heart lurched at the thought of leaving Gwyn, but I had to trust that she could handle herself.

I landed and pushed the soldiers back with one monstrous gust. They fell to the ground in a fit of coughs, Gerarda’s throwing knives taking out a dozen before they managed to stand.

The nearest soldiers flinched at the flash of light as I shifted out of my eagle form. I painted bloody streaks across the cobblestone with my boots as my blade carved the last breath from their lungs. The last of them fell and I inspected the stones along the ground. Some were unmarred by time, but others had thick cracks down the middle filled with dirt.

I knelt and placed a palm flat to the ground.

“Now is not the time for prayers, Keera,” Gerarda scoffed as she loaded her bow with four arrows and shot.

Elaran charged at a mountain of a man. She flipped through the air with feline grace, twisting to catch the man’s neck between her legs. The momentum brought him to the ground with her, and she stuck her hair pin through the back of his neck. “You can pray to me if it helps, Keera.” She smirked up at me as she flung a dagger into another man’s chest. “I like to see people on their knees.” She shot a wink to Gerarda.

Gerarda fired four more arrows, each one landing with deadly accuracy.

“El, I’m the only one who gets to worship you.”

Elaran smiled. “Duck!”

Gerarda hit the ground beside me as Elaran lofted a blade over her head. A soldier stumbled back several feet before crumpling to the ground with Gerarda’s arrow in his chest. Elaran somersaulted over her kills and landed in a crouch. She pressed a quick kiss to Gerarda’s cheek. “Maybe I’ll say a prayer to you later.”

I cocked my jaw. “I’m trying to concentrate!”

Elaran shrugged and ran toward another soldier. I turned to Gerarda. “Guard me.”

She didn’t hesitate, turning away and scanning the field of battle. There were two dozen soldiers surrounding us still, but they were hesitant to attack.

A small root twisted around my fingers, and I felt the connection take hold of me once more. The Halflings were scurrying down the mountain, but there were more soldiers in their way.

“Elaran, go to Gwyn and Fyrel now!”

She sliced her spear through a man’s throat and ran. Gerarda struck down a brave soldier who charged. I felt a shift in the air. We needed to leave, but something was wrong. The pulsing life I had felt in my earlier connection was gone. No, not gone. Silent. As if every creature close to us had stopped breathing out of fear.

Not of the soldiers.

Not of me.

But of something much worse.

A terrifying shriek split the sky. It echoed like thunder, so loud the sound drummed in my chest. I looked up and could no longer see the stars. They were covered in a thick layer of shadow that swirled like ink in water.

The hair on my neck rose; the soldiers behind me stopped fighting, their heads craning to the sky too. I couldn’t see the creature, but I could feel it. The smell of rot and death filled the air, a putrid stench like a victor’s field at the height of day.

The wind moved in thick beats, hot and humid enough to pull the sweat from our skin. Along with the darkness had come wings.

I recognized it immediately from Lash’s fire stories. The shadowy beasts that had once hunted the Elverin. There was no mistaking the gargantuan body that spanned half the city. Its long, curved neck and even longer beak were just like the shadows Lash had painted by the fireside.

A waateyshir .

Its body was made from darkness and smoke. It looked like a bird with a long neck and sharp talons, but its form wasn’t rigid. Instead black feathers lined the edges of its wings and back while tendrils of blackness filled its body—a red light pulsing at the center of its chest. Its long beak snapped, lined with teeth as tall as a Mortal man. It was monstrous, emerging from a nightmare rather than a wood. The beast hung in the sky, hovering over the city, terrifying the people who would be its next meal. Tendrils of shadow leaked from its frame as if it was part beast, part smoke.

The waateyshir reared back its long neck and its glassy black eyes settled on the line of soldiers behind me. The loose strands of my braid blew toward the beast as it sucked up the air and prepared to attack.

Gerarda’s only warning was the flash of light as I transformed. She held up her arms, braced and ready, as my talons wrapped around them, and we sailed just above the ground.

An ear-splitting sound whistled behind us. I heard the last bit of air being pulled from the men’s lungs. They were frozen in place, unable to move, unable to do anything except look at the beast.

