My knees grew weak as I realized we had more company. Invisible hunters had joined the fight, and one of them had just stabbed me with a long knife. The pain spread out through my torso, and I felt warm blood rising in my throat. This wasn’t going to kill me, but whatever came next most definitely could.
I tried to move, but all I managed to do was cough up some blood before the daemon kicked me in the back. He didn’t stand a chance, though, as Caspian slashed his opponents down in a fit of rage and lunged at the invisible fiend behind me. The daemon kicked me again, trying to set his arm free. I fell flat on my face, my entire body shuddering and breaking into a cold sweat, the pain too strong to let me stand up or even push myself off the ground.
Caspian’s roar made my muscles tighten. He rammed his sword through the invisible daemon’s eyes. He then scooped me up in his arms and carried me away from the hot zone, hiding us behind a redwood. He put me down, my back leaning against a stone. I struggled to keep a steady breath, the pain searing through my torso.
“You’ll be okay,” he breathed, then bit into his wrist and pushed it against my lips. “Drink!”
I nodded and let his blood fill my mouth. I suckled at his wrist with greed, feeling my insides burn as they healed surprisingly fast. His jade eyes were clouded. He chewed on his lower lip, occasionally glancing down at my wound.
The pain subsided as I drank more of Caspian’s blood, and I nearly choked when I started seeing ribbons of color flowing out of him. I could feel my gaping wound close, the muscles and tendons repairing themselves. The battle raged on behind us.
I could feel him. I could feel his emotions tickling my senses, a mixture of pitch-black anger and bright blue hope, thoroughly intertwined with something warm and gold, a feeling I wasn’t sure how to label. His gaze softened as he withdrew his wrist and wiped the blood from my lips with his thumb.
It turned out I finally had an open channel to Caspian’s emotions. And his blood had facilitated that.
Hah… Gotcha now…
My spine tingled as he leaned closer, his nose brushing gently against mine and his expression soft. His breath warmed my lips.
“Don’t scare me like that again, Miss Hellswan,” he whispered, the green pools in his eyes darkening. “I didn’t come all the way here to watch you die.”
He slipped his arms around my torso and helped me up. I leaned into him, comfortable against his firm chest, and looked up.
“Thank you,” I sighed, once again revitalized and eager to get back into the action behind me.
He was the first Mara I could read, and I tried very hard to stifle my satisfaction, feeling it spread all over my face with a wide grin. He frowned.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Nothing.” I cleared my throat and pushed myself away, pleased to be able to stand on my own again. “Just… Thank you…”
Caspian nodded, then quickly scanned the battlefield.
“Your swords are back there,” he noted, then put his hands on my shoulders. “Ready to go back in?”
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Patrik drawing water from the nearby stream to reveal the dozens of invisible daemons that had invaded this part of the gorge. There were fewer than twenty armored daemons left, but at least five dozen hunters as backup and three remaining pit wolves.
The rest of my team was holding its own while the Druid tried to reveal as many invisible daemons as possible. Judging by the way the air rippled across the battlefield, they were strategically scattered, as if they’d already figured out Patrik’s range.
“Yeah, I’m ready,” I said.
I darted out and went straight for my knives. Two daemons obstructed my path. I drew my long knives out as I slid down onto my back and slipped between one daemon’s legs, slashing the insides of his thighs before I reached for my swords.
I sheathed the knives and grabbed my twin blades, then jumped to my feet.
Caspian threw me a casual wink and a smile as he engaged another daemon. My heart fluttered in my chest, and I rode that feeling into another fight.
Three daemons snarled as they charged me from three different angles.
“Three’s a party!” I grinned, and let loose.
Whatever flowed through Caspian’s veins passed as blood but was loaded with delicious energy. I’d had my fill earlier, replenishing my sentry strength, but I was even more buzzed after drinking his blood. My muscles tingled as I gripped the handles on my swords and switched to an attack stance.
