Chapter 26

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

EMLYN

S hadow soldiers flowed from one edge of the realm to another, their numbers never ending even as we killed so many that I lost count. Sweat dripped off the end of my nose as I slashed with an axe I'd taken from one of our fallen when my own weapons were exhausted, the sharp edge cleaving three shadow forms but missing a fourth as the faceless creature came at me. White wings flashed in the edge of my vision. A gleaming spear drove through the shadow soldier at my back before it could grab me.

"Thanks," I grunted to Israfel, a hellborn angel like my mate, and one of Queen Lili's men. It wasn't the first time he'd had my back, and I'd returned the favour twice. I'd lost sight of all my family except Wynvail, whose harsh white light cleaved shadows apart to my left, and my Hales fighting Cronus.

At first, I kept her in my line of sight, and then I watched her from the corner of my eye, but it was impossible to fight so many enemies on all sides and keep my eye on her, too. My skin felt tight over my bones and terror roared through my soul at leaving my mate—my pregnant mate—to defend herself. Reminding myself she had dangerous power and a prophecy that said she'd kill him didn't help. She had both those last time, and we lost her.

I couldn't forget it. I couldn't move on from the grief of watching her fall, a mortal wound bleeding from her stomach. I held her body, felt her cold and lifeless in my arms. I sat, numb, at her deathbed for hours at a time and watched her unmoving, unbreathing, her heart cold and still in her chest.

A shadow rushed at me, ripping me out of those dark memories, and I drove the vicious edge of my axe down into the creature's skull. They weren't really alive; this wasn't really murder. I didn't question why a weapon could wound them, so they dissolved into black smoke, no doubt reforming again to attack someone else. Cronus had placed this army here to kill us; the shadow soldiers had a single objective and didn't sway from it. They weren't alive, we're nothing more than a bit of magic holding together a humanoid form.

I swung my axe through two more soldiers and scanned the chaos of whirling blades and arcing magic around me, searching for my family, for Wane. He was supposed to be unmaking the army like he'd unmade Cronus's dark city, but I'd seen no evidence of it. Unless every single one he collapsed reformed again, a chilling thought.

If even Wane couldn't bring them down, nothing would.

I caught my breath when a column of golden magic split the army, a shiver of warning going down my spine. Harveil. His sunlight erupted in a deadly arc, burning shadow soldiers into nothingness, lighting up the whole sky.

"Holy shit," someone breathed to my left, a demon I didn't know.

"What god is that?" a woman asked. I didn't correct her. Pride tried to form in my chest, but I was so full of dread and fear that there was no room for it.

I drove through the wall of exhaustion inside me and swung my axe again and again, shadows scattering, sweat rolling down my face. I twisted to cleave the head off a soldier on my left and grunted when pain drove into my side. It shattered along my ribs like explosions of torment before ripping into my hips and down my right thigh.

Alright, fuck this. I was no fucking use hacking my way through the shadows when their numbers never ended. I wanted to have my family's backs, wanted to fight alongside them so I could stop anyone hurting them, but we were all scattered and the pain slashing across my side was the final straw.

I drove the axe's edge through the shadow's head, cleaving what would be a skull on anyone else, and plunged into the place inside myself where my magics brushed up against each other. I dove straight into the pool of shifting magic and the axe thudded to the muddy ground as the shift came over me all at once, light flashing as my form changed from brawn and muscle to feathers and talons.

I parted my beak and screamed all my terror and rage, wings thundering as they carried me into the air. I had the strange sense that my eagle was bigger than it had been the last time I shifted, but I didn't have time to ponder that; flying above the army I saw the true scale of it. There were far more soldiers than I'd dreaded, more than we'd even seen atop the hill, like each soldier was a hydra and every time we cut them down, two more sprang up.

At the far reaches of the field, I saw gods clash with shadows—there was Eos wielding rays of sunlight like lances, and Ares with sweat shining on his brown arms as he plunged through fifty shadow warriors at a time, and Hades and Persephone back to back as they enforced death and unravelled life in tandem, and Typhon with a nucleus of magic around him and his monstrous body ploughing through shadow after shadow.

Yet even with gods on our side, the army was never ending.

I soared over the dark, violent mass of it all, searching for signs of my family and finding Wynvail's moonlight, Harvey's brutal sunlight, and Haley alive with every colour of magic I'd ever seen as she and Lili attacked Cronus, weakening him. But Kai was impossible to find, and Wane's shadow magic blended into Cronus's army. Dread clenched my heart behind my ribcage, quickening its beat. They could have been bleeding out and I'd never know. Could be dead.

I let out a piercing scream that conveyed all my terror, and I dove, talons outstretched, my beak open and razor sharp. I sliced off the head of a shadow soldier and tore off the arm of another. I wasn't immortal in this form, and I could still be hurt, but my feathers offered a better armour than the leather, like they were coated in steel. I didn't know what had happened to my eagle, didn't know how I was stronger, but there was no denying it as I tore shadows apart, the demons of our army giving me a wide berth.

