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Shouts reverberate through the buildings’ walls. Several more figures slip from the doorways while the two guards we already spotted jog over to the tree to investigate.
A few of their colleagues join them while the rest of the group hangs back near the buildings. But now we can see them—and they haven’t noticed us yet.
Stavros raises his hand. “Those with the concealment charms first. The rest follow behind. Take them down as quickly as you can… Now.”
Rheave, Hovi, one of the women from Pima, and I have already yanked the charms on their thin chains over our heads. As my companions disappear around me, I hurtle forward and snatch my knives from their sheaths.
We burst from the trees, invisible to the confused guards, amid arrows flying from unseen sources. More than half of them sizzle with Rheave’s daimon energy, launched from the new bow Alek brought back for him.
The arrows streak through the air, felling foe after foe. A few of the figures topple into clay statues. Others crumple limply like the mortal men and women they are.
Blood splatters the grass before the remaining few have finished whirling around.
I race straight toward them, swinging one knife in a deadly arc and plunging the other into the nearest chest. Hollers from behind tell me that the rest of my comrades have flooded the clearing.
A blast of magic slams into me from the direction of one of the buildings—and the charm lying against my chest cracks. Suddenly the scourge sorcerer to my left is staring at me.
I’m visible again.
My magic blares through my body so forcefully I bite my tongue clamping down on its call. The battle around me blurs in my struggle for control.
Another body barrels into me from the side. Rheave heaves me out of the way of a sharper bolt of magic, shielding me with his well-muscled frame.
He spins us around and manages to send his final arrow soaring into the air, through an open window on the nearest building. A thump on the other side confirms that it hit its mark.
My power lashes out at me again, this time in pure frustration. A stabbing pain spikes through my gut.
As the momentary agony fades with my restrained gasp, the daimon-man remains poised next to me. Other magic flares around us in a muddled barrage of light.
“I freed more of my kind,” Rheave says. “And killed many of yours.”
His gaze slides to me with a hint of concern and longing. As if he needs my approval, even after everything we’ve already been through.
I give his arm a quick squeeze. “You were amazing. We just have to topple the last few of them and?—”
Another supernatural attack rains down on us with a roar of flames. This time, I shove Rheave to the side.
As the two of us roll across the grass away from the now smoldering patches, a cry breaks through the air. One of Voleska’s men kneels by a woman who’s slumped on the ground, her body charred from head to waist.
My stomach flips over. His friend won’t be getting up again.
A man who joined us from Baron Cyris’s staff jerks his hand toward a second-floor dormer. “Up there. Someone’s?—”
A glinting bolt slices through the air before he can finish his warning. It gouges straight through his neck. He crumples backward.
I inhale in a hiss through my teeth and launch myself forward. The first-floor window frame gives me enough of a foothold. I wrench myself up the side of the building and plunge through the upper window feet-first.
My heels slam into a body that didn’t dodge fast enough. Ignoring the renewed clamoring of my magic, I jab out with my elbow, smack a cheekbone, and whip around the knife that’s leapt back into my palm.
The sorcerer slumps beneath me into a pool of blood from her slit throat.
I crouch there, panting silently, listening for any other signs of attack. My magic’s call reverberates through me, but it’s more a simmer than a boil when there’s no direct threat.
A clatter rings out below me, followed by Stavros’s voice shouting, “All clear!”
Cautiously, I move back to the window. My comrades are still scanning the clearing warily, but no further attacks batter us.
Blood streaks several sleeves and pantlegs. To my relief, no one appears to have taken fatal wounds except for the woman from Pima and the baron’s man.
