Page 4

Daimon

The trio circled back around to the beach just as the naval forces made it to land. They were already drawing their swords, reserving their Essence for various shields instead of using it for offense.

Aegis formed walls of flames around themselves, while Undine pulled from the sea to keep a torrent of water circling them. They were outnumbered three to one, leaving the battle a race against time as their magic waned.

Zephyr dove, her talons aimed at another cannon resting on the edge of the rebels’ lines.

“On your left!” Brielle shouted from behind.

Zephyr flanked right, narrowly missing. Aster grunted in frustration, swooping down to the beach below. Brielle immediately followed him, the pair skimming along the surface of the sand. Even with their magic weakened, they still had their wyverns.

Brielle let Vero eat everything in his path. His jaws were brutal, mouth open as he tore apart three rebels at once. Aster and his wyvern did the same, careful to avoid the iron spears being thrown at them from the ground.

The rebels had reacted quickly to the wyverns, forming a line of archers around each cannon. They only had small windows for attack now with the number of arrows being shot at them, rotating between swooping down and then shooting high into the air to avoid getting hit. The rebels’ numbers were beginning to thin, but the Valon soldiers were slowing with their dampened Essence.

A cannon close beneath Daimon rotated, aiming at one of the Valon ships still full of people. The rebel ships had blocked most of the beach, leaving them stranded in the water; those escaping were forced to swim in plain sight toward the shore. He called on his shadows, but felt the hold on his magic tighten. Not enough to stop him from using it, but enough that he didn’t trust it to get the job done.

“Looks like it’s your show today, Z,” Daimon shouted, feeling his stomach bottom out as Zephyr dove to the ground again.

With her wings tucked in tightly to her sides, they were free-falling, hurtling toward the ground so quickly that the group of rebels manning the cannon beneath didn’t see them coming until her teeth were clamped around their necks, eating them one by one.

The closer Daimon got, the more he realized they weren’t all human. Some of them were fae, fighting against their own kind. More and more seemed to be aiding the rebellion these days, dark god worshippers enticed by Moros’s vengeful message.

The traitors hurled various types of magic their way—fire blasts, raining rocks, tidal gusts of water—but it all bounced off the wyverns’ scales. They were creatures of war for a reason.

Daimon ducked down so hard he cut his chin along Zephyr’s scales, narrowly dodging an iron-tipped arrow.

It was the Rider who was at risk.

Aster went for another cannon from behind, so Daimon pulled Zephyr across their line of vision to distract the rebels pressing in. A new rank of soldiers flooded in around the cannon, barely casting a glance at the bloodshed Zephyr left behind. They loaded the massive weapon up with a lump of iron the size of Zephyr’s head and aimed it at them.

The crack of the cannon sounded and they dove down, all the way to the tips of the waves. Water sprayed onto Daimon’s face as Zephyr’s wings brushed against the sea, just in time for the iron missile to soar safely over them. He heard the crunch of bones and wood and briefly glanced at where the weapon used to be just as Aster’s wyvern, Ryug, finished off the next cannon.

Daimon assessed the scene. Along the beach, he caught a flash of a familiar face framed with chin-length sandy hair. He was clothed in a white linen shirt and light brown trousers. The shirt had an image of the Mother Tree sewn into the front and back of it—the sign of a healer. He was swimming out to the wounded still in the water and dragging them onto the beach, one by one. Even from his height, Daimon could see the healer’s hands shaking. He shouldn’t be out in the open alone, not with how unprotected the area was. This was why they had their codes. Riders went in pairs and waited for their fleet. Healers were meant to seek protection behind the front line. If they couldn’t find protection, they were supposed to flee.

It might have seemed cowardly to some, but it was common sense. A coward could do more than a dead man could.

A flash caught Daimon’s eye; two rebels had spotted the healer and were heading straight for him. Jarrett was a brilliant trauma healer who’d accompanied the Alpha Fleet in multiple battles. Still, he wouldn’t be able to fight two rebels at once.

Daimon’s eyes flicked to where Keir and Willow were flying over the rebels’ ships, their wyverns shredding the sails with their talons while Undine from another ship pushed the rebels further out to sea. The cannons were slowly dwindling, swinging the momentum in the direction of the empire.

Just as the two soldiers reached the healer, Daimon made his decision.

“Go to Jarrett!” he shouted to Zephyr, and her head snapped around .

Jarrett’s head twisted up, his eyes finding the rebels charging him. He scrambled to his feet and drew a sword.

Daimon and Zephyr raced above the shoreline, but the rebels got to Jarrett before they did. One of them lifted a shimmering sword and swiped it along his stomach. Jarrett spun, clutching his abdomen and raising his sword just as the other rebel brought theirs down.

Jarrett was barely holding on, his white healer’s shirt blooming with blood. Just as the rebel raised his arm for the final blow, an Aegis came from behind, his sword driving through the rebel’s chest. The other rebel screamed—her grotesque screech sounded like that of a dying sea creature. The cry abruptly ended when Zephyr ripped her head from her body.

Jarrett looked up and nodded, his gaze filled with appreciation. But the moment his eyes met Daimon’s, his body fell to the ground. Blood pooled around him, the waves washing it away as quickly as it seeped out.

