by Wendy Knight
Shane nodded, but his eyes were on the carnage in front of him. Ari could see his mind racing. It was nothing like the other battle he’d been in. There were hundreds of thousands here, fighting. The smoke was thick, the smell of death even thicker. Everywhere, dead bodies littered the ground.
Seeing his horror, Ari stepped in front of him, blocking his view. "Shane. I need you to focus. We can't help them." She jerked her chin toward all the dead behind her. “But we can stop more from dying, and we can save Charity. To do that, though, I need you here, with me. I can't do this alone." His huge metallic eyes were all she could see, but he nodded, determination flooding his features.
"There they are!" Hunter pointed, and they looked up the hill, several hundred yards away, where Charles stood with the other members of the Council under a blue banner.
"Making sure you can find him, huh?" Will said dryly.
"We're not the only ones who found him. The Family is there too." Hunter squinted up the hill.
Ari turned to look. It was true; she could see uncles, aunts, cousins, step-relatives, guards… and Richard.
"Will, Richard is there. You have to stay here." She whirled on her brother in alarm. Panic raced across her features as her breath caught in her throat. Shane blinked at her in surprise. She could face thousands of people wanting to kill her, with that insane grin on her face, no less. But one man with a grudge against her brother sent her into a fit of terror?
"Ari, I think Richard's got his hands full right now. I'm the least of his worries," Will replied. Their eyes all traveled back up the hill, taking in the fierce conflict at the top. It was true, he was right in the thick of the fray, fighting the members of the Council. Ari could just see her step-father, Franklin, by his side.
"But he… he wants you dead, Will." Ari felt herself start to shake.
"Mom's there too," Will said, pointing.
Ari spun around, her eyes seeking the tiny frame and familiar red and black hair. "Mom," she murmured. "Will, you are staying here," she said, her voice firm despite her shaking.
"Mom isn't a threat, Ari. And Richard is busy. Franklin is busy. The Family is busy. I'm coming and I'm not going to argue with you about it," Will didn’t take his eyes from their family fighting on the hill.
Ari sucked in a deep breath, studying him for what seemed an eternity. Then she nodded, although it took nearly everything she had. "Okay." Because she knew she was going to need Will, despite how much danger it put him in.
"What we need is a path to the Council. It's gonna take us hours to get there from here," Hunter said, his eyes sweeping the field. There was no way through. They would have to fight for every step.
"A path…” Ari also turned toward the field, pursing her lips in thought. “Okay, Hunter. We'll give you a path. Shane, can you throw an alable? We need a wall of fire." Shane nodded. "Okay. Take my hand." Shane grabbed her outstretched hand as Ari glanced back at Will and Hunter. "Time for you guys to do what you were born to do. We'll only have one extra hand — we can't throw spells. It's all up to you."
Will and Hunter nodded grimly. "I've got your back," Hunter said and Ari had a brief, vivid picture of him telling her that so many times over the last several months. On the football field, right before presenting their project, so many times.
"Once you throw this wall of fire, there's no turning back. Everyone will know you're here," Will said.
Ari and Shane both nodded, and for the first time, Shane spoke. "They'll know we're here. And they'll know we're working together."
"Ready?" Ari asked, her eyes locking with Shane's. Her fingers tightened in his grasp.
He leaned forward, brushing his lips against her mouth, just briefly, and pulled away, his eyes never leaving her face. "Ready."
As one, they burned bright spells into the air and threw out their hands as two walls of flames twenty feet high flew from their fingers, forming a tunnel straight toward the Council. Carules and Edren warriors dove out of the way as the wall raced ahead, growing higher and higher as Shane and Ari darted forward. Hunter and Will were at their backs, throwing up walls and burning counter-spells at anyone who tried to follow them.
But more and more were coming as the wall of brightly burning spells announced their arrival, and Hunter and Will were already running backward, almost killing each other in an attempt to fight off the warriors behind them. In front of Ari and Shane, more warriors were racing in.
"We're trapped!" Hunter yelled over his shoulder, glimpsing the threat coming from the opposite direction.
"We're gonna have to drop the wall and fight!" Shane said, trying to control the wall while running, hurdling dead bodies, and dodging spells from oncoming warriors.
