Page 123 of Lady of Starfire (Lady of Darkness #5)

That was all she said as she raced back in the direction she had come. It didn’t take long. Only a minute or two before Sorin was landing beside her, fire exploding out in a wave to give them a moment.

“They have Drake,” Scarlett panted, bracing her hands on her knees. “But they are coming back for Callan. Rayner is with him, but this isn’t enough, Sorin. None of it is enough. We are losing too many. Even if I use all my Chaos—”

“Not an option. This is the time to bring them over, Scarlett,” Sorin interrupted.

“Now? We were saving them for the last battle.”

“This could be that. If things do not turn in our favor very quickly, this could very well be the last battle in the war,” Sorin said. “Call them.”

“They are a one time weapon, Sorin!”

“And now is the time to use them, Scarlett. Look around you!” he retorted, pulling back his flames for her to survey the carnage. “Do it! Or the mortal kings are lost, and this was all for nothing.”

He was right and that was terrifying. That this was their last card up their sleeve, and they had nothing else. No other power moves. No other secrets.

“I need some space,” she said, looking up into amber eyes.

An arm wrapped around her waist, and Sorin was hauling her into the sky. She could feel the heat from his wings and the shield he was holding around them as she began tunneling into herself. Into the Chaos. Into a place where she could call to those she now shared a power with.

All of them.

A panther as dark as the night.

A dragon who had fought in the Wind Court.

A phoenix with flames like the one he was bonded to.

A silver hawk who could command the winds.

A red stag of the earth.

A horse of water.

An eagle of the wild and untamed.

A wolf of the moon.

“Holy gods,” she heard Sorin murmur, and when she opened her eyes, she could only stare as the spirit animals entered the battle.

She suddenly understood exactly why Saylah had gone to get them to fight in the war for this realm.

She understood what Cethin had meant when he said they’d been preparing.

If bonded, they’d appeared next to those they were bonded to, amplifying their gifts.

Azrael was astride Rinji, the two of them creating giant crevices in the earth while Maliq was herding and forcing soldiers into them before Azrael buried them alive.

Briar and Abrax had a cyclone of water stretching to the sky where Nasima was forcing seraphs into it with mighty gusts from her wings.

Ranvir was soaring with Tybalt and Razik in their dragon forms. Shirina mauled and tore apart soldier and seraph alike while Amaré flew close, setting them all on fire.

Scarlett twisted to look up at Sorin. “Our turn.”

His mouth crushed to hers for the briefest of moments before he was diving back to the ground, clutching her close.

Their feet hadn’t even touched the ground yet when his flames flared out in a wide radius around them.

Shadows poured out of her, merging with them to create shadowfire.

They let it devour. Tendrils of it reached into the sky, snagging low-flying seraphs and pulling them down, never to rise again.

She and Sorin kept moving the entire time, trying to find Rayner and Callan. Until they finally spotted them. Callan was even bloodier, and Rayner—

Well, the Reaper had definitely come to fight as he moved around Callan faster than Scarlett could track. There were piles of ash around them. But now that they had found Callan, she needed to get to Drake and her sisters. She sent a message off amid a swirl of shadows.

“Stay with Rayner and Callan,” she yelled to Sorin.

“How are your reserves?” Sorin demanded, yanking on the shadowfire to block a group of advancing soldiers.

“Fine. Once we have Drake, I think I can end this.”

“Do you need them filled?”

She shook her head, stretching her hand into the air. “I’ve been conserving. Kind of.”

It was partially true. There was a reason she hadn’t been in the sky with her shadow dragon, and she’d been trying to make use of her blades more than her magic.

Just like there was a reason she had sent a message to Cassius, who was currently swooping low and grabbing her arm to swing her up to him.

She looped her arms around his neck as she was once again hauled into the sky.

“Do you know where they are?” she asked Cassius when he banked hard to avoid a torrent of water that had been sent their way. But the number of seraphs in the sky was greatly diminished. Between the dragons and the newly arrived spirit animals, they were making headway.

