The first group was made up of dark mages, and the other was dark fae.
They represented the two major kingdoms in Ember—the Dark Allies. Their alliance was shaky at best, and was held together by one common enemy.
“Dragons.” The female fae sneered, looking straight at us.
Mira hurried over to me, her eyes wide with question.
What should we do?
“How did they get loose?” the man next to the female fae said.
She drew her sword. “They don’t have cuffs,” she said steadily, and the other fae reached for their swords as well. Then she looked back at us and smiled, her red wings the same color as a demon’s eyes. “Stay where you are,” she said sweetly. “Don’t use your magic on us—we won’t hurt you unless we need to defend ourselves. You can trust us to keep you safe.”
Her voice was calm and musical.
She was putting glamour into her tone.
But we’d been prepared for this. The tiny black stones attached to a thin chain around our ankles protected us from psychic attacks—which included fae glamour.
I stayed as still as possible, hoping it seemed like her glamour had worked on me. Then I glanced at Ethan. He was still on his hands and knees, and he took slow, forced, deep breaths, like he was straining for air.
It was happening.
I nodded at Mira, and she nodded back.
Then the mages reached up and pulled down their cloaks. Two men, and two women. Their eyes swirled with inky blackness, until they were totally dark. Like they had no souls.
“Come with us,” the tallest man said. “We don’t want to fight. You’re more valuable to us alive than dead.”
“Why do they get to go with you?” the female fae said. “We’ll take the boy—he has the strongest scent. You can have the twins.”
“No,” the mage said. “We’ll take one twin. You can have the other. We’ll duel for the boy.”
“A duel to the death?”
“A duel until first blood is drawn.”
The female fae smirked and tilted her head. “You should take the twins and let us have the boy,” she said. “He looks sick.”
I squeezed Mira’s hand, and we backed away from Ethan to give him space.
It shouldn’t be long now…
The mages and the fae continued to watch each other, both groups on guard, apparently unsure how to proceed.
They didn’t have time to figure it out, because Ethan’s entire body shook with what seemed to be total agony, and then he exploded into dragon form.
He soared up into the air, his red scales glistening in the sunlight, his wings held up regally behind him. I gasped at the sight. Because while I knew dragons were big, I wasn’t fully prepared for how big. He must have been at least six meters tall, and his wingspan twice that much.
He pulled his head back and breathed a line of fire directly at the leader of the mages.
The mage held his hands up, and black, smoky magic shot out of them, blocking Ethan’s fire. The flames mushroomed out around the magic, but Ethan was stronger, and his flames pushed the thick black smoke back down toward the mage.
Then a sword flew through the air like a javelin and sliced through Ethan’s right wing.
Ethan roared and pulled back on his magic, barely moving out of the way of the black magic flowing out of the mage’s hands. He swung his head around and breathed a line of fire at the fae.
The blaze hit the yellow-winged fae, and he screamed as the fire ravaged his body, consuming his flesh and leaving behind the distinct smell of cooked meat.
Ethan spun back toward the mages and blasted fire at one of them. But like the first mage, she held him off with dark magic.
“We don’t want to kill you!” the tall mage screamed up at him. “But we will if we have to.”
The fae used this opportunity to lob another sword at Ethan.
He stopped attacking the mage and avoided the sword. Barely.
The fae with blue wings growled, raised his hands, and threw icicles at Ethan.
Ethan blasted the icicles with fire, and they melted before they reached him.
Water magic.
That fae wasn’t a normal fae. He was a chosen champion—a half-blood fae chosen by a god to compete in the annual, gladiator-like competition the fae held each year called the Faerie Games. Given his water magic and the blue wings, I assumed he’d been chosen by the god of the sea, Neptune.
But I didn’t have much time to think about it, because the tall, male mage shot more dark magic toward Ethan.
I did the first thing that crossed my mind—focused on the rocks surrounding the mage’s feet, used my magic to raise them up into the air, and smacked them into the mage’s head.
His black magic puffed out, he wobbled, then fell to the ground.
The woman standing next to him kneeled down, checked for his pulse, and let out a pained sob.
I flexed my wrist.
Did I kill him?
It felt like it should’ve been harder to kill a dark mage.
Hopefully it wasn’t, because the other three mages spun to look at me and Mira, their inky eyes swirling with anger.
I cursed and reached for as much magic as possible—both my fire and earth magic.
I’d never taken on a mage. There were no mages on Earth to train with.
But there was no time like the present.
“Blast them,” I said to Mira, and I blasted them with fire at the same time as my twin shot ice out of her palms.
The female mage—still on the ground—raised one of her hands and held off our elements with a cloud of black smoke. She screamed and pushed harder, and I strained against her magic.
Ethan was also sending fire toward the mages, but he was being held off by the other two.
I glanced to where the fae were standing—except there were no more fae standing. Ethan had burned them all to the ground.
But the mage aiming her magic toward me and Mira pushed harder, and I widened my stance, putting everything I had into holding her off with my fire. Mira was now using air, and holding off the other male mage, who’d joined the woman in trying to blast us down.
So much for them wanting to keep us alive. If that smoky magic reached us…
The strongest mages could use dark magic to kill on the spot.
It was closing in on us. And Ethan kept getting closer and closer to the ground.
The swords the fae had thrown into his wings had ripped through them. And while Ethan healed quickly, he didn’t heal immediately.
Fear descended upon me.
The mages were beating us.
Not even ten minutes after landing in Ember, and we were failing in our mission. Maybe Mira had been right, and Ethan should have gone without us.
But it wasn’t over yet. I needed to try using my earth magic again. Earth magic was trickier, because fire was my strongest affinity, and it was difficult to focus on using more than one element at a time.
Breaking from my fire magic—even for a second—could give the mage the time she needed to overpower me.
But I needed to try. Because what we were doing so far wasn’t working.
I needed to reach for more rocks on the ground with my magic, like I’d done to kill that first mage.
I felt the rocks at their feet. But trying to raise them was like trying to raise a giant boulder.
“Gemma!” Mira yelled. “She’s getting too close!”