The Aegis fighting with him kneeled beside him.

A healer’s life never should’ve been lost—not when their goal was to save, not kill.

Daimon gritted his teeth and turned his attention back to the battle. Death waited for no one, and if he had any hope of keeping the rest of his people alive, he had to keep going. He learned he had to move ahead or more lives could be lost.

Aster and Brielle had taken out several more cannons, leaving only three. He hadn’t seen Ranick or Elias the entire time, which was either a very good thing or a very bad thing. If they were able to get a few of their wounded to safety, then that was good. If they weren’t seen because they weren’t alive to help?—

Zephyr flung herself to the right, nearly tossing Daimon off her back as an iron spear shot past them. He shook his head and focused on the task of getting rid of the rest of the cannons as Zephyr leveled them back out .

His team was made up of only the best Riders; they could handle themselves.

Brielle flanked Daimon, her chest heaving as she said, “Keir and Willow took care of the last of the rebel ships.” Daimon looked to confirm, seeing downed rebel ships and tattered sails hanging from the talons of wyverns flying above. “They’re working their way toward us now.”

Aster flew in close to his other side, rejoining them.

Daimon nodded and leaned forward. “Then we make our final push. Brielle, flank right; Aster, take the left.”

They broke away from him while he took the middle. Aster would take on the mostly unmanned cannon half-sunk in the sand, while Brielle would target the one more securely placed on the rocks, shooting cannonfire into the ground soldiers. It was heavily guarded, but he wasn’t worried. Brielle was his second for a reason.

That left the last to him. It was the largest and deadliest, the last of the rebels mostly abandoning their other pursuits to protect it. Every one of their archers had returned to its side.

The Aegis ground commander from before was yelling out commands beneath him. The rebel archers surrounded them, shooting iron-tipped arrows in relentless waves. Daimon waited for the Aegis to retreat, preparing to dive in.

But before Daimon could get to the next cannon, the Aegis general charged.

His swings were quick—confident. more Aegis closed in from the other side, taking several of the archers down and distracting the others.

It was enough to buy Zephyr time to yank the weapon off the ground, joining Brielle and Aster in the sky as they raced to the sea, tossing the final of the cursed cannons into the heart of the Andronicus.

Just as the cannons sank below the water, Keir and Willow came into view in front of them, sweeping across the last of the rebels, who had quickly turned their backs in retreat, sprinting toward the Zenovia Mountains. Willow was bleeding profusely from her shoulder, and Keir’s wyvern had one of his legs tucked into his body.

It was over—for now. The traitors were defeated, but it took far longer than Daimon would’ve liked.

He brought Zephyr to the ground, slipped off, and jogged toward the Aegis commander. He could already feel the dampening on his magic lifting. But he was one of the fortunate ones. For some of the others with weaker Essence, it would take days, sometimes a week, for the magic to return.

The Aegis commander stood straight, his eyes blazing. “We had no chance against the cannons. If your flight hadn’t been here, who knows how this would’ve ended.”

Daimon looked at the scattered bodies of their enemy, and they looked so…normal. He knew he’d have the gruesome task of searching their remains, looking for any helpful information.

The Aegis’s gaze dropped to the bodies too. Waves lapped at their feet, causing their boots to sink into the sand. Further along the beach, somewhere, was Jarrett’s body—soon to be swept away. The Aegis frowned, his face splattered with blood, covering the scar that stretched from eye to jaw. “He was a brave healer to go out into battle.”

Daimon nodded tightly. “He was a good man.” He had become so hardened to tragedy that such deaths no longer moved him. A brave healer wasn’t what they needed—bravery wasn’t worth anything against forces as dark as Moros’s. They needed order against their chaos.

“Cyprian,” the Aegis said, sticking his hand out and breaking the mounting tension. “It was an honor to fight with you, Rider.”

Daimon clasped his arm. “Daimon,” he replied. “Commander of the aerial legion.”

Cyprian smiled, the scar stretching across his face. “I know.” His eyes flicked to where Zephyr stood behind Daimon, but it wasn’t fear in his gaze. It was awe .

The whirring in Daimon’s ears finally stopped, his pulse quieting enough to hear the cries of pain from the wounded.

The pair walked down the beach, joining the aerial fleet and other ground soldiers. They searched the bodies. Though he found nothing new, Daimon couldn’t shake the feeling that this was only the start of something. They were too close to losing today, much closer than he was comfortable with.

The fae rules of war protected healers from the heat of battle, but the human rebels didn’t honor the same code. He saw that today with Jarrett.

The closer the rebels pushed past the border, the closer they made it to the palace. And Daimon was trying—but failing—not to think about Evelina being in their crossfire.

It left him feeling hollow after a fight, like each step forward was three steps back.

He watched as the ground soldiers pulled the remains of those who had been killed by the cannons from the wreckage in the water, their faces unrecognizable. After all this time, it was still hard to say the end of a battle was a win. The loss was always there.

The rebels were different this time, stronger—it would’ve been a lot of effort to curse the number of cannons they had brought. Their aura was sickeningly dark.

When a life was ended, their souls passed into Caelum. But where did these demons go? Daimon could only hope they were sent back to the pits of darkness from which they had crawled out. If it was by his hand, even better.