“Yes,” Cassius answered, rolling to avoid a dagger of fire as he sent dragon fire at the seraph who had hurled it at them. “Shirina and Amaré were making their way to them.”

She spotted them a moment later, and Scarlett couldn’t help but smile, watching her sisters fight alongside the spirit animals.

Then she saw where they were trying to get to and realized the dragons weren’t the only reason there weren’t as many seraphs in the sky.

Nuri hadn’t been exaggerating. There were at least a hundred soldiers—seraph, Fae, and mortal—surrounding Drake, who was unconscious in the center of them.

She knew he wasn’t dead because of his connection to the Maraan Lords, and while Nuri and Juliette couldn’t get to Drake, the opposing forces also couldn’t get him out. Scarlett’s own forces surrounded them.

“What’s the plan, Scarlett?” Cassius asked, giving her a moment to survey everything from the sky.

“It’s more of a theory,” she answered as she watched the spirit animals each move with their own grace and speed.

“Can this theory be put into effect now? Even with the spirit animals, we’re being overrun. We simply don’t have enough forces here. Maybe we retreat while we can,” Cassius said.

“No,” Scarlett argued, pieces of a plan falling into place.

An insanely risky plan, but they were out of safe options.

“This is our only chance with the spirit animals. They will be too drained after this. We use every advantage they can give us. If the Fae and Avonleyans can help shield the mortals, and the spirit animals spread out to help me control the Chaos, I think I can end this.”

“End this? The entire battle? There are still several hundred of Alaric’s forces down there, Scarlett.”

But the Chaos inside her was already vibrating at the thought, and whether from the Chaos or because she was their queen, the spirit animals were already following her plan. She could see them disappearing and reappearing in soft flashes of light in areas throughout the carnage below.

Sorin! Tell the others to shield as many of our forces and the mortals as we can.

Scarlett—

No time.

She slammed up her mental barriers to keep him from distracting her. Her focus needed to be solely on this. On controlling the tempest of power within her.

“Cassius, I need you to take me up and get us as centered above everything as possible, and then I need you to hold on. No matter what.” She twisted to look up at him, glowing red eyes meeting hers. “You understand?”

“That’s what we’ve always done, Seastar.”

“Don’t let go,” she whispered.

Because she had no idea if this would work, and if it didn’t and she couldn’t control the Chaos …

“You can do this, Scarlett,” Cassius said, his arms tightening around her and pulling her more securely against his chest.

“Don’t let go,” she whispered again.

And she let the Chaos out.

It spilled out of her. She felt it reaching for the spirit animals. Other World Walkers with the same gifts. She felt their own power rising up to meet it and guide it. More and more she gave, letting that power take and destroy, break and remake, and the more it took, the deeper she sank into it.

Until she wasn’t there at all but among the stars.

No, not the stars.

She watched as another battle played out. There were seraphs and Fae, but also dragons. So many dragons. Gods and—

World Walkers.

There was a female around Eliza’s size. Not small, but one could tell her body was honed from decades of training.

Her sleek black hair hung down her back like a sheet of night, and she had several small gold hoops running up the curve of her rounded ear.

But it was her silver eyes that Scarlett recognized.

Shirina.

This was her other form. No arched ears like the Fae. She looked human.

Before she could get a good look at the others, she was pulled from whatever this place was to another.

Here were two beings so ethereal, Scarlett knew instantly they were gods.

One was a female with silver hair flowing past her navel.

A crown of white flames as bright as starlight sat upon her head.

Thick kohl lined her eyes, dark red on her lips.

She wore a black, nearly sheer gown that stood out against her bronze skin.

Serafina.

Which meant that the male beside her was …

He was devastatingly beautiful in the same way that Cethin was.

Angular features with a chiseled jawline.

His black hair curled around his ears and a lock of it fell forward, brushing his cheekbone.

Eyes as green as emeralds were fixed on Serafina, but they flicked in Scarlett’s direction, as if he could see her.

He wore all black— pants, tunic, jacket.

All of fine make. There was a sword strapped down his back, but Scarlett couldn’t imagine why the God of Endings would ever need such a thing.