Ari gritted her teeth. "If we drop the wall, we'll be even more surrounded. It isn't an option." Several spells came flying at once. Ari shoved Shane down and felt them slam into her chest. She gasped in pain as she pulled Shane to his feet.
"Are you okay?" he yelled, his eyes wild and angry. She could only nod, gasping for breath.
"They're going to kill us. We have to drop the wall so you can fight!" Will screamed. Another spell slammed into her left shoulder and she bit back a cry as her wall flickered, almost went out. With a strangled gasp she threw the flames higher, and the heat roaring through her blood responded, blocking the pain. Her wall roared like a living inferno. Several of the warriors shrank back in fear, but not enough. More spells were coming.
"Ari, what do we do?" Hunter cursed behind her.
They weren’t going to make it.
More spells thundered out of the smoke, and Ari cringed. But the spells came from behind the warriors attacking them, Carules and Edren spells alike.
Wait. They’re… They aren’t after us. The spells hit the warriors attacking her and they fell, screaming, under the onslaught.
"What the—?" Will cried, and Ari risked a glance over her shoulders to see that help had come out of nowhere for Will and Hunter as well. She jerked her gaze forward again, squinting through the flames. Her breath caught in her throat as she recognized several familiar faces, appearing and disappearing through the mist. Tears of gratitude burned behind her eyelids as she closed her eyes, just for a second, in relief.
“Ari?” Shane squeezed her hand, and her eyes shot open.
"Renegades!" she screamed.
Will's colony swarmed into the tunnel of flames, taking down enemy warriors from both sides of the tunnel. Ari recognized Dani and her family near the front, fierce and hungry for vengeance. More and more from Will's colony, those who had sworn off the war, but they were here, now.
Saving the day.
Behind Ari, Will yelled to Hunter, "Let's help them out, shall we?" Ari risked another glance behind her to see Will spinning his traps as Hunter attacked. Working together they went after the warriors behind them, catching them and forcing them back toward the Renegades.
Through the roar of the flames, they could see the battlefield on either side, warriors frozen in shock and confusion as they watched their Prodigies race down a tunnel of fire together.
"Shane! I can see Charity," Ari yelled.
Shane didn’t look at her, bright eyes locked on the tiny form of his cousin, hundreds of yards away, silhouetted against the blood red sunset behind her. "Yeah but she's surrounded by guards!"
"Can you trace half of a lirik?" Ari asked. An idea was still forming in her mind as she fought to concentrate on the wall of fire shooting from her left hand.
"What? Two spells at once? It's impossible!" Hunter hollered behind them as he threw a particularly vicious spell at a daring Edren warrior who burst through the flames right in front of him.
Shane nodded firmly. Releasing her hand, he started burning the spell into the air in front of him, trying to maintain the wall of flames from his right hand.
And then her hand was there, tracing the same spell, filling in what his had missed by trying to do it one-handed. The spell sizzled, the lirik in front of them hanging,
waiting.
"Now!" Ari screamed, and as one they pushed it. The spell erupted in a burst of deep purple and shot with an audible hum like a missile toward one of Charity's guards. He exploded with a cry and Charity jerked away from the heat. Even from far away Shane and Ari could both see her silver eyes turning toward them, brimming with hope.
"Again!" Shane bellowed, and they traced the spell together, as fluently as if they were one soul. It exploded away from them so fast all that was visible was the wafting smoke it left behind, hanging in the burning air. Another of Charity's guards burst into flames.
Their wall of flames was almost to the Council, the heat from the fire scorching and melting the blue banner. The Council had broken formation and was running in all different directions at once.
Charles was frantically digging out his phone, screaming at Charity's guards. Charity was his only insurance against a painful death at the hands of the Prodigies, and he knew it. Shane and Ari let the wall drop as all four of them raced forward. Ari’s legs burned from running so far and her shoulders and arms ached from trying to maintain the spell for so long. But none of that mattered now. Leading the others, she shot forward, running with every ounce of super-human speed she had. The flames in her blood responded, and she felt sparks blooming from her fingertips, anxious to be put to use.
