And yet, here she was, scrabbling and lurching down the castle, a single misstep from death.
Grunting, she forced her movements into a dangerous pace. Any fear she might have felt was overcome by anger.
A dark, glittering rage.
When the ground peeked from the mist only a few stories high, she leapt, rolling to break the fall. Her bones groaned on impact, reminding her she was mortal. Flesh and blood.
Completely, annoyingly breakable.
But the flames of magick surging from her open palms were anything but human as she speared into the city that honeycombed the hills. The nightly storms that frequented Shadoria’s coasts lit up the sky; dark, inhumanly fast shapes streaked against the violet jags of lightning over the water.
The intruders had been pushed back from the city.
Resolved to keep it that way, Haven cut through the main street, sprinting past newly opened shops and small homes carved from the onyx mountainside. Runelights flickered from windows as the people who had given up everything to follow her hunkered behind their walls. Their bitter terror choked the night air, as pungent and real as their muffled cries.
Haven was supposed to protect them. To keep them safe. And so far she’d failed at that.
A great swell of fury nearly blinded her. Twisting her fingers, she drew a newly learned swift rune into the air. The moment the final tail of the spiraling symbol disappeared, the world around her smeared into streaks of light.
Her speed ripped the air from her lungs. She hardly had time to blink before the cobblestoned streets gave way to bone-white sand so pale it nearly glowed. The tang of blood permeated the sea breeze. Haven whipped her gaze skyward to the shadows fighting high above.
A frustrated growl ripped from her throat as she paced below, boots sinking into the shifting sand.
If only she had the Seraphians’ wings.
A thud drew her attention to the cliffs behind her where the luminous white hair of Seraphian soldiers bobbed against the dark rocks like flames. She collected more details as she stalked closer. A female Seraphian lay crumpled on her side, her beautiful glossy wings limp against the bloodstained sand.
There was something horrifying about seeing those wings, which were always moving, always outstretching and curling and so full of power, now lifeless and inert.
The other female knelt beside her friend tending to her obvious wounds. A thick white braid snaked down her back, and when she whipped her head to regard Haven . . .
“Delphine?” Haven called, rushing over.
Delphine turned back to her friend, her deft fingers working a series of dark runes into the air, while her free hand stroked her friend’s cheek. Haven dropped to the sand beside them, ignoring the feel of blood as it seeped through her pant fabric and into her knees. She started to do a new healing light rune she’d just learned when Delphine lifted her eyes to Haven and shook her head.
That’s when Haven realized Delphine wasn’t performing healing runes; it was obvious the female was too far gone. These symbols were different. Some sort of last rites the Seraphians performed before death.
The dying Seraphian lifted her head. Her muted black armor, so dark it swallowed the moonlight, creaked softly.
It was painted in bright smears of blood and the scattered feathers of its dying owner.
As soon as the female recognized Haven, a strange serenity calmed the chaos inside her ebbing eyes.
With a silent gasp, the female used the final moment of her life to stretch a trembling finger toward the nearest tower to the east, away from the fight.
“What’s over there?” she asked Delphine.
But Delphine couldn’t speak, and the string of signs she created with her hands meant nothing to Haven.
She was embarrassed to admit that she didn’t pick up on the twins’ muteness until on the boat toward Shadoria. Only then did she notice that instead of speaking, the pair made a vast array of symbols with their hands.
She thought it might have been a code they’d developed during their enslavement to Morgryth, to keep her from intruding on their internal conversations.
The brutal truth was far darker.
As Stolas had explained, the Seraphians had been forbidden from communicating in any fashion. Cruel, savage magick was used to crush the part of the minds Seraphians used to soulspeak.
Any Seraphian caught talking aloud to their brethren had their tongues ripped out.
Haven shivered, her gaze flicking to the east and whatever awaited her before returning to Delphine. If only Haven knew how to read her signs, and she made a note to learn the next time she had a few hours to herself.
Stolas’s friend made three signs, finishing the statement with a fist clapped over her heart, and then exploded into the sky. Her shadowy form soon joined the battle over the sea.
Time to find out what awaited her to the east. Haven’s sword pommel was cool beneath her palm as she stalked toward the looming tower. The shadows of the cliffs easily hid her approach. Whatever the dying Seraphian directed her toward, Haven would face it alone.
There were no Seraphians here. Nothing but the soft crash of waves, the lulling song of the sea drowning out the cacophony of violence and death at her back.
She wasn’t foolish enough to mistake the quiet for safety.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, an angry god awoken from its slumber. A few drops of cool rain pattered against her cheeks.
The dancing glow of a green portal lit up the beach, painting the pale sand a soft, sickly death-hue. Five Asgardian warriors guarded the portal, their armor glinting. And when she saw the creature that slithered from the portal’s gaping mouth, its rider’s massive axe already raised as the terrifying duo took to the skies—
A shiver of horror wracked her core. Death Raiders from the Asgardian nation. Known for defending the floating city of Tyr in Asgard on battle dragons, their battalions had slaughtered thousands in the Shadow War.
Their mounts were hardly larger than an Alpacian steed. Muscled and thick, with stubby wings meant for low-level fighting and scaled hides near-impossible to pierce, the domesticated wyrm hybrids had been bred for strength and stamina.
Combined with the skill of the Asgardian warriors they were absolutely lethal. And now they hunted the inhabitants of Shadoria.
Ice stung her veins. If the Death Raiders reached the city again—
That will never happen. Never.
A sword of blinding-white lightning emblazoned the sky, momentarily crippling the Asgardian’s night vision. She counted to three, timing her attack with the earth-shattering crack of thunder that followed. The warriors protecting the portal neither saw nor heard Haven until her longsword tasted their blood.
A regular sword would have barely penetrated their flesh. But the rare night ash blade—forged from demon-fire and infused with raven’s blood—turned their immortal flesh as soft as the ripened moon pears that permeated the island.
Three died immediately, crumpling to the ground in the eerie silence that followed the thunder.
The last two managed to throw up their iron shields, deflecting her powerful blows. Each shield was decorated with an image of the male’s first dragon mount.
Metal clanged against metal in time with the booming thunder. The impact exploded up her wrist and arm, the pain slamming the breath from her lungs and keeping her sharp.
She ducked as the deathly-fine edge of an axe whistled through the air. A prickle of adrenaline warmed her chest and ratcheted her heart into a pounding rhythm.