by Leia Stone
They thought they were safe.
But they were so wrong.
Bringing my awareness back to my physical body, I pressed my hands together and sent out my magical feelers. I could feel the resistance coming from the other world, or plane of existence, or whatever it was that the High Mage Island resided in. But now, I better understood why my spirit needed to be separate to make this work. That part of me, my soul, tethered me to that realm—while my body tethered me to this realm. I could feel my soul, like a giant lighthouse in a storm, guiding my energies as it pulled for the rest of me to join it.
But this wasn’t a portal for one.
I slowly opened my hands, my eyes still closed, and several people in the crowd gasped.
Please let that mean this is working, I prayed.
Another deep breath, and I opened my hands wider, tearing at the force separating the two parts of me.
“That’s it, Nai. A little bit more,” Sariah said, her singsong voice seeming to come from a million miles away.
I thought of my mom and the cave, and with one final breath, I yanked my hands apart.
The sound of splintering rock was followed by a loud boom and then a crash as stone fell against stone. The air filled with silt, and the floor rolled beneath my feet.
My eyelids snapped open, and I stared at the giant broken slabs of onyx that littered the floor.
Ha!
A permanent opening between Shifter Island and High Mage Island now existed like an entry to a cave, but the edges were glowing blue with my magic.
This was how it should have always been. No more shutting out the two sides. No more exclusion.
The noise had alerted the blood mages in the high mage library of our attack, so I charged forward, stepping over the broken stone, and crashed right into my soul on the other side. The odd sense of wholeness slammed into me as the two parts merged once more.
Our group rushed into the long hallway, hopefully toward our victory.
Reyna and Kaja caught up to me, swords drawn. We ran, shoulder to shoulder, taking up the entire hallway width as we charged.
“Intruders!” a shrill female screamed just as we stepped into the large space. I scanned the room, skimming over the bloodstains or scorch marks where my grandfather and so many others had died. Anger pulsed through my veins, and I lashed out with my magic, sending a whip of blue light right at the two blood mages in front. Just before my magic reached them, a force slammed into me, knocking me backward. My whip fizzled as the air was pushed from my lungs by the impact.
Okay.
They wanted to play hardball.
With a roar, I leapt to my feet.
I released my magic, and it flew, wild, free, and unrestrained. The blue tendrils crackled in the air as they climbed toward my enemies—and then surrounded them. It was like watching someone inside of a microwave. One second, they were there, and the next … just like Surlama, they burst. Pieces of them rained through the air.
Hardball it was.
“Holy shite,” Kaja breathed next to me. “Remind me to never piss you off.”
Yeah … I’d had enough. I’d reached my max tolerance of brutal and sadistic, and I wasn’t going to stop until every last one of these blood mages was a shredded puddle of their former selves, lying on the floor.
“Let’s go find Kalama and the queen,” I growled.
Turns out that was easier said than done.
Chapter Seventeen
Blood mages swarmed the high mage library, coming in from all of the doorways: fire, water, earth, air, spirit, even the front entrance that faced the pathway leading toward the butterfly atrium.
As our group poured forth from the corridor, we were met by a force nearly as great as our own.
Time to level the playing field.
“Noble! Ozark!” I shouted, and together, we lobbed the magic-canceling powder bombs toward our enemies.
Large clouds of the fine particles plumed in the air, followed by several screeches and coughs.
“Earth!” Carson yelled, and the ground in front of us rolled like waves. Dozens of the blood mages scrambled to remain upright as the ground shifted, opening a wide crevasse.
The alpha heirs and mages with air magic created tornadoes, and the water elementals added their powers so the blood mages faced a typhoon.
The bookshelves tumbled and crashed into one another; the heavy tomes pelted the now magicless blood mages.
The wind and rain stopped all at once, and in the breath of silence that followed, King Ozark bellowed, “Attack!”
The shifters raced forward and tore into the battered and bloodied fallen.
While Reyna and Kaja hacked through the bodies, I blasted dozens more. The humid air filled with the coppery stench of death as we fought our way through the horde.
And while our enemies lacked their magic, they still had their blood-thirst—and deadly claws.
The cacophony of battle drowned out all individual voices. Metal clashed. Screams rent the air. Blood and water pooled on the stone floor, making it slick and slippery with gore. As bodies fell, they were pushed to the side, and soon enough, the aisles became blocked by piles of the dead or dying.
Kaja, Reyna, and I pressed our way through the mass, toward the door marked with the symbol for spirit, while our team kept guard from behind.
‘Have you seen Kalama or the queen yet?’ Rage asked.
I ducked under a blood mage’s arm as they swung out with their claws, and then spun and drove my blade into their neck.
Damn. The knife stuck, and when I yanked it out, blood sprayed my face.
Blech.
‘Not yet,’ I shot back to Rage. ‘You?’
Kaja sliced off the vamp’s head, and we were on to the next one.
One after another.
‘Nope,’ Rage said. ‘I don’t like it.’
I wanted to agree, but the vamps kept coming.
As the next wave of them arrived, hawks dropped their last two magic-canceling bombs. The only one I had left was shoved into my belt. I was saving it for the queen.
