Page 53 of Season Warriors & Wolves

It happened almost too quickly. She moved too quickly.

Where two huge bodies once stood remained only floating ashes.

Something glistened in Thora’s hold, a simple silver dagger with a small emerald etched to it.

They had done it.

Anima accissor.

Thora took another step forward, wiping the gleaming dagger to her sleeve. “Remember that game you used to play with me?”

“What game?” father asked, motioning his soldiers to circle her.

The tension turned thick when my sister sang the rhymes I used to chase her around to, “One, don’t run little one. Two, mind your step when you take.” She lifted three fingers up. “A turn to—three.”

I took off in a flash before the guards could grasp my intentions, before the chains holding me prisoner tightened and weighed me in place.

Something crashed on Melanthe’s barrier, tearing a slash through it for me to pass. I felt the tug of magic holding me back, but I forced myself forward and then, from the thin air, a hooded body faded mid-air, holding a silver sword I knew all too well. The blade hit the first chain holding my wrist and then the second. They spun the edge and cut through the last tether holding me prisoner to Melanthe. The soul killer slashed through all limbs of dark magic binding me, and hells were about to break loose when I felt all gates of magic surge open and pour—drowning all my senses.

I breathed too much and too cold, my heart beat too fast and my skin burned too hot. The ground below blanketed in ice, the skies screamed with thunder and the wind howled with warning as I rose to my feet, breathing control down the seal while violent power coated my sight.

The gust of wind blew back the veil of fog to reveal Macaria and Oryn standing tall at the edge of a building, chanting a string of words that made the blood in my veins hiss and my magic submit to my command.

The skies sung not only from magic speeding out of me but from the collapse of wind against the wings of my soldiers descending the grounds one after the other. Volantians landed all around us along with Tristin and the Skye soldiers following suit.

Swinging the sword till it glowed with electricity, I turned to my father whose shadows thickened from the blistering light above. “I’ve waited for this for so long.”

“Kill them all!” he barked, and hundreds of beasts, soldiers and Crafters poured from the buildings around us—the trap he’d set for whoever he’d expected to come for me.

Soldiers and beasts alike launched towards us and before the next breath was taken. I bolted right in the midst of them and blasted all that had remained caged. The grounds shook and the screams were too short as lightning crawled all around me, burning skin and melting bone.

More Skye warriors rained down on the ground in the hundreds, armed with soul killers.

Melanthe seethed, making her way towards me, her body glowing red. Hundreds of chains coated in thick glowing craft rose from behind her, aiming at me. Only to end up crashing against a thin layer of violet.

The witch raised her pale stare to the roof where Macaria stood, and shouted, “You have always been one to follow and never lead, Macaria. Such talent! Such shame! To die a follower’s death when you could have lived a victor’s life. This is my last offer to you. Join us as our sisters have and I will grant you the life you were denied.”

The old witch echoed back, “I will live, girl. I will live to burn you myself for what you have done.”

A growl escaped from Melanthe’s tight mouth; waves of her magic began knocking back Tristin’s soldiers. “I will never burn.”

“I can change your mind,” I said, advancing toward her. Lighting hitting her the veil over her over and over, power crashing against power. And when it began thinning and waning, a portal opened behind them.

“We will fight. But it won’t be today,” she said.

Father retreated first and then she followed, leaving a small army of beasts growling in our direction. They had what they wanted, and father was not willing to put up a fight—not when he was planning a war.

Cowards.

The Skye warriors and Tristin managed to get rid of the last of the beasts while I tried to gather and reign control of my powers that had barely seen light in the past six months.

Oryn walked to me, holding an unconscious Macaria in his arms. “My queen, do you need help?”

I shook my head and pointed to the violet witch. “What about her?”

The old man looked down at the woman. “She had to summon a call from the Otherworld to break Melanthe’s and her sister’s veils otherwise we would have never been able to get to you. She will be just fine in a couple of days. This one is a strong one.”

Small arms wrapped around me tightly all of a sudden, engulfing me with soft heat and notes of honeysuckle perfume—she still smelled like the day she was born. My sister shook in my hold like years ago when they had put her writhing small body in my arms to hold. But this time she didn’t make a sound or breathe at all.