Page 132 of The Queen’s Shadow

“Really?” He scoffed. “You can’t imagine why your enemy would want access to the one thing you have that is an effective weapon against them? Use your head. She is obviously looking to find a way to render the material useless, or worse, use it to her favor.”

My blood turned cold. “Can she do that?” I wondered out loud. He shrugged.

“Probably not alone. But she has magick folk on her side, and they have access to knowledge and powers that daemons do not. It was through her alliance with the Nightshades that she was able to create the slavery bond in the first place. It is not outside the realm of possibility that she could use the magick folk to pervert other natural phenomena from this world.”

I remembered what Amon had told me about the soulforge crystal they had harvested to power the shield in the ominous underground colosseum she had built. What was she planning?

“This is not good.” I muttered glancing back at Rycon and Jeremy. Rycon shrugged, he was still holding Kasha tight against his chest. She had fallen asleep with her tiny head on his shoulder. I had offered to carry her for a bit, but he had refused to let either Jeremy or I come anywhere near her.

“None of it is going to matter if we don’t get out of here alive.” Rycon pointed out. “Let’s worry about the immediate problem of getting home. You can scheme with Dossidian about shadowstone or whatever when we get back to court.”

I pursed my lips. Until we got Kasha back home safely, he wasn’t going to be much help.

“Alright. Let’s figure out what we’re going to do.” I turned to Zayne. “Do you think they’re going to heed your warning and turn back?”

Zayne shook his head. “Not likely. If I know Ash Nevra at all, she would rather sacrifice the lives of this entire squadron than appear weak.”

I frowned, looking out at the massive ocean of soldiers before us. “Wouldn’t that be a significant blow to her forces, though? That doesn’t seem like a smart move. Ash Nevra is many things, but stupid doesn’t seem to be one of them.” I wondered out loud.

“For Origin’s sakes, you’re naive.” Zayne sighed, dropping his face into his hand and massaging his temples.

“Watch it.” Jeremy snapped, stepping forward. I glanced at him, and motioned for him to stand down, but he cocked the safety off of his Carbine anyway. I almost smirked, he had been spending too much time with Rycon.

“Do you have any idea how large The Court of Gluttony’s army is? How deep their pockets are and how many resources they have? They’re the primary export for most food goods in the entire Dominion. Their army is several million daemons strong. This -” He said, gesturing to the ten thousand or so soldiers that stood in neat lines in the distance. “Is nothing. We could kill them all and she wouldn’t blink an eye.”

“So, fuck it then - let’s do it.” Rycon said, glancing at Cerenah. “Sparks, get your new thunder bird friend to roast them so we can get the fuck out of here.”

“Wait,” I said, “I don’t want to needlessly murder thousands of slaves. They have no choice.” I argued, but just as the words left my mouth, the army seemed to come alive, and the first flurry of magick was launched at the wall. I watched as what looked like a tidal wave of fire erupted from the front lines and roared toward the wall, scorching the already dry earth as it came.

“Doesn’t look like we have a choice either, Kitten.” Rycon responded darkly. He shifted Kasha to his left hip and cocked his submachine gun in his free hand. “I’m getting Kasha out of this shithole, with or without you. I don’t care how many slaves I need to kill to do it.”

I sighed but nodded. “Alright. Let’s go. Cerenah, Zayne - cover us.”

“Of course, my Queen.” Cerenah said, electricity was already crackling between her fingers. The massive wave of fire hit the wall with a deafening roar. I braced myself for impact, but it broke apart against a shimmering forcefield that seemed to be generated from several battlements stationed around the perimeter of the wall. Whoever Zayne had stationed in those battlements had effectively protected the city from the fiery attack.

I glanced over the edge of the parapet, wondering briefly if it made more sense for me to just fly Rycon, Kasha and Jeremy off the edge. Once we were clear of the wards that protected the city, I could shadow walk us away.

“You can’t enter or leave the city through any other entrance than the sandstone gate. If it was that easy to escape, no one would ever pay their debts.” Zayne explained, almost as if he could see the idea spinning in my mind. “I processed your payment days ago, the door will open for you if you ask it to, but you cannot go over the wall.”

“Of course we can’t.” I sighed, remembering the ominous warning carved into the entrance of the city. I suppose this was how the city made sure the invoices were paid.

“They will be waiting for you,” Zayne warned. I nodded.

“I know. Here’s to hoping bullets really are faster than magick.” I muttered before heading down the steps and out into battle.

The sandstone door opened slowly before me and I couldn’t help but feel annoyed. This was a stupid way to have to leave Midasara in more ways than one. With the door opening, we exposed the city to invasion, and our team essentially needed to face the impending infantry head on.

Rycon had his hands full with baby Kasha, and Jeremy was human. It felt like I was, once again, walking directly into a trap, but I didn’t really see any way around it.

I knew Zayne said the city was nearly impossible to breach, but I couldn’t risk it. We had already spent too much time here, and if Kieran and his forces were able to overcome these walls and turn an entire city of slaves on us, then we were royally screwed.

Now that we had Kasha, I needed to get back and figure out how we were going to save Amon, and what we were going to do about the shadowstone.

“When the door opens, stay behind me.” I ordered, pulling my shadows around us in an attempt to give us as much cover as possible. I was powerful, but I was also largely untried, and it was literally me against an entire army.

The moment the door had opened enough for me to slip through, I forced my doubts from my mind and shot through the small crack. I had less than a second to take in the scene before me. I gasped, as I realized that many in the army were actively attacking each other. I glanced up to see Zayne perched on the parapet, his feet dangling over the edge, both hands held before him. I watched in awe as he forced hundreds of daemons to turn on one another, like some sort of deranged puppet master. Cerenah stood next to him, arms spread wide as she called a sizzling blast of lighting down from the blackened sky. She dragged her lightning through the swarm of daemons, their death screams lost in the roll of thunder that was Elektraz. As the great bird swooped down from the heavens, the soldiers turned and ran. Some attempted to fire blasts of varying forms of magick at the great Titan, but the bird just swallowed their assaults before melting them into sticky charred piles of flesh and bone.

I was the first one of us to cross through the wards. I wasted no time, calling my shadows to swarm us the moment we had all passed the threshold of the wards. Seconds felt like they stretched into minutes as I waited for Rycon and Jeremy to make it through the deceivingly thin film of magick that prevented me from shadow walking us away.