The Blood Eagle, they murmured with a reverence that spoke of fear. I wished the shadows would fear me too, but they were empty and expressionless, no more living than the buildings Cronus had made with Wane's stolen shadow.

Wane. Where is he?

I closed my beak around the neck of a shadow and ripped off its head like a bird pulling worms from the ground, beating my wings to soar back into the darkening sky. I cast my vision wide, searching for Wane, for Kai. I flew far, until I could see the living army Cronus had brought with him—titans and gods and the descendants of both. I searched them for familiar faces and found none, running a quick estimate of their numbers. But it was difficult to tell who was who when our own allies were here, fighting, driving them back. Buying Haley time.

A shudder ruffled my wings as I arced towards that line of gods and titans. Kai would be here. Even though he couldn't fly, even though it was near impossible for him to cross the field, he would be here, taking out the biggest threat to Haley. I scanned the mass of bloody figures, squinting against their bright sparks of magic, so powerful that the air rippled and smoke clung to it. On my second pass, I found sweat-slick red hair and angled my wings towards him, keeping my eyes fixed on him.

I should have been alert for an attack from the ground; I didn't see the arrow of orange smoke until it tore into my wing and embedded there, dragging a strident cry from my throat—and drawing the attention of every other enemy on the ground.

Fuck.

I plummeted fast, keeping Kai in my sights, the pain of being shot so much worse than whatever the fuck the shadow soldier had done to my side. This wound burned, like the magic was designed to inflict maximum agony, and I couldn't choke back my screeching cries even as I beat my wings, refusing to stop until I reached Kai.

I stretched out my talons, my breaths coming quick with pain, and I marked my target—a huge, seven-foot-tall blond man creeping up on Kai's back, like a Viking from an ancient legend. My heart quickened until it should have given out.

Not my family. Not my fucking family.

I swallowed my cries of pain, refusing to give the bastard any warning as I stretched out my talons, light flashing from their violent edges. I hit him with so much force that my talons didn't just gouge his skull; I felt them grind bone, split bone. Blood drenched my feathers as my talons hewed his body in two.

I landed on the ground covered in blood and viscera, both sides of the Viking's body thudding into the grass on either side of me. Around me, the fighting paused in horror, and I opened my beak and unleashed a fierce, guttural call.

"That's my brother," Kai shouted, grinning wildly. "That's my fucking brother!"

I was too keyed up to laugh, already jumping at another threat, this one a female god I didn't recognise, glowing with radiance and power. Her magic burned my feathers, singing them to black when my talons collided with her gleaming body, but whatever strength was fueling me hadn't waned; I grabbed a golden arm and ripped it off the goddess's body. She screamed loud enough to make me flinch.

I shook my head, discarding her bloody arm and panting through the pain of the arrow embedded in me. All I could smell was blood, the taste wrapped around my tongue.

Kai leapt after me with a deep hiss, swinging his hands wildly to call up a swarm of serpents so thick that their scaly bodies stroked my feathers, jostling the arrow of orange magic buried in my flesh. The ground shook beneath us, a sign of Kai's rage. I struggled to keep my footing as magic roared over our heads, crackling with heat and burning like ice.

I was hot, the arrow's poison spreading through me, but I let out another warning scream and snapped my beak at the next threat, and the next. Kai covered my back, the air so thick with serpents that their hissing met my ears, the first time I'd ever heard them.

I stabbed my beak into the soft flesh of someone's stomach and leapt into the air, ripping out a long strand of intestines until the pale man dropped to the muddy field, dead. But when I landed, dizziness flared so suddenly that I nearly tipped.

"Em?" Kai demanded with palpable panic. "You okay?"

I made an affirmative noise in my chest, but the world spun, the arrow making pain throb through my whole body and—I lost my grip on my shifting magic all at once, hitting two legs so suddenly that my knees sank into the mud.

"Fuck," Kai hissed, his viscera-splashed boots rushing into my line of sight. I couldn't lift my head, my whole body aching, thumping with pain. So heavy. "Get up, Em. Get up."

I tried, hauling on all my strength, but my legs bucked and sent me back to the ground.

"Who the fuck shot you?" he demanded, wrapping invisible snakes around me, their scales fever-hot against my skin even though they ought to be cold. "I'll end them."

Kai grabbed the arrow of fiery orange power and ripped it out with a strangled snarl of pain, tossing it to the mud where it fizzled out.

"Tali, get over here!" Kai yelled, grabbing my shoulder, keeping me from eating mud when the field wavered around me, all the battle noises becoming one big smear of sound. "I need you to carry— Tali? What are you doing?"

The note of alarm in his voice made me grit my teeth and wrench my eyelids apart, but I had no strength. I had nothing left. I could only slump onto my side in the mud when Kai was ripped away from me without warning.

His grunt of pain hit me as hard as the arrow had.

"You're not Tali."

I roared at myself to get up, that Kai was in danger, but my last grasp on consciousness slipped away without warning.