Lunge.
Parry.
Stab.
Slice.
Duck.
Feint.
Drive.
The continued onslaught dragged on—and on.
Two blood mages caught Kaja, and I spun to her aid, tossing my dagger into the chest of the one lunging for her. Reyna shouted, “Left!” and then swung her blade. Kaja dove to her left just as Reyna’s katana eviscerated the other vamp.
Whoa.
“You’ve practiced that before,” I shouted.
Reyna grinned. “My whole life.”
We continued our advance, but the adrenaline we’d started with faded, and it was our training from Alpha Academy that sustained us.
The fire elementals led the next charge, and the stench of charred flesh singed our nostrils as ash floated in the air. I blasted two more blood mages, sending bits flying, and then raised my head.
A few small skirmishes persisted, but the majority of the blood mages were gone. I scanned our remaining force, and my heart plummeted. We had less than half of Team B still on their feet.
“See to the wounded,” I shouted to Noble.
Of course, he’d been the brilliant one to insist that I make a healing elixir before we’d left. I could only hope that most of our fallen were still alive enough to save.
We regrouped before our next strategic move.
To divide our force and send individual groups into the castles from here would be foolish without knowing what awaited us on the other side. Instead, we sealed the doors from the castles to the library by piling the dead up to block them. Then we’d be able to go from castle to castle without fear of them sneaking back to the portal here.
‘We’re done. All blood mages here are dead,’ Rage said. ‘I’m sending a force your way now. Justice is leading.’
Wait. ‘Aren’t you coming?’ I asked him.
‘I
’m taking a small group up to the other portal—on Daybreak’s land. If any of the blood mages come through that way, we need to have a group there, or they could get away.’
‘Good thinking. We’re going on the hunt for the queen now.’
‘Be careful,’ Rage said.
As if I needed the reminder.
We exited the library and stood on the path just north of the quad. From the steps, I could see four of the five castles, the landscape lighting on the grounds of each making the buildings glow. With the exception of our heavy breathing, the night was filled with eerie silence—unnaturally so.
“The queen was in Spirit Castle before,” I said.
“Then that’s probably a good place to start,” Kaja said, bumping my shoulder.
The others agreed, so we moved en masse to scout out their location. But by the time we reached my grandfather’s house, the queen and Kalama were gone. They’d left recently, judging by the half-eaten package of raw hamburger still on the counter—and the refrigerator door open. The entire castle was void of life.
“What now?” Reyna asked.
Ozark scanned the brightly lit room, his expression pinched. “I’ve often wondered if the blood mages have a hive mind like us selkies.”
As if we didn’t need anything more horrifying to deal with today.
Kaja jostled me as the leader of the lions pushed to the front of her pride to join the small group of leaders. I had Adrianna, the lion queen; Phoenix of the raptors; Cole of the bears, and somewhere, Carson and Jane were milling about. Honor brushed against my side in an expression of solidarity.
“Where do you think they’ve gone?” Adrianna asked. “Or are you certain the queen and her beta weren’t among the hundreds slain in the library?”
The thing was … I wasn’t sure. I’d been fighting just like everyone else, but I hadn’t stopped to see who’d been killed on either side. My insides churned with uncertainty, and I glanced at Kaja and then Ozark, who shook his head.
“I can feel the anxiety of my people,” the selkie king said, his voice low. “Deep in their souls, they don’t believe this is finished yet. The blood mages are a formidable foe—that was too easy.”
“Too easy?” Cole snarled. “I’ve lost nearly a dozen—”
“We’ve all lost!” Ozark slammed his fist to the counter. “This isn’t about our losses—not yet.”
Despite the vast number of deaths on both sides, I felt a similar trepidation. Like at any minute, someone could pull the rug out from under me.
My other scouts walked in then, and each one reported that all of the other castles were clear. No more blood mages.
Was it over? Did we win? “I—”
‘Nai!’ Rage screamed in my head, his voice filled with panic. ‘We’re under attack!’
Crap.
The other portal. That’s where we’d find the queen. I was sure of it!
“Carson! Jane! Xavier!” I spun in my grandfather’s kitchen, looking for any of the other high mages, but it was my aunt who grabbed me by the shoulders.
“Nai?” Sariah looked me in the eyes, her brow creased with concern.
“Where’s the other portal on this side? The one that leads to Daybreak lands on Shifter Island?” I asked, my voice breaking as fear wrung my chest, the vise so tight my heart jumped into my throat. “Rage is on the other side. The vamps—”
“The butterfly atrium,” my aunt said. “This way!”
We charged out of the castle as if our very lives depended on it, for there was a good chance they did. If the queen and her inner circle got away, this would only be the beginning.
‘We’re coming!’ I shouted to Rage and then glanced down at Honor, who kept pace at my side. ‘Tell Justice to meet us at the atrium.’
He was no longer my shield, so I couldn’t mentally speak to him anymore.
‘You’ve got it. Noble had him stay in the library until we knew…’
Noble was the king of organization.
‘Nai, hurry!’ Rage yelled. ‘We’re getting decimated!’