This was going to be good.
These bastards won’t stand a chance.
Scarlett
(Daughter of Jeramiah & Pippa)
Two of the pit wolves set their sights on me, while Blaze dealt with the third one and the armored daemons. I was fast enough to keep myself out of the mutts’ jaws, though they tried to attack me from different angles. I was able to keep track of both as they darted around. I slashed at one just as it snapped its teeth at my leg, missing my calf by an inch. I drew blood and heard it squeal before it retreated to attempt another strike.
I quickly glanced around. The daemons were slowly losing to our team, with a large number of casualties attributed to Blaze. Though he was careful not to harm us or the Imen prisoners, the dragon was still agile and precise enough to deal deadly blows to entire hostile clusters. My blood chilled as I noticed the armored daemons swallow something—one by one, they shimmered, then vanished.
The realization hit me in the stomach with the weight of a sledgehammer.
“Patrik, they’re using swamp magic!” I shouted. “The invisibility spell! That’s what it is!”
I heard him groan and curse under his breath. He was dealing with his fair share of daemons, switching between his blade and blue-fire spells to take them down, weakening them so Avril and Heron could finish them off.
He pushed a fiery pulse out, the blue flames engulfing five daemons at once, then summoned a shower of water from the nearby stream to reveal the fiends that had just gone invisible. I counted at least fifty now, including the ten still guarding the Imen’s cages.
One of the pit wolves that had been nagging me shifted its focus to Patrik, prowling behind him. The Druid was too busy with daemons to notice the beast coming up behind him. It was moving too fast for me to even warn him. My heart thudded as I flashed after it.
I slipped between Patrik and the fiend, and drove my sword upward. The blade pierced its throat. Blood gushed out and coated me in crimson. The pit wolf collapsed with a dying groan. I looked over my shoulder and registered Patrik’s astonishment before he blocked hits from two daemons.
The second pit wolf that I’d dealt with was hot on my tail. It dodged a spike hit from Blaze, then darted at me. I blocked its attacks as it repeatedly tried to claw at me. Its fiery red eyes were filled with rage. It had watched as two of its kind were brought down. It was out for blood.
Its growls sent chills down my spine, while I tried looking for a weak spot. The neck was my best bet. I faked a move to the right, enough to get the pit wolf to stretch its neck after me, then immediately flashed a couple of steps to the left. It jerked back a little too soon, so when I rammed my sword into the beast, the blade punctured the iron collar.
Crap!
Everything that came afterward happened in slow motion. Its jaws were gaping, its long fangs sharp and eager to tear me apart. I tried to pull the blade back. I tugged in order to dislodge it and wound up breaking the collar off entirely. The pit wolf stilled as the fragmented iron fell to the ground.
It shook its head, looking around with awe and confusion, as if it had just been put there. It glanced at me and yelped, its massive head lowering in a fearful gesture. Its red eyes were wide and filled with angst, and it took a couple of steps back.
I moved forward with the intention of finishing it off, but never got that chance. The pit wolf scurried off in the opposite direction and disappeared behind a string of boulders. It was baffling, to say the least. I thought a
bout the collar symbols that Patrik had identified as swamp witch magic. Could it be that those iron bands were influencing the animals’ behavior?
Only one way to find out, I thought to myself as I set my sights on the last pit wolf, which was still shuffling around Blaze, trying to get a good attack angle on him. It was moving fast, but I needed to somehow take it by surprise.
Patrik was several feet away from me, fighting three armored daemons. I took a second to admire his agility—the way he swerved around the hostiles as if he were made of water, the speed of his sword, and his excellent coordination between his sword and his Druid spells.
He dodged a rapier slash, then pushed a bright golden energy pulse out, which knocked the daemons off their feet. The fiends fell backward, grunting and panting from the impact. Patrik then threw out blue fires that engulfed the daemons. They screamed, flailing their arms and desperately rolling over the ground to put the flames out.
