Chapter 28

28

Worse than the harpy, I knew at once, bolting to my feet at the commotion to my left. The lumbering halfling form crashed through the trees and sent one of the smaller oaks tumbling to the ground. I had to give Coral credit. She didn’t scream, didn’t panic. She stood to attention with her spine straight and her focus on the warrior form.

Why did he suddenly look larger to me?

Huge paws were clenched at his sides and darkness surrounded him. Muscles bulged, more than I remembered, and he looked mad enough to tear a body into pieces.

In fact he already had.

The shifter saw both of us and raised his head, opening his jaws and roaring. The sound shook the tree limbs.

Coral and I didn’t move. We stood there until he cut off, the echoes of the roar reverberating around us. She stared at him, her cheeks white with shock. She didn’t have a chance to speak before the shifter was in motion.

I didn’t pause. I didn’t stop to think about what to do.

The shifter burst through the fire on a growl, his fur lit by the embers, and the force of his magic, his scent, tore at me like a tornado. Wild and furious.

I screamed and Coral echoed it, finally releasing the fear she’d held inside. With all of my strength I grabbed her at the last instant and jerked her out of the way. A second too late, the shifter slammed his paw down where she’d just been sitting.

Then I launched myself at his throat.

He swatted me aside, landing a hit to my ribs hard enough to shatter them, and howled again, his enormous jaw unhinging until all I saw were his fangs.

He’d gone mad.

The shifter’s eyes glowed when he looked at me, the gold overtaken by white and I saw nothing in them outside of pure rage. He burst into motion, a raging tempest of fury, doubling his effort to reach me. I dodged out of the way and grabbed his fur on his way past, jerking him off his feet with everything in me.

Don’t let him get to Coral.

That was the point of this, wasn’t it?

“You are not going to take me down,” I ground out, keeping hold of him. “Sorry.”

“What do we do?” I heard Coral’s screech somewhere in the distance and when I glanced over, the desperation on her face nearly broke me. She’d been ready to do battle with the harpy, but a shifter was a different story. This wasn’t her world. None of this should be happening to her.

Except it was. Because of me.

“I’ll call for help!” she continued.

I didn’t have a chance to see her work. The whole of my attention focused on keeping the shifter away from her. Keeping him distracted so he wouldn’t attack her.

“It’s not working. The spell isn’t working!” The one the judges had agreed on for when students got into trouble.

We’d seen the signal flares multiple times during the day and I’d had to listen to Coral laugh about the weaklings who couldn’t hack their way through the third Trial. I wondered how she felt about being the one to use it now. Or, well, not use it.

“He must have blocked us using a spell of his own,” I told her.

The shifter crouched on all fours next to me, those wicked eyes boring into mine. If I couldn’t keep him distracted, then I’d need her to—

“Run! Coral, run and get help.”

Magic swirled around me as I tried to keep the shifter contained and give Coral the chance to escape. She leaped up and dashed into the dark woods like her life depended on her speed.

It did.

The shifter took off after her, his body twisting and jerking. I took off after him.

Hell no. I wouldn’t let him hurt her.

I pumped my arms and legs and saw Coral several feet ahead of the lumbering shifter. A blast of magic sent him stumbling. Every inch of me hurt from too much magic spent in one blast, too quickly.

Another burst of speed brought me around in front of him and I quickly reversed and charged. Blocking him as the world around us ground to a halt. I heard myself breathe, once, before he crashed into me. It took three seconds for us to slam to the ground, as if in slow motion. His claws swung past me and I ducked. Rolled. Felt the force of his next attack.

A fist slammed down into my shoulder and I yelped.

“Get off of her!”

I didn’t expect to see Coral leap on the creature’s back with her hands at his throat. A pulse of power crashed into him from her palms and lit the woods around us in a glow of orange.

Coral versus a seven-foot-tall shifter? I never thought I’d see the day.

The magic, however, bounced off of him and did nothing. His rage-filled roar left my ears ringing. He shrugged her off and before he had a chance to move, I hit him with a whirlwind of punches. My fists flew faster than even my eyes could follow but I needed him to focus on me.

On me, damn you!

If I kept him busy, Coral would have no trouble getting out from the barrier of his spell and contacting the committee.

Over his shoulder I saw Coral dashing back the way we came. Magic pulsed behind her. A containment spell. She wanted to keep the shifter trapped, with me.

I might have been upset about that if I hadn’t told her to run and save herself.

The shifter kept pushing me back toward the edge of the spell Coral worked. I ducked and dodged his attempts at an attack but he kept barreling toward me. An unstoppable mass of muscle.

