She pushed him away. “Yes, yes. I’m sorry, all right? It wasn’t my finest moment.”
Zephyr looked over her shoulder. “But where’s that lout Witt? I’ve missed his obnoxious face.”
“Yes, he’d be appalled at the state of the food here,” Shad added from behind Zephyr’s leg.
Aza stilled, and Zephyr’s gaze shifted from her crumpled expression to Makeo’s solemn one. His back straightened even as his face fell. “Ah.” He swallowed. “I see. Something did happen.”
“Yes.” Aza sighed. “It did.” She smoothed her mussed hair from her face. “But I think I have some answers to your questions.”
✽✽✽
Tekoa and his daughter, Hoku, with bandages wrapped around one arm, listened to her story with patient, expressionless faces, while Zephyr paced back and forth, interjecting far more than necessary with questions, comments, and whatever other thoughts popped into his head. She fought the urge to throttle him as she finally came to her hastily concocted plan.
“So, I think the cracking you’re hearing must be the Dolobra fighting to get free somehow. But if Zephyr and I act as bait and draw it to us, I think we’ll be strong enough to destroy it.”
“You think?” Zephyr cut in.
“What makes you think you can defeat it?” Hoku asked with a milder tone.
“When I faced it the first time, I was exhausted, surprised, and my mind was gone, and even so, I could hit it.” Her hands tightened into fists. “Now that I’m full strength and ready, it’ll be a fair fight. And with Zephyr attacking its physical body, my blows on the Shadow Plane should actually affect it.”
“What makes you think that my fire can harm it?” Zephyr asked, the purple shadows dark beneath his eyes. “While my flames seem to keep most of the Carceroc creatures at bay, it harms very few of them. My fire is meant for the Lost… not these other beasts.”
Tekoa held out a hand to calm him. “It sounds like there are a lot of things we don’t know, but if Aza is right, we won’t have much time before the Dolobra escapes, and we’re forced to do something.”
“The fighter who lands the first blow always has the advantage,” Makeo said.
Tekoa reached out and squeezed his daughter’s good arm. “We’re familiar with the creatures of Carceroc and will be able to do our part while you handle the Dolobra.”
A cold smile curved Aza’s lips. Maybe it wasn’t the best plan, but the Maldibor were behind it, and their strength was a force to be reckoned with. “Be on the lookout too. Conrad and Mogens are also here somewhere, and they’re the ones controlling people.”
“Do we need to worry about them taking control of us?” Hoku asked, concern creasing her forehead.
Makeo stepped forward. “From Seela’s letter, it seems like the more yanaa you have, the more you can resist their control. And through the curse, the Maldibor have yanaa running through their veins.”
“But Seela said the novices were overcome, so the other humans…” Aza licked her lips. “Could be a liability.”
“We’ll send them away.” Zephyr ran an agitated hand through his wild nest of brown hair. “We can’t have our own turning on us and… this is beyond them anyway.”
Tekoa nodded. “Do it now and take your rest while you can. The longer we wait, the more time our enemies have to strike first. But this eve, before the sun is set, we will call the Dolobra.” He sighed, a big heavy breath. “And let’s just hope he’s not waiting for us.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Into Battle
Zephyr and Luna’s footsteps shuffled behind Aza as she watched the red sun burrow into the dark tangle of Carceroc, the billowing clouds turning navy with the promise of night. The forest crackled in front of her, like a far-off storm, the sound rising and falling like something was chipping away at the magical barrier from within. For a moment, the silence weighed heavily between them.
“I’m sorry about Witt,” Aza whispered.
Luna whined, and Zephyr absent-mindedly scratched behind her ears. “Don’t say that, Azy.” An urgent undercurrent steeled his soft words. “I’m the one who sent him after you in the first place, and then he was the one who decided to stay, even when you tried to warn them off.” He sighed and Luna seemed to sigh with him. “We do the best we can to protect the people we love, but we aren’t the masters of their fate.” He nodded, as if speaking more for his own benefit than hers. “Still, I’ll miss the clown.”
“Me too.”
A call pulled their attention back toward the camp. “Tekoa’s rallying the others.” Zephyr took a deep breath beside her, and she could practically feel the nervous energy rolling off him.
“Good.” Aza ran a hand along the belt of knives crossing her chest and the daggers resting against her thighs. “Have you heard from Mother and Father since you left Catalede?”
He lit and extinguished a flame in his hand over and over. “There was a harehawk some weeks back. They wrote to the Maldibor of finding a Lost army amid the Rastgol. They were having luck rallying the soldiers of Faveno, so they didn’t expect it to bleed this far west. But they might call for reinforcements if things turn bleak.”
