Page 58 of The Sol Crown (Fractured Lights #1)

Twenty feet ahead, a Dunmerian soldier is carved in half, the blade slicing through him like paper. The soldier wielding the sword doesn’t pause; he spins, fluid and merciless, and drives his weapon into a second enemy’s chest within seconds.

I barely have time to breathe before we’re swallowed by the tide. The Dunmerians are nearly on us.

Steel sings as I draw my twin blades.

I duck under a wild swing, pivot, and drive my right blade into the side of a charging soldier’s neck. I don’t even look. I rip it free and twist into the next motion, one slash across the knees, another straight up through the chest. Move. Keep moving.

I glance around. The squad is holding the line.

Brynn and Junie are back to back, moving like water, blades spinning in perfect sync.

Sam fights with the grace of sheer power, each swing deliberate, confident. He makes it look easy.

Stone slices into a soldier just as Trent ducks low, the two of them fighting as one. Whatever issues they seemed to have in training today, they’re gone right now—faces stern, focused, utterly in control.

Behind me, a soldier charges just as Stone looks up, searching for me, and sees it. His eyes widen slightly, trying to warn me, but he needn’t worry. I already know.

I twist and draw my longsword from between my shoulder blades in the same motion, letting the momentum carry me into a full-bodied arc. The blade slices through the soldier’s neck.

I don’t bother to wait as his head rolls across my boot.

Deacon surges ahead too fast, pulled deeper into the fray by adrenaline. He moves like lightning, agile and unrelenting, until his dagger catches the side of a soldier. He tugs, stuck, just for a second.

That’s all it takes.

I see it before he does. Another enemy lifts a dagger and hurls it, aimed straight for his heart.

“Deacon!” I scream.

I lunge forward just as he turns at the sound of my voice. The blade whistles past, missing him by inches.

He meets my gaze, panting, wide-eyed. “Gods, Elina—”

I don’t answer. I’m already driving my dagger into the throat of his attacker, maybe with a little more force than necessary.

I glare at Deacon, my heart threatening to pound out of my chest. He shouldn’t have slipped; should know better than to pause even for a second.

The crazy bastard just grins at me like his life didn’t just flash before my eyes, dragging a bloodied hand through his curls, leaving a sticky trail of crimson.

To my right, a cluster of Aladria soldiers stumbles under the weight of the enemy. Outnumbered five to one, they’re barely holding.

I step toward them, ready to dive into the fray, but a small hand slams across my stomach, bronze skin, nails painted black, it stops me cold.

I turn. A young woman stands beside me, her arm still out, holding me back, but she isn’t looking at me; she stares forward. Her silver eyes glow. Her tightly coiled brown and caramel hair whips around her face like a halo of curls caught in a storm.

She inhales deep, sharp, and holds it.

The Aladria soldiers scatter.

And she exhales.

The blast is like a thunderclap, a shockwave of blistering wind that rips through the Dunmerian line. Bodies are flung backwards like dolls. Armour crumples. Bones snap. The very earth tears open beneath their feet.

Gifted.

Incredible.

She just wiped out fifty soldiers with a single breath.

The battlefield goes still.

What remains of the enemy scatters like startled birds, the survivors retreating into the darkness beyond the ridge, dragging some of their fallen with them. The residual bodies litter the dirt in grotesque arrangements, broken and torn.

One Dunmerian soldier writhes on the ground, trying to stuff his intestines back into his body with shaking hands before he goes still, eyes wide and unseeing. Another crawls away, leaving a trail of blood and flesh where his legs once were.

Smoke and dust hang thick in the air, and rivers of blood snake into the starved, cracked earth.

The Gifted woman lowers her arm and exhales slower this time. Her silver eyes fade to pale grey. Her chest rises and falls like someone just stepping out of a storm surge, but she stands steady, unfazed.

She glances at me, then at Deacon, a small smile tugging at her lips. “Close one,” she says, voice low and dry. “Your girl’s got fast reflexes.”

“She’s not my girl,” Deacon says automatically, with such offended certainty that I can’t help but shoot him a glare, lip twitching in annoyance.

The woman laughs at our exchange and steps closer, extending a hand toward me. “Willa.”

“Elina,” I reply, clasping her hand. Her grip is firm and no-nonsense. “Remind me never to piss you off.” I nod at the wreckage behind her.

Willa chuckles.

“I’m Deacon, by the way,” Deacon cuts in, lifting his hand. “Still here.” He gestures towards himself, not used to being ignored.

Willa smirks and gives him a once-over. “I noticed.”

My eyebrows lift to my hairline.

Junie, Brynn, and Trent drift over, bloodied and winded but intact. Sam follows behind, methodically wiping his blade with a torn scrap of cloth. We gather in a loose circle, the battlefield around us finally quiet except for the distant groans of the wounded being pulled behind the barricades.

Willa’s gaze flicks over the group, glancing at our uniform. Frowning as if trying to figure something out, and when it finally clicks, her eyebrows almost disappear into her hairline.

“Oh shit—you’re all trainees?” she asks in shock.

“Something like that,” Junie mutters, wincing as she presses a hand to her ribs.

“And who the hell did you piss off to get stationed here?” It’s rhetorical, but she doesn’t realise how close to the truth she is with that question .

The general approaches, grim as before. “Cleanup will last till morning. Get some sleep. Medics are standing by if you need patching up.”

We nod. Willa gives us a quick wave before disappearing into the smoke, Deacon’s eyes tracking her as she goes. We trudge after the general in silence, boots crunching over splintered arrows, scorched earth, and blood-soaked soil.

By the time our heads hit the pillow, sleep takes us all.