There wasn’t any room left for fear. Though my chest heaved and my arms ached like they were going to fall right off, I maintained my defensive position. Legs spread for balance, I braced for his next attack.

“Tavi, here!”

I turned in time to see Coral send something in my direction and the shifter chose that moment to make a move. The tree limb he’d broken off stabbed at my left side and I yelled, dropping down to one knee in agony. The area where he’d hit throbbed like someone threw acid on me.

Snarling, I rolled over on the ground. Wrong way. I avoided his next strike by rolling to the opposite direction, the rocks protruding from the ground hitting right where he’d wounded me.

There in the bushes I saw what Coral had been trying to send me.

The two pieces of Magnasterium glowed blue in the darkness. My smaller piece, and Coral’s larger one—she’d found them both.

I scrambled to grab them before the shifter realized what she’d done.

He cut me off, stepping on my hand before my fingertips touched the stones. Out of options and with pain shooting through me, I kicked up at him, using the same kind of magic Juno demanded of me when calling down the sun. Flame shot out from my leg. I turned and watched it sink into the fur of the shifter’s right arm, a tiny streak of smoke rising. Then the smoke disintegrated into nothing.

This guy… Nothing seemed to faze him.

He pressed down on my hand harder until I screamed from the force.

“I swear, I shouldn’t have to do anything if you’re the one trying to save me.” Coral’s voice reached me, and behind us mist churned just above the ground. She was a shadow stepping through her own protective circle. Sending a surging blast of power at the two of us, locked inside of the ward. “You really are useless,” she continued.

She was enough of a distraction to get the shifter to ease up on the pressure. I pulled my hand back with a hiss and I used the other one to grab the stones. Sending the rest of my power into melding them together. The spell took precious seconds to complete but finally the two pieces had merged into a long slender blade. One I intended to use.

Except when I managed to stand, I saw Coral’s protective spell fading. The shifter dived at her and I was a moment too late.

“No!”

He made contact, his large paw connecting with her skull. The hit sent her flying backward into me until we both crashed to the ground.

I saw stars. My head spun in circles and the rest of me was nothing but a mass of pain.

Coral wasn’t moving.

“Come on, you need to run.” I managed to cover her prone body with my own, using every bit of fortitude left in me to stab up at the shifter with the makeshift dagger. No matter where I tried to hit, the blade never found its mark. “Run, Coral!”

She didn’t move for the longest time. When she finally stirred, staring at me with unfocused eyes, oddly the one thing that stood out to me was her hair. It had come loose of the fancy braids she’d kept in perfect place all day. Strands hung in her face, stained with a combination of sweat and mud from her fall.

“Get up and run for help!” I told her again.

She shook her head and a little bit of the fog cleared from her eyes. I clenched my teeth when she bolted around the other side of the fire. The shifter tried to run after her but I herded him closer to the heat, watching the flames lick at his fur.

He screamed. That was when I jumped him, hanging on with everything I had. Every ounce of anger I had at the situation, at the circumstances of my life, every bit of guilt at watching Bronwen lying in the hospital bed because I’d backed out on her, I dropped on him. I sank all of it into my hold on him and sent my magic straight down.

The air stank of burning fur and the shifter flailed against me trying to shake me loose.

“Does it hurt? I hope it does!”

Heat and pain were my world too. I squeezed my eyes shut against it. Tears swelled and the flames burned at me. Still I clung.

Trying to give Coral time to get away.

She didn’t make it far, I realized. She’d doubled back around and now magic in ribbons of blue swirled around her.

“Duck!” she called out to me.

I had a moment to register what she was doing before she let the spell explode out from her. I dropped to the ground, kneecaps slamming hard into the dirt, and felt the wind around me as the spell knocked the shifter off of his feet. He sailed past, slicing against me.

What happened next turned me inside out.

With his fur still smoldering, the shifter used the momentum of the spell to his advantage. He landed against the nearest tree and then catapulted himself forward, straight into Coral. She howled when he hit her, slamming her into the ground with the remnants of her spell redirected toward herself. Light exploded in the clearing and ripped through the three of us.

Pain crushed me, clamping around my skull until my thoughts fragmented. I finally managed to open my eyes. Then lost the rest of the air in my lungs.

The halfling stood over Coral, his chest heaving, dark crimson rivulets winding through his fur. Coral’s eyes were open but glazed, her arms and legs at unnatural angles, and she was bleeding from multiple wounds.

For a moment, the world went still. It felt like someone had punched me right in the solar plexus. I stared at Coral, feeling my failure keenly.

She was dead.