The whistling stopped. Silence hung in the air for a moment that seemed to stretch much too long. I turned in time for Gerarda and I to witness the true power of the beast. Black flame shot from its beak, illuminated by the soldiers’ torches. Their mouths dropped open, but they had no air left to scream before they were turned to ash.

The beast sucked in the ash on its next breath, its pulsing red center glowing brighter as it swallowed its meal.

Gerarda fell from my grasp and took two soldiers down with her as she landed. I changed back to my Fae form, both blades drawn and ready to fight.

“Where’s Gwyn?” I shouted to no one in particular. “Fyrel?”

“Down the mountain,” someone shouted. I snapped toward the voice and saw Victoria, a sword quivering in her hands as she defended the opening to the hillside path. Her face was already bloodied, red stained her lips and dripped down her neck.

She swung with unskilled brutality, but it was enough to send a soldier lurching back to my waiting knife.

“Victoria, go!” I ordered. “We have this handled. Gwyn and Fyrel can take you to safety.”

“There’s still one more!” She pointed up on the pile of large rocks where a tiny Halfling boy was hiding among the rubble. His face was caked with dirt except for where rivers of tears had washed the black away.

The waateyshir turned its sights on our battle and began to whistle again. Unless we made for the hillside now, we would be nothing but ash in seconds.

My throat ached as I said, “Leave him. Descend now!”

Gerarda followed the order without hesitation. Elaran looked at me with a dubious expression on her face then glanced at the boy.

“El, you are not allowed to die today.” Gerarda’s voice rattled with desperation as she peered over the cliff’s edge.

“Go!” I ordered her. Then I broke into a flash of light and flew directly within the waateyshir ’s sights.

The beast tracked my movement. Its long beak snapped at me, but my wings were more agile than the giant’s. It let out a terrifying caw, and for the moment, it seemed to have forgotten its second meal below.

I flew with all the strength I had left. My magic was mostly depleted, but I needed to lure the beast away. I soared higher and higher, and the waateyshir followed. I counted another ten beats of my wings and hoped it was enough.

They had better run.

I tucked my wings in tight and let myself drop into a free fall, lunging between the beast’s shadowy wing and long neck. The waateyshir ’s head snapped in my direction, but it took time for a beast so large to change direction mid-flight. It spread its wings, covering the city in their shadow as it cut a curve across the sky.

The beast’s shriek was even more piercing in my eagle form. My vision blurred with the need to concentrate. I opened my wings and felt the air move as the waateyshir flapped its own behind me. Gerarda and Elaran ran down the hillside path, only steps from the other Halflings.

But Victoria was not with them.

My stomach plummeted as I opened my wings. She stood on the rubble, holding a little boy and a lit torch. I recognized him as the toddler who had been on her hip the last day I saw her. The Halfling with the stitched ears.

Julian.

She looked up, gave me one decisive nod, and threw the boy over the cliff’s edge. All I saw next was her waving arms, catching the attention of the beast as she ran in the direction of the soldiers with a fiery torch flaming above her head.

I dove and snatched the boy from the air. With a flash of light, I was cradling him in one arm as I wrapped a stream of water around our legs, catching us as gently as I could manage.

I grabbed for the cliff edge and the sickening shriek of the waateyshir echoed above us. A bone-shattering pain tore through my body as I touched the earth. Not from my magic, but from the connection. I felt the pulsing life of Victoria and each soldier fade away in an instant. The pain was sharp and hollowing, like someone had carved out my innards.

I stilled, waiting for the waateyshir to move toward the Halflings, but it flew toward the barracks in the other direction. The boy giggled and tugged at my braid. I gave him a hollow laugh but did not let go of the cliff.

I hadn’t been able to feel the edge of Victoria in the chaos, but now her absence was a hard form I could trace the edges of like a shape cut from a tapestry. Her death was unmistakable. I didn’t know if it was my magic or my soul feeling the loss of my dear friend. But it didn’t matter because I hadn’t felt anything like it before.

The pain of it consumed me. But only Victoria’s death, not the soldiers being turned to ash all over Silstra. Only the person I knew. My breath hitched. The feeling was so overwhelming that, had anyone else died since my powers had reached their full strength, I would have felt it.

Which meant Nikolai was alive.