I jumped in and rammed my sword through one of them, the blade puncturing his throat, while Patrik swiftly finished off the other two. He looked at me, breathing heavily from what already seemed like an eternity of fighting.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” I gasped. “It wasn’t this intense during GASP training!”
He gave me a brief, sympathetic smile before he looked to his right, as more daemons advanced toward us.
“There are still too many of them,” Patrik said, resuming his attack stance, with his sword out and his right hand glowing gold and ready to deal another blow to the incoming hostiles.
“I never knew you could remove the invisibility spell using water, not until we came here and met the daemons,” I replied, catching a glimpse of Caia as she pulled water out of the stream and used it to reveal daemons. She wasn’t as well versed with water manipulation as she was with fire, but she could still use this part of her fae ability if she needed to.
“Technically speaking, it isn’t possible,” Patrik said, “but you are right. I saw them swallow something, too. The collar symbols, their ability to go invisible like this, it all points to swamp witch magic. Maybe they altered the spells.”
He leaned into his left leg, ready to jump at the daemons approaching him, their spears pointing at him. I caught another glimpse of the pit wolf prowling behind Blaze’s hind legs. This was my chance.
“I’m going to test a theory now,” I muttered, then flashed by Patrik’s side, bringing my face close to his for a split second. “Kick their asses, Patrik.”
I then darted after the last pit wolf, moving around the hot zone where the team was actively fighting daemons. I dodged several hits on the way, as the hostiles did try to get me but quickly realized that I was too fast. I closed the distance between me and the pit wolf and brought my sword up, ready to make the most of the angle I was working to hit the collar. I wanted to see if, by removing the iron, the pit wolf’s behavior would change. The beast used his momentum and climbed onto Blaze’s thigh, moving fast to travel the length of the dragon’s back and reach the eyes.
Blaze’s giant head then swooped into the frame, his jaws closing with a loud crack as he snapped the pit wolf in two. He jerked it around several times, then spat it on the ground. I came to a full stop right in front of the creature’s mangled body, cursing under my breath.
I looked up at Blaze and shook my head.
“Dude, I was onto it! You ruined my experiment!” I shouted.
Blaze stared at me for a couple of seconds, his midnight-blue eyes flickering black as he blinked. He then huffed and resumed his systematic attack on the incoming daemons.
“So much for figuring out whether that collar actually does something or I just freaked the pit wolf out…” I muttered, then glanced over my shoulder and raised my sword to block a daemon’s attack.
He viciously clawed at the empty space that I kept putting between us, then screamed after my blade swooped down in a circular motion and cut off his hands altogether. I executed a rapid 180-degree turn with the blade out as I gripped its handle with both hands and decapitated the fiend. His head rolled at my feet, his red eyes bulging with shock as life dissipated from his features.
I looked at the Imen cages fifty yards to our left, which were still guarded by some daemons, then briefly analyzed the battlefield. If we could get the Imen out of the way and let them free, we could give Blaze the space he needed to spit fire and carbonize all the daemons at once.
I noticed Hansa and Jax were the closest, just twenty yards from one of the cages.
“Hansa, Jax!” I called out. “Set the Imen free so Blaze can burn these horned suckers down!”
“Good thinking!” Hansa replied just as she managed to ram her broadsword through a daemon’s chest. She kicked the hostile off her blade, taking a step back for Jax to cut his head off.
I moved closer to their side, engaging the other daemons surrounding them in a separate fight. It gave Jax and Hansa the window they needed to run to the cages.
My body whizzed with energy and determination. We had to wrap this up sooner, rather than later, if we wanted to get to Fiona in time. Every second we wasted fighting daemons was a second we could’ve spent tracking Fiona. That thought alone was enough to add a dash of strength to my sword hits as I tackled multiple opponents at once.
There’s no way you jerks are getting between us and Fiona any longer!
