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“ U p, Kyril. Now!” Vahly held on as Kyril turned his wings in a sharp movement that had them spiraling toward the sun.

She looked down to see Astraea and her massive force of sea warriors reacting to the appearance of Amona and her Lapis.

The sea kynd broke into five groups, and the fight began in earnest. They conjured a swell large enough to take down all the remaining Lapis.

Tentacles of spelled water whipped toward the dragons, and an intense briny odor soured the autumn wind.

Amona’s yellow eyes flashed as she breathed a wild river of fire onto the churning swell.

Water turned to smoke, and the sea folk on the front lines morphed into charred memories.

Amona growled, snarled, and struck again, her Lapis joining in, their fire flanking the wave.

Sea warriors threw hundreds and hundreds of spears from the curling blue-black mass, catching two Lapis, who fell screeching into the sea.

The sound of the screams and the roar of Amona’s grief-fueled attack curdled Vahly’s blood.

Fear was a beast on her back that scratched her thoughts and broke them into unusable shards.

The other Lapis joined in and blasted the two central units with dragonfire that chased them several feet deep into the water.

Spears floated on the black and bloodied water as the units regrouped, the weapons’ shafts jutting from the white caps.

A spelled wave careened toward Amona, and her neck stretched as she lurched to fly above its killing blow.

The tip nearly caught her talons, but she tucked them just in time.

Spears flew after her and the other nearby Lapis. One spear struck a Lapis warrior’s underbelly, right at the joint, and the dragon went tumbling to his death, transforming into human form as his scream was swallowed by the ocean and the crackle of more dragonfire to the west.

Vahly wanted to wait to use her power until the Jades came up from the back of Astraea’s army so that Astraea wouldn’t have a chance to retreat. But the Jades hadn’t shown yet.

“Where are they?” She chewed her cheek to bleeding as she traded looks with Arc and Nix, Rigel and Aitor, Baww and Haldus, Ursae and Euskal. “I can’t wait any longer. Go!”

Five more Lapis fell into the sea, spears protruding from eyes and soft spots in joints.

The air was black with the smoke of dragonfire and the haze rising from burning bodies.

Vahly wiped her own stinging eyes as she and Kyril flew in a tight formation with the rest, Arc and Nix not a stone’s throw away.

Nose to the sea, Kyril dove closer and closer to the water. Vahly could smell the earth. Even from here, so high, so far away. She could smell its power. Its magic.

“Rise for me!” She waved her sword in a half circle.

Somewhere deep inside her, she could sense the crack of earthblood in the seabed; the golden eels of fiery liquid mixed with red-hot molten rock crawled toward them, obeying the oaken sword, listening to her will.

Claw-like obsidian walls surrounded the watery battlefield.

Kyril roared, and Vahly drew the sword across her forearm.

They flew over the northern side of the new black barrier, and she let her blood drip from the sword onto the obsidian.

The moment the blood hit the rock, vines burst from the dark creation, emerald leaves shining and spreading, twisting and twining to become one, two—ten full-sized earth gryphons.

Vahly’s group flew low over the sea kynd.

“Now!”

Nix, Aitor, and Euskal blew dragonfire at the unit of sea warriors surrounding Astraea in her towering column of spinning, spelled ocean water. Arc threw a shining circle of air magic into the flames, and as the earth gryphons roared alongside Kyril, the new creatures blew green fire.

The green fire sparked against the surface and blackened the sea in a wide swathe of pure destruction. With no time to even lift their spears, the sea warriors fell under the quick death, still and black as the earth’s darkest rock.

Astraea spun herself away from her three close allies. She curled into a spelled wave a stone’s throw from the green fire.

Vahly urged Kyril to fly over her. “Concede. Give over your blood for peace, and we can stop now. We can make peace here and end this.”

“I’ll die before you see me bow at your filthy human feet!”

Astraea raised her spear and launched it at Kyril.

Nix soared between the spear and the gryphon, and the Sea Queen’s weapon slid past Arc’s shoulder, only glancing across his body.

Blood soaked his linen tunic and further darkened his leather surcoat, and Vahly jerked her own vest, trying to loosen it, trying to breathe.

Arc waved his uninjured arm. I’m fine. Fight on.

“Queen Vahly, watch out!” Rigel’s strong elven voice strained against the cacophony.

When Vahly twisted to look, it was too late.

A spelled wave swallowed at least a dozen Lapis and then dragged her and Kyril into its cold arms.

Dashed under the waves, she held tightly to the sword. Kyril was pulled away from her in a current that felt like a thousand punching fists.

She pointed the sword down, or what she hoped was down, and asked the earth beneath the sea to shed its watery cloak.

The water shook. Her head was going to split.

Then the ground was under her back and lifting her with speed into the air. Kyril sputtered and shook his wings beside her. Lapis blackened by spelled water struggled all around. There were so many.

A new roar, like lightning snapping an ancient tree in half, echoed across the obsidian-caged battlefield.

Eux and her Jades had arrived.

Nix flew past. Blood streamed from a cut along her back leg.

“Up, Kyril! Now!” Arc shouted. “To the skies!” Arc sent a rousing blast of air magic at Kyril, drying his wings so that when Vahly jumped onto his back, he was able to lift off.

The Jades breathed fire into Astraea’s ranks, but still the Sea Queen gave no indication of relenting. Vahly drew the sword in a cutting motion across her view of the far side of the obsidian walls, then slashed it backward, willing the earth to rise again, higher now.

The ground shivered and mounded within its black walls, and soon the thousands of sea warriors, Astraea included, were beached on a new island, laid bare to the fire of the sun.

They gasped and seized, most spears dropped and forgotten in their desperation to breathe. Some clawed at their gills. Mouths worked to no avail.

“Please, Astraea,” Vahly called out over the horror. “Submit to the balance and save them. Save your kynd and your foolish self!”

The Sea Queen lifted her spear, and a wave crashed over the island. A tide sucked the sea folk over the edges of the obsidian, and just like that, they had escaped.

Vahly shouted and kicked Kyril’s sides, feeling his anger in tune with hers as they flew hard to meet the recovering army with their earth gryphons, green fire, and the dragons quickly regrouping to attack with talon and flame.

Whipping the sword over her head, Vahly imagined the stone gryphon, and he rose from the ocean like he’d been sleeping there since the beginning of time.

The stone gryphon joined the rest of the army, and his breath was mere smoke until Arc spun two massive spheres of inky haze and blinding white and threw them.

The stone gryphon’s smoke shimmered into a blaze of amethyst and sage that ripped the waves from the surface like flesh from a kill and obliterated any living thing in its path.

Astraea whirled her spear as she spun just beneath the sunlight surface. A mighty wave rose beneath the stone gryphon. Arms of spelled water reached for the creature, but he reared back. His wing cracked Amona across the back. She tumbled through the sky.

Once she hit that water, she would be dead. Thick magic swirled in those depths, and not even the most powerful of the dragons could survive submersion there.

Head going light and vision spotty, Vahly pointed to the water under her mother.

The largest of the earth gryphons shot between his stone counterpart and the spelled wave and grasped Amona’s leg in its talons.

Amona managed to get her wings moving, and the earth gryphon released her.

They flew high as the spelled wave crashed under the stone gryphon.

Vahly nearly collapsed on Kyril’s neck. Then blue spears jutted from the water. She held her sword upright. “Hold fire!”

The rebels had arrived and were engaging Astraea’s fighters, spelled water flying like arrows back and forth, spears driving over and above, striking chests, ripping bodies.

A flash of movement caught her eye. Lilia jumped from the water, blue spear outstretched, a slitted and dark leaf across her eyes. She launched her spear toward Astraea.