I had seen Ryland and what they had done to him. I couldn’t let it continue.
“You are a fool to think you can, Edmund.” The words ground out of me as the full force of my magic pressed against the barrier Edmund had placed inside his son. I knew it wasn’t enough to break whatever he had done to him, only Joclyn had that power. Regardless, if it could give us reprieve for long enough to make it through the cave, long enough to make it to safety, I would do it.
I had to try.
I screamed as the magic drained from me, my body feeling weak and broken as the hold Edmund had on his son lessened enough that the boy came back full force, his eyes fading to a pained blue as he looked at me for the first time in the last few minutes.
If only it was enough.
The moment the boy came back, the next line of attack broke through the trees with a scream. I turned away, toward the monsters that rushed us, knowing I had to keep them safe. Without the contact of my skin against his, the voice snapped back into his mind, and he went right back to attacking anything and everything that surrounded him.
Throwing Sain away from the boy in a mad attempt to keep him safe, I ran toward those before me. There was nothing he could do for him now, and if he kept trying, he would only get hurt.
I sped through the air with a leap, landing on one of the Trpaslíks with a violent force that sent both of us to the ground, my hand pressing against his windpipe as I burned it closed, his lungs seizing as the flame continued into them.
Moving as quickly as I could, I jumped from the body of the first, lunging into the second and sending him plowing into a tree trunk as a spider web of flame moved over his face, spreading down his body as the slow burn devoured him.
Ready to take on the third, I turned, only to see Thom burst through the trees, Dramin falling to the ground as he moved to attack the next line that was already bursting through the trees.
I ran to Ryland, fully intent to stop him in his tracks, to find some way to keep him alive, to get him to stop as Ilyan and Joclyn appeared beside us in a stutter, their bodies seemingly materializing from nothing before they ran toward us covered in sweat, dirt, and blood. The fear that ran through me relaxed a bit at seeing them there, at knowing they were safe, that they were alive. It was a short-lived calm, because despite being glad to see her, I knew what else it meant.
I didn’t dare ask, because part of me already knew. Sain had spoken the words only minutes before that, in some way, had sealed her fate as much as ours.
Everything was broken.
“Did you kill Edmund?” I couldn’t keep the excitement out of my voice, although the emotion was more based in the battle I fought and not in the outcome.
I raised my hand again as she reached me, taking down another of Edmund’s men, trying to ignore the spark of recognition of having killed someone I knew. Someone I had grown up with.
I had killed people I knew many times before, but somehow, it felt different this time, more like betrayal.
In my pain, I ignited a tree not far from where I stood, glad when Thom took advantage of the powerful fire and threw the trunk into a few of the mad Trpaslíks.
“We have to get out of here!” Joclyn didn’t even answer. Her response was as much a guarantee to what I had already thought as to what Sain had said.
I nodded once in understanding, knowing anything else would have to wait until we reached the cave and what I foolishly hoped would be safety. Then she would have to tell me everything—about the golden ribbon that was peeking out from behind her hoodie and everything.
I would have to tell her, too.
Right now, I needed to get us out of here, and sadly, I already knew how.
“Thom,” I yelled to where he valiantly fought, the hunch of his shoulders showing his weakness more than he knew. “You take the Draks with Jos. I can stop them all long enough to give us a good start, but you all have to be ahead of me.”
I rushed the tree line as the sky opened up in a noise that tensed through my nerves, moving directly toward where Ilyan was battling Ryland in an attempt to get him under control.
Flinging two more of Edmund’s men away, I turned as an attack hit me in the gut. I gasped at the pressure, the pain rocking through my spine for only a moment before my magic burned the attack away, the residual energy moving through me with the same fire I always held, rumbling under my skin until it expelled into the earth, erupting several small trees around me into pillars of flame.
We couldn’t wait any longer.
“Ilyan!” I screamed his name in an attempt to get his attention. If this was going to work, everyone needed to be in front of me.
“Ilyan!”