Behind them, Dani yelled, "We'll hold off the masses as long as we can!" Ari glanced over her shoulder just in time to see the Renegades run into the battlefield.
They reached the top of the hill, barely pausing to take in the battle between the Council and the Family. Most of it had stopped as both sides turned toward their new, common threat.
Ari started forward just as a malicious red rikil spun through the air, burning her cheek as it flew past her. "Will!" Ari screamed, and whirled just as her brother dove out of the way.
"William! I told you to stay away from her!" Richard screamed, forming out of the mist like a horrible wraith, his face an awful color of burgundy, his eyes nearly popping out of his head. He threw another spell and Will jumped away again, but barely. Franklin materialized just behind him, spells already burning from his fingertips.
****
"He's trying to open a portal!" Shane yelled, and Ari looked up in time to see Charles putting his phone to his ear. A red flaming lirik flew past her face and Will dodged away, swearing.
"We’ll get Charity. Take care of that!" Shane yelled at her and took off, Hunter on his heels. "Don't let Charles make that call!" Ari could just hear Shane yell to Hunter over the roar of the battle and the flames and the screams.
Then she whirled on Richard, just as two more spells came flying past her. "Will!" she screamed. Will dove out of the way as one flew past him, but the other was too close. He couldn’t move fast enough.
A small red and black blur dove out of nowhere, intercepting the spell. Ari froze in shock, watching her mother tumble to the ground in a lifeless heap.
"Mom!" Will screamed, crashing to her side. He pulled her into his lap, his head bent low over her still form. Ari turned away, and then Richard stood before her, Franklin at his side, mere yards away. Ari could only stare in shock. There was no grief in his face. No emotion at all.
"She came to avenge you, Arianna. And this is how you repay her? By betraying us all? She was killed by a Carules, Arianna! These people you say are your friends killed your mother!"
Ari choked on a sob as a flaming wall of rage boiled up inside her chest, racing through her blood and bursting from her fingertips. She threw the flames at Richard, screaming, "I can see the spell traces, remember?"
As Richard dove out of the way, moving much too fast for a man of his age, Ari said, "I can see the spell traces and they are coming from your hands!" Her blood roared in her ears. The flames pushed up from her soul, hot and red and angry and hungry, and she felt them shatter out of her hands. She threw the flames at Richard, screaming nothing but just to scream until she found words. "You monster!" She sent one of his little curlicue spells at him, the ones that used to sting so badly when she was little.
But hers was much more powerful, and it hit him with enough force that he stumbled backward as his arm burst into flames.
She could finish him, right now. But she wanted him to suffer. She wanted him to feel the terror and the pain he had made her feel for so many years, the way he had made her mother feel for a lifetime. Again and again she hit him; she was too fast, he didn't have time to dodge. She moved so quickly the world itself seemed to slow down around her, and she marveled at the spells that flew through the air. She listened to him scream and it brought her joy. All those years of hating the pain she had caused, hating that she was a monster, and right now all she could do was relish in his pain.
Maybe she was a monster.
But so was he.
Then Will's spells flew past her, winding around Richard, trapping him. Her hands were tracing the lirik without even thinking, and she threw the spell with all her power and pain behind it; it blazed from her hands and shot toward him. He tried to dive away again, but he was trapped in Will’s spells. Then out of nowhere, Franklin stepped in front of him.
****
Shane started after Charity, but Charles stood between them. Hunter didn’t pause, leaving Shane and racing after Charles, who backpedaled as fast as he could, his phone to his ear. “Aaarrgh!” Hunter bellowed as he dove, tackling him, and smashed the phone into Charles’ head. Charles howled in pain as blood gushed from the wound and the phone crumbled in tiny pieces on the ground.
Hunter brought his fist back and slammed it into Charles’ face; the Council leader's head snapped to the left from the force of it.
Shane took advantage of Hunter’s attack and raced around them, going straight for Charity’s guards. He saw fear in their eyes just before they turned and ran, dragging her in the middle of them. Shane threw lirik after lirik, hitting one after the other, but there were so many. He risked a glance back to see if Hunter followed. His heart stopped in his chest and he froze, trapped between saving his cousin and saving his best friend.
