Kadiatu collapsed, prone on the ground, weak and shaking. “I’m empty!”

She clawed at the earth, trying to drag herself to Marai and Thora, away from the front lines.

“Stay there—I’m coming!”

The earth leapt into the air before Marai had the chance to take a step. Rocks and dirt towered like a colossal wave, a rearing snake, as it sped towards Kadiatu. It knew. Rayghast’s dark magic knew she was empty.

Marai’s feet barely touched the ground, as if she truly was a phantom. She careened to Kadiatu’s side, shoving through combating soldiers. She hurdled over bodies.

But she wasn’t fast enough.

The terrestrial wave pounced. In one horrific move, earth engulfed Kadiatu. Her scream was swallowed by grass, dirt, and rock. One dark arm protruded from the mass, clawing, reaching out to Marai.

Marai latched on to Kadiatu’s delicate hand. It didn’t grasp hers back.

An agonized screech seized Marai from the terror.

Thora appeared at Marai’s side. She scratched and pulled with despairing hands at the heap of crumpled earth. “Get her out, Marai,” she cried, tears staining her blood-streaked face. “Help me!”

Numbness settled over her. Marai stared at the scene as if she watched it from a distance. Detached. A spectator.

She can’t be gone. She can’t . . .

Thora didn’t notice that she’d ripped off several fingernails as she continued to frantically dig. She threw rocks aside, enough to reveal Kadiatu’s battered, bleeding face. Her body limp, eyes closed, as if she was merely sleeping. But no breath expanded Kadiatu’s lungs. No pulse beat in her thin wrist.

A million screams caught in Marai’s throat. Pressure building; tightening, tightening in her chest. Her mind struggled to catch up.

“Kadi,” shrieked Thora. “I can heal her!”

His name is Ruin, Keshel had said. I see a great battle. I see death and carnage.

Marai cursed Keshel’s cryptic vision.

“She’s gone, Thora,” Marai said, but the sound came from someone else’s mouth, said in someone else’s world. Sensation returned to her body. The lens she’d been staring through widened, bringing the world back into view. Marai pulled Thora from Kadiatu’s body and into a tight embrace. Thora struggled against Marai’s strong grip, sobbing. “There’s nothing you can do for her.”

Is this what it meant to be a leader? A queen? Soldiering on even when your heart was breaking?

“No!” Thora thrashed, forcing Marai to cling tighter. “I can save her—I can!”

Thora let out a mighty wail as her body, wracked with heaving sobs, gave up. She collapsed against Marai; fingers clenching the fabric of Marai’s shirt.

Fury like nothing Marai had ever known flooded her veins and bones as molten lava.

“Go back to work, Thora,” she said. Fiery anger hissed from her mouth. “Heal those who have a chance.”

Shoulders slumped, Thora didn’t meet Marai’s eyes as she staggered back to the soldiers she’d been tending. All the fight had gone from her.

And all the joy and light in the world vanished with Kadiatu.

Chapter 30

Ruenen

Where was Rayghast?

The king was known to be a hellhound on the battlefield. A vicious warrior who led his own men through the charge. He should’ve found Ruenen by now, especially since the earth had stopped rumbling. But the king was nowhere in sight.

“Come on, Rayghast,” Ruenen growled as he cut down another soldier. “Come and get me!”

Filitto was dead. His body lay near Ruenen’s feet, amongst the rivers of blood. Hundreds of dead on both sides. Boys with decades left of their lives to live, lying prostrate in the muck, getting trampled. Old men, too frail to lift a sword, lay broken and ravaged amongst the heather.

The dents and cracks across Ruenen’s armor served as proof of how close he’d come to death. So many strikes, so many blades hit the armor instead of flesh. He’d be dead a dozen times over without it, but now it was barely clinging to him, damaged beyond use. Ruenen peeled the armor from his body. Now nothing stood between him and the edge of a blade.

He shouldn’t have looked, but Ruenen couldn’t stop his eyes from darting across the moor, searching for Marai.

There were too many bodies around him. Too much chaos. He couldn’t see past the circle of black and gold encompassing him.

But a glint of orange flame sputtered in the corner of his vision. A swirling tornado of wind flung rocks, grass and soldiers across the moor.

Marai hadn’t yet unleashed her mighty power, which either meant the other fae were still fighting, or she was . . .

No, there’s still hope. 

A dark shape caught Ruenen’s attention. It rose from the moor on the Tacornian side straight into the sky. Ruenen’s head snapped upwards and his jaw dropped.

A man with large, hawk-ish wings flew overhead. Or at least, the creature had the physique of a man. He soared above the battlefield; a vulture, searching for prey. Hip-length silver-white hair fanned out around it in the breeze.

“What in the Unholy Underworld is that?” Ruenen uttered to no one as the hair on the back of his neck prickled.

“Demon,” a man yelled, but they weren’t pointing at the creature in the sky. The Tacorn soldier gaped as a massive bull-like beast materialized from swirling black flame and smoke, as if it had been birthed from earth and magic itself right before their eyes.

Two more. Rayghast had just created two more shadow creatures from this battle alone.

The creature cracked its neck to the side, flexed its muscular arms and long humanoid fingers. Its blunt snout sniffed at the scent of blood. Then it turned and stabbed straight through the armor of the nearest Tacornian soldier with its thick, towering, twisted horns.

Demon, indeed. 

The beast shook the dead soldier off its horns, tossing the body unceremoniously to the ground. With frantic yells, soldiers on both sides retreated from the creature; the Tacornians appeared as terrified as the Nevandians.

“Bring it down,” a Tacorn commander shouted to everyone in the vicinity.

So these beasts weren’t allies of Tacorn, then, although they’d been created by their king’s usage of dark magic, directly from the Underworld.

Men hurled axes, spears, mallets, and knives at the horned devil. It blocked with its muscular arms, knocking aside the weapons.

Faeries, vampires, werewolves, and now shadow creatures . . . who else was going to join the fray?

Chapter 31