There was no crown atop his head. He did not need it.

Not with the darkness that swirled in his eyes and drifted around him. There was no mistaking who he was.

Then he turned away from her, and she felt as if she were tumbling back through the stars to another place.

There was a female who appeared to be around her own age.

Scarlett couldn’t tell if she had gone through her Staying.

Her golden hair was dull and limp as she appeared to be sneaking away from the large estate of buildings behind her.

Scarlett watched as she took one last look behind her before darting off and disappearing into the night.

The Chaos took her again, and Arius was here once more, this time with another.

The male beside him was the same height, but his hair was as golden as the sun and nearly reached his chin.

His complexion was darker than Arius’s, more golden and tan.

His features weren’t quite as sharp, but he was just as beautiful.

His eyes were blue with brilliant flecks of gold, and he seemed to glow, as if light swirled around him the way darkness followed Arius.

With a start, she realized it was Achaz.

“Scarlett.”

She could hear her name, and she tried to find the source of it.

“Scarlett.”

She could feel the spirit animals, their power still guiding, directing.

Scarlett. You did it, Love. Pull it back before you give it all.

No panic. No worry in his voice. Just a soft command that grounded her.

That called her home.

When she finally managed to blink her eyes open, she was on the ground. Sound was muffled, but there was no screaming. No sounds of battle. No seraphs in the sky, just a black dragon circling above them. Cassius and Sorin were hovering over her, but a feline was also there.

Amaré was perched on Sorin’s shoulder, and when she turned her head, she realized they were all there. All of the spirit animals were gathered around her. Some pacing. Some laying down.

“Did it work?” Her voice sounded weird.

“Did it …” Cassius glanced at Sorin before he looked back at her. “You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

“Scarlett, you …” Cassius dragged a hand through his hair. “You dragged me all over the battlefield. We appeared next to each one of the spirit animals, and they … They shifted to their human forms, and the two of you decimated everyone within range that our people were not shielding.”

“They shifted?” Scarlett asked, trying to push onto her elbows to see them.

“Briefly,” Cassius said. “It was as if your power gave them the ability to hold the form long enough to help before they were forced back to their animal forms.”

Sorin was dragging a blade down his forearm and reaching for her hand, and she yanked it back from him. “No. You have to be drained.”

“Not as much as you would think,” he replied, reaching for her hand again. “You need it more than I do.”

She didn’t like it, but she let him slice her palm, a shudder rolling up her spine when his flames melded into her own gifts. “Drake and Callan?”

“Safe,” Sorin said with a soft smile, brushing back hair from her brow. “Being tended to.”

“And the mortals?”

Sorin hesitated a moment. “There were losses. Mortal and Fae. You know that with war, but we saved as many as we could.”

“It would have likely been worse if there had been Maraan Lords here,” Cyrus chimed in, appearing over Cassius’s shoulder.

Scarlett was fairly certain her heart stopped. “What did you just say?”

Cyrus gave her a quizzical look. “That if the Maraan Lords had been here, the losses would have likely been higher.”

“None of the Maraans were here,” Cassius repeated slowly, dread filling his eyes as they connected with Scarlett’s.

And the obviousness of this now was like a slap to the face.

None of the Maraans were here.

This battle was the biggest one yet. There were more forces here than there had been at the Wind Court or the Earth Court, and more Night Children had been sent.

Roderick had been present at the Wind Court when the only battle was over a Citadel.

This had been a massive raid through Windonelle to attack the Fire Court, and none of the Maraans were here?

Knowing they would be facing her and Sorin? The Avonleyans? The Fae Royalty?

And while Alaric’s forces had certainly been killing innocents, they had seemed to be singularly focused on one thing. Getting to Callan and Drake and keeping them alive.

The most ironic thing was, Alaric had made this exact move before.

She’d caught it then. When he had sent Night Children to distract them at the Fire Court border while he had been about to infiltrate the Night Child territory to search for the then-Contessa.

She’d met Tarek there. This time, she might have realized it too late.

This entire battle had been a distraction to keep them busy and their focus elsewhere.

And it had worked.