"Hunter! Watch your back!" he yelled from too far away. Hunter spun in time to see six or seven Carules guards sending spells at him. Diving to the side, he rolled and came up on his feet, as Shane’s masas flew around him. It hit squarely and the Carules all went down, but it didn't kill them and Shane knew they wouldn't stay down for long.
Shane had to trust that Hunter could handle it from there, and hurled himself up the other side of the hill, racing after Charity's guards, who were dragging her away as fast as they could. He threw more spells, bright blue flames shooting from his hands, watching the guards go down again and again, but when one fell, another seemed to replace him.
****
Franklin burst into flames on impact, a towering inferno. Richard stared at him in shock as Ari raced toward Will and her mother's lifeless form. Richard's eyes snapped around to meet hers and she felt triumph roar through her as she clearly read panic in his gaze.
Richard turned and ran.
He raced around the inferno, leaving Franklin to die, and disappeared in the smoke.
Ari didn't hesitate. She charged forward, running straight at the towering blaze. "Will!" she screamed, and her brother sat back, reading her mind. Ari jumped.
****
Charity’s guards led Shane back around the hill, until he was nearly parallel to Ari. Out of the corner of his eye he could also see Hunter, who was still on his feet, frozen in shock, his eyes trained on Charity while her guards dragged her to the other side of a huge fire. As Shane followed he risked a glance to check on Ari, to know she was alive. For the second time in as many minutes, his heart stopped at the sight of her sprinting straight at the bonfire, running so fast she was nothing but a blur and Shane was sure she couldn’t stop before she crashed into the fire. Will knelt on the ground in front of the fire, next to what could only be his mother, seemingly unaware of Ari racing straight toward him. And then Ari screamed an
d Shane watched, astonished, as Ari leaped forward, planting one foot on Will's knee and the other on his shoulder and flew into the air, curling herself into a ball as she rolled through the sky, over the hungry flames, and disappeared onto the other side.
Hunter, too, had frozen as he watched Ari hurtle over the fire, but as she disappeared from view, Shane saw Hunter shake himself and start after Charity. He stepped over Charles, who lay silent at his feet. "Hunter! Look out!" Shane yelled again, and Hunter spun around, startled to see Shane so close. Then he saw why Shane had yelled as several more Carules rushed up the hill toward him, spells already burning in the air. Shane watched in horror as the first one hit, a powerful one; Hunter fell to his knees, his eyes widening in pain. And then he collapsed as several more spells slammed into his still form.
"Hunter!" he yelled, blasting spells at the Carules who were still surrounding him. But there were so many. He was never going to get to Hunter or Charity in time. If he got out of this at all.
****
"Richard! Come out and fight me, you coward!" Ari screamed, rage making her voice raw. She curled her fingers into her palms, frustration making her dig half-moons into the roughened skin. She barely noticed as blood welled and dripped through her fingers.
"Do you think I'm that unintelligent, Arianna?" His voice taunted her through the smoke, and she sent a blind spell toward the sound, but there was no satisfying explosion. She had missed.
"Aagh!" she bellowed, sightless with rage. And then his voice, again through the smoke that was so thick it burned her eyes and blocked out the sun.
"Your little friends need your help, Arianna. Now, you can stay and fight me, but your mother's already dead and your brother" —the word sounded like slime on his tongue— "is trying to help them. But let’s be honest, shall we? We both know without you, they'll fail. They'll all be killed," he said conversationally. Hiding in the mist and the flames seemed to make him feel safe. Ari wanted to take that safety and strangle him with it. Slowly.
She spun around in circles, as his voice taunted her from all sides, trying to catch sight of him, but he seemed to be everywhere and nowhere all at once. The smoke cleared with the breeze, just a bit, and she could see past her mother's body to the Carules banner beyond. Will fought off Carules, standing over Hunter’s still form. Not far from Will, Shane was throwing spells at Charles and several guards who still surrounded Charity. Her friends were overwhelmed, and even as she watched Shane took a hit and fell to one knee, struggling to get up, and then Will, too, was hit. And more Carules and Edren were swarming up the hill after them. Below, the Renegades had been overrun.