The predatory shifters became beasts as we raced toward the glass building. As we passed the library, Justice and a couple hundred warriors from Team A moved to join us.
Oh Mage!
If Justice had that many … what was Rage left with?
We arrived at the glass structure. Its doors had been burst wide open, the glass in pieces on the ground. The entire front half of the building was likewise gone—only the metal frames that had once held the glass panes remained, a few jagged shards jutting out like broken teeth. As the group fanned out, filling the ruined room, Carson and Jane stepped to my side along with their shields, Rue and Mele. Julian and Xavier were behind them, a show of unity for our new council.
“There’s a weeping willow in the back,” Jane said, and I noticed her dark hair singed on one side, the rest of it a tangle of knots from all the wind she’d used. She led us through the trampled flora where the blood mages had come through when they’d first invaded High Mage Island. She pointed to a majestic tree. “We just need to walk through the branches, and we’ll cross back onto Shifter Island.”
I pushed into the throng of warriors so that I could help save my mate—when Justice grabbed me and hauled me back.
I whipped around, glaring at my brother-in-law. He rested his hand on my shoulder as he looked me in the eyes. “The queen wants powerful blood—and that’s the high mages. We need to give you a fighting chance to kill her.”
But … Rage. I was tempted to reach out to him again, but I didn’t want to distract him if he was in the middle of a battle. I glanced at Honor, who nodded.
“Fine,” I huffed, trying to rein in my panicky need to go to Rage. “You want to plan? Then what’s on the other side of that willow? Where are we going?”
“It’s a huge mountain bluff overlooking the ocean, on the northwestern tip of the island,” Justice said.
“I know that location well,” Ozark said, stepping up to join our group. “Selkies will go first.” He waved his people to the front as he spoke. “Send the other shifters next.” His men and women disappeared in small groups. “Once our group is strong enough to overwhelm the enemy—” Ozark met my gaze. “—you’ll need to come in with your magic.”
“But—”
Ozark disappeared, and Adrianna of the lion pride nodded to me before disappearing behind him.
“Go,” Justice said as he joined the contingency of leaders and barked to the others.
While Justice spoke, the lions, hawks, and bears disappeared from this realm.
“Lower mages and fire users, we go in blazing,” Justice said, looking around the group. “Jane…” He glanced at the high mage of air and continued. “I’d like you to help us direct the flames.”
She nodded and joined his group.
Then Justice turned his attention to me and those still around me. “Nai needs to take out the queen, which means the rest of you need to do whatever you can to support that and protect her.” Then he looked me straight in the eye. “She’ll come to you—she wants your blood. Bad.”
“Be careful,” I told him.
He marched to the front of his line. “No. I’ll choose justice over careful … every time.”
My heart thundered against my ribs as they disappeared, and I caught a whiff of ash in the air.
“What’s your plan?” Reyna asked, sidling up next to me.
In all our planning … I hadn’t come up with this kind of scenario. Maybe I should’ve, but war … like this…
Think, Nai! Think!
“Carson,” I said, looking at the high master of earth, “I hope you have one more earthquake in you.”
The young man grinned. “You’ve got it.”
‘Rage!’ I shouted into his mind, no small measure of relief welling within when I felt his consciousness. ‘I need you to try and herd the blood mages to the edge near the water—’
‘Already on it,’ he growled. ‘We’re try
ing to keep them on the cliff and out of the woods.’
‘Good.’ A plan was shaping up in my mind, and I needed his help or it would never work. I tapped the single powder bomb at my hip and grinned. ‘Once I step out, I’ll need you to get our teams off the cliff and back to safety.’
I felt his confusion, and he growled, ‘You better not be planning on anything foolish.’
Not foolish. Risky. Courageous. At least … I hoped. ‘I’ve got one more Jakko bomb,’ I told him. ‘And a really crazy plan.’
“Let’s do this,” I said. And then we crossed into the branches of the willow tree…
And came out on Shifter Island.
Chapter Eighteen
Pandemonium surrounded us. Screams rent the darkness, and flames sliced into it, illuminating the destruction. The number of blood mages was … unbelievably small. Perhaps a few dozen, but they moved lightning fast. I scanned the small contingent of the enemy but didn’t spot the Queen or Kalama.
As I approached the cliff, I saw exactly why we hadn’t defeated the blood mages yet. Four blood mages darted forward in a blur of motion, unable for me to even track with my shifter eyes. They were way too fast and too strong. Adrianna, the queen of the lions, roared as the blood mages attacked her. She thrashed, but the four blood mages pounced swiftly, too strong.
I hesitated to blast them with my magic for fear of hitting the lion queen. The animal’s roar became a cry of pain, and then the lion went silent. One of the monsters screamed in triumph and held Adriana’s shriveled corpse in his clawed hands.
How had Rage kept the blood mages from overrunning him?
A blast of fire at the four blood mages answered my question. He was using his elemental power to stay alive. The four blood mages scampered away from the dead lion queen as Justice advanced.
But the blood mages were faster than shadows, and they disappeared into the night…
This fight could go on forever … unless we could corral them into one spot and use a power-canceling bomb.
