Page 58 of The Ash Trials (The Septerra #1)

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“ N o,” I said, the word tumbling from my lips as I stumbled away from Tristen on the beach, my hand clutching my heart as it raced. I turned my gaze to Cassandra, who was smiling. “You?—”

She shrugged. “Me? Oh please, I was just fulfilling a blood oath, nothing personal. But since I so generously let you have that memory, Tristen is fair game. But I’ll give you one last gift—you can watch him grow old by your side before I reduce him to ash and we return to the King.”

Cassandra was advancing toward Tristen, and I screamed, wanting to call for someone— anyone —to help as Tristen shot out his magic toward her, his shadows wrapping around is own body so quickly after so much use today—threatening to overtake him once more. Cassandra was powerful—maybe not as powerful as Tristen, but close. But he was at a disadvantage.

“Go!” he yelled at me, but I couldn’t run. My sword and dagger had been abandoned at the coliseum, lost in the rush to get to the beach. I was defenseless, and as Cassandra’s magic started to overpower Tristen, I felt the lump in my throat grow.

I was losing him.

Cassandra pulled back her magic, and then with a blast, sent a ray out toward me. Tristen panicked, stretching out his shadows to intercept it?—

—giving her just enough room to blast him backward into the sand.

“Please! Stop!” I begged, but Cassandra was advancing on Tristen. He was still on his back, his magic writhing like a living thing as he struggled to his feet. She raised a hand—not to send more of her raw magic at him, I realized, but to drain him of his youth. Of his life. Of our future together.

Horror hit me as she was just two paces away, and I felt everything move in slow motion.

One moment, she was standing over Tristen, leaning forward to take everything from him. Then, her fingertips went to touch his skin.

She frowned, looking at Tristen in a twisted kind of awe. “Oh. So you’re not normal, are you? Does she know?”

The next moment, a glittering blue dome shot over him, tossing her away like a piece of trash on a strong wind.

I knew who that shield belonged to.

“Callum!” I yelled as he emerged from the forest line, his sword on the ground as his arms were crossed overhead, kneeling as he channeled all of his strength around the shield that covered Tristen, stretching it to cover me and the two rowboats.

“You need to leave, now!” he yelled.

I nodded, and ran to Tristen, helping him up. Cassandra was on her feet, stalking to Callum. He shifted his shield so it covered him as well, forcing the glittering dome to expand as I slung one of Tristen’s arms over my shoulder and dragged him through the water to the boat. Aldric helped us into the rowboat just as Cassandra launched an attack at Callum, his shield holding strong—but just barely.

We started to row, and I turned back to shore. “Callum, come with us! We need to leave!”

Callum looked back at me, sweat beading on his face as he struggled to hold his shield against Cassandra’s onslaught, keeping it glimmering over us, too. “Paddle hard. I’ll see you soon, Saffron.”

And the realization swept over me as Cassandra emptied her horribly colorful magic into his shield.

Callum would die here, so that I could live.

“Callum—” I shouted.

“I’m sorry, Saffron,” he called back, and I could see the tears streaking his face. “I’ll love you now until my dying breath.”

“Thank you,” I choked out, my voice breaking as the waves carried us out of earshot. But Callum’s shield held, and I heard him give a battle roar that would move mountains.

As we rowed, our little boats got caught by the current that helped to sweep us out to a ship that had just sailed out from behind a rock formation right off shore.

It flew red flags for Stormgard. The rebel forces. Our people.

Callum’s shield continued to stretch over us as we reached the ship, growing weaker and weaker with every second. My tears fell hot down my face as I abandoned the oars and clutched the edge of the rowboat, watching him hold the shield against Cassandra’s relentless press of magic until I was torn away from the rowboat, dragged onto the larger ship that awaited us out at sea.

As we were hauled aboard the ship and the shore was no longer visible, I heard it before I saw it.

A great explosion, originating from a power supposed to be rationed over a lifetime that was instead let loose in a second. It sent a shockwave of his glittering shield so large, it could almost hold all of the sky within its safe confines as we made our way safely on the ship.

There was a great puff of smoke and flash from the shore as Callum’s shield blinked out.