Chapter 84

The battlefield was little more than a rampaging blur of bodies, blood, screams and carnage. My skull rattled with the intensity of it all, the fury, the fear, the pain, the panic. Every emotion crashed against me, intermingling with the all-too-frequent shocks of death as one of those many voices was cast away, another soul for The Ferryman to pass along the river.

I wanted to block them out, but I couldn't afford to lose the advantage of feeling when those emotions of aggression were aimed directly at me or Gerry who fought just ahead through the crush of bodies.

She had led the charge right into the centre of the rebel lines, punching the first hole through Lionel's defences and leading her Starfall Legion into the heart of his ranks like a spearhead.

Of course she'd banned me from fighting at her side when this had begun because she thought my need to protect her was a form of weakness, but I didn't care. I'd done my part along with the other Sirens in the beginning, then I'd launched myself over the masses of skirmishing bodies until I'd managed to land within the midst of her Legion. And I was going to be right there beside her until this was over, one way or another.

Geraldine howled, her voice splitting into a chorus of three which carried over the sounds of the battle for a brief, piercing moment and I couldn't help but feel my chest swell as the strength of her emotions hit me too. Pride, honour, valour, bravery. This beautiful creature wasn't in the least bit afraid, even though she fought at the thickest of the fight, even though she knew as well as all of us that this was the most likely place to die.

A tremendous boom rang out and terror gripped the hearts of every Fae around me, heads rising to watch the glowing ball of magic as it was shot overhead by a war machine to the far right of the battlefield. Three of them had been destroyed by our forces but that left four more incessantly blasting our lines with their ferocious power.

The one fortuitous thing about being deep within the enemy lines was knowing that those balls of chaotic hellfire wouldn't be aimed at us: too many of Lionel's army would be hit if they dared try. But every time they torpedoed overhead, the slap of terror collided with me, followed swiftly and certainly by a shockwave of death as everywhere they fell, ruin followed.

Except this time, something was different, some shift made the air tremble and I looked up in alarm as I felt that wave of terror turning our way.

The rebels had somehow managed to shield against this strike. Not only that, but they'd launched the fucking thing right back at Lionel's army.

I would have crowed in celebration had I not seen its trajectory, had I not realised that it wouldn't just take out Lionel's forces, but would in fact collide with our own.

"Shield!" I roared to every Fae around me and as my awareness of the incoming horror lashed against their mental barriers, the warring Fae around us all fell eerily still, their heads snapping up to look.

Our enemies stopped fighting us, either turning to run or throwing up shields of their own, their hopeless horror filling the air so thickly I could have choked on it.

"Share formation!" Geraldine roared and her handpicked Legion - those ferocious sons of bitches who she had been training day and night - all snapped to attention around me, their left hands lunging out to grip the shoulder of the Fae fighting closest to them.

One of them grasped my arm and I gasped as a flood of potent magic crashed into me, more powerful than anything I could have imagined. There must have been a hundred warriors in the Starfall Legion still standing and every one of them was linked up magically, power sharing with each other as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"To you, my rule-breaking barracuda!" Geraldine commanded as the blast of power rushed overhead, bearing down on all of us and promising death.

I felt nothing but trust and stalwart belief from the Starfall Legion as all eyes turned on me.

I threw my hands into the air with a determined bellow as I wielded every fucking drop of magic they'd offered me at once and cast a dome-shaped shield of ice over our heads so thickly that all other sounds of battle were cut off entirely along with the view.

The deafening boom of the magical blast colliding with my shield rocked the foundations of the earth beneath us, but it held. We held. And fuck did that feel like winning.

"Reform!" Geraldine commanded and the Starfall Legion all moved like a well-oiled machine, repositioning themselves, taking the opportunity to heal any wounds and getting themselves into formation to re-join the battle once more.

Justin Masters nodded to me as he passed, holding a spear before him, and I nodded in return, any petty quarrels between us forgotten in the face of this.

I found myself front and centre with Marguerite Helebor on one side, looking ferocious and determined, and Geraldine on my other. She clapped me on the shoulder and shook her head.

"I should have known you'd come wading into my waters this day, Maxy," she chastised but the glimmer in her eye said she didn't entirely hate that I'd come to fight with her.

"I couldn't have been anywhere else," I replied firmly.

"Well, into death we may march together then," she said, her eyes lifting to the sky and pinning on the squat, brown Dragon who I recognised as Mildred Canopus. Knowing my girl, she'd just picked her target. "But if we take that shadowy path, let us first pave it with the bones of our foes. Avast!"

"Avast!" the Starfall Legion roared and as I let the shield shatter around us, we charged into battle once more, bellowing like heathens, determined to keep that promise.