Jax
There were fewer than twenty yards between us and the Imen’s cages, and about ten daemons left guarding them. The others had moved onto the battlefield, and half of those were already dead. Had it not been for the throng of invisible hunters that came out of nowhere, we would’ve finished them all off by now.
Hunters must have been in the area, maybe surveying the high points of the gorge or prowling through the crevices. One thing was clear, though: they were fierce and quick to jump in to help the other fiends. I figured they wanted to protect the Imen transport at all costs—based on what Caspian had told us, it seemed reasonable to assume that these cages were meant to feed the daemons underground, those who were unable to hunt for themselves.
Scarlett took center stage on Hansa’s and my fighting ground, fending off incoming hostiles so we could take care of the cages. Our objective was to break the locks and help the Imen escape—get them as far away from the area as possible. We could then jump behind the nearest rocks and leave Blaze with the freedom he needed to unleash his dragon fire.
One of the ten daemons in charge of the prisoners came at me, his metallic armor screeching as he raised his spear. I ducked and dodged the hit, then drove my swords through the sides of his torso, where the chest plates were joined to the rest of the protective gear with threaded mesh. It was one of the few soft spots I’d identified in the daemons’ armor. The fiend collapsed to his knees. Hansa moved forward and tackled two more that had been stationed around the first cage.
We fought them hard—they were desperate and thus unpredictable. Their chaotic attacks made us burn a lot of energy swerving left and right to avoid their blades, before we could get a clear shot. Eventually, they both came down, their heads tumbling onto the hard ground, blood pooling at our feet.
The Imen were huddled in the middle, crying and trembling, crouching and covering their heads. Hansa was looking for the locks when a fourth daemon emerged from behind the cage and came at her with his rapier, the blade sharp and glistening with eagerness to slice her.
I dashed to her side and blocked the attack with my swords, then kicked the fiend in his groin. He doubled over in pain, giving me the perfect position to chop his head off. Sure, daemons were fast and vicious, but, like all two-legged creatures I’d ever come across, some were weaker and were victims of poor choices fueled by panic.
Hansa’s emerald-gold eyes brightened as she glanced at me. She gave me a brief but sincere smile, and I could feel the ice between us thawing. Our ride on the same horse had already been equal parts intense and uncomfortable. I was relieved to see her not glaring at me or comp
letely ignoring me. The color suddenly left her cheeks, and she lunged at me, gripping her broadsword with both hands, blade aimed at my torso.
It happened so fast that I didn’t even have a reaction. My heart paused as I watched her ram her sword just inches from my right side, and I heard a grunt behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the air rippling, along with a pair of narrowed red eyes—this was a tall daemon, towering two feet over me.
I suddenly turned, and used the speed of that movement to pierce his neck with my sword. The fiend collapsed, his body hitting the ground and crimson blood gushing from his wounds.
“Remind me to thank you later for this,” I said to Hansa, then moved around the cage. More invisible daemons rushed toward us.
“No need, just looking out for my team,” Hansa breathed, resuming her search for the locks. One of the Imen looked at her and pointed to his left. Two locks held the cage closed on that side.
She wasn’t going to get a moment to reach those padlocks, as more daemons gathered around us. Caia was busy with a dozen hostiles on her side, while Blaze continued his targeted attacks. Avril and Heron helped Patrik finish off the remaining armored daemons, but more invisible hunters came in from the narrower parts of the gorge that we’d left behind. Harper and Caspian had their fair share of daemons to deal with, while Scarlett kept flashing around and pitching in on all sides, her flurry of rapid hits causing blood showers to spray around in shades of vivid crimson.
I had to give Hansa the break she needed to set the Imen free.
Two can play that game, I thought to myself as I fumbled through my belt compartments and scooped out a handful of invisibility paste. I always carried some with me, to use in situations such as this. Hansa was too busy to notice me swallowing the swamp witches’ spell, and there was no time for me to explain.