Aza sagged with relief. Proof of life. Even if she failed here, Mogens and Conrad would have to fight through two more Heirs. She tapped her lip. Could they also be responsible for the Lost in the West? They had to be. A shiver ran down her spine. How much power did Idriel’s Children have?
“Did you tell them of the troubles of the Maldibor?”
He shook his head. “Tekoa didn’t want to disturb them further while they were already embattled.” He tossed his fireball from hand to hand. “But I still worry about them.”
Tekoa and Makeo’s howls rang through the camp as they mustered the Maldibor to arms. The warriors clustered in their heavy leather armor, broadswords hanging from their backs, while Tekoa barked out a plan. All forty stood steady with practiced hands resting on gleaming weapons, more green-eyed women than beasts. Strong as they were, they wouldn’t be able to hold out for long with so few.
Zephyr separated the fire into two and then three spheres swirling between his fingers. “So this, Dolobra, the soul-eating creature. Is it as terrifying as the Maldibor grandmothers say it is?” He tried to laugh, but she could hear the edge to his words. The fear of the unknown. Luna nosed his leg with a low growl.
“Not as scary as your morning breath,” Aza replied.
His smile turned genuine as Makeo and Tekoa joined them. They loomed even larger than usual with their armor and weapons, their green eyes hard.
Makeo’s arm brushed Aza’s, his voice loud enough for only her ears. “As much as I’d like to win our wager, I’d much prefer this went without a hitch, and I help you pick out a Dalteek fawn.”
She reached out and squeezed his paw. “No hitches.”
His eyes held hers for a long, agonizing moment, the unspoken feelings twisting together between them, but they didn’t have time to voice the words.
Tekoa unsheathed the broadsword from his back. “Call the monster.”
Aza nodded, looking from Makeo to Zephyr. “Remember to wait for the signal. The timing has to be perfect.” Taking a deep breath to calm her racing heart, she stepped forward into the cusp of the forest. Zephyr held out a hand to order Luna back before he joined her. With a shared glance, he let the fire grow in his hands, his yanaa building in an impressive inferno that billowed up toward the dying sun. The shadows of Carceroc melted away before it, and Aza held up a hand to shield herself from the heat.
His flames crackling and snapping, Zephyr shouted out into the still forest. “Enough of these games, Conrad.” Farther in the depths of the forest, Aza could make out something shifting in the darkness. “Show your face and bring your pet.”
With slow, measured steps, a line of Rastgol emerged from the forest. Gaping wounds and crusted blood adorned some, while others seemed whole and healthy as they marched—the line between Lost and human blurred with this new da
rk yanaa.
They outnumbered the Maldibor, but not by many. This was something they could handle. Behind them, monsters of darkness slid through the shadows, but they wouldn’t be able to step beyond their bounds unless the barrier failed. From among their shifting, a towering figure resolved in Zephyr’s flickering light.
Its jaw swung as if on a loose hinge, and Zephyr’s flames illuminated the black greed in its eyes. The same pale creature that had haunted the Shadow Plane now stalked the Carceroc trees. “Oh, my dear child, my mouth drools for your sweet ignorance.”
The creature stepped forward and shrilled a piercing note. With it, the translucent barrier of Carceroc crackled and shuddered around them, its fissures shimmering like green lightning bolts in the wavering air.
Alarm flooded through Aza. If it broke the barrier the mankillers would be loose… But she didn’t have time to think as Conrad’s army lurched forward. Howling, the Maldibor charged to meet them, Makeo rushing forward with his kin. A pang of fear ripped through Aza as she lost sight of his flashing blade. Odriel spare him.
Zephyr stepped toward the trees with their small army, their warriors giving him a wide berth. His light illuminated the Rastgol, the Maldibor, and the looming Dolobra. But then there was someone else. A dim green glow in the far off somewhere.
Mogens was out there.
Her brother’s fire lashed out toward the Dolobra and with the clash of steel-on-steel ringing through the air, Aza knew she couldn’t delay. She had to follow the plan. She would have to come back for Mogens.
Her back braced against a tree, she let the battle fade away. Rested and strong, it took her only moments to imagine the door and let her yanaa unlock it, sweeping her from the battle.
The adrenaline surged through her even in the quiet Plane. She’d been prepared to take off in search of the Dolobra, but there was no need.
“Duck,” shouted Silvix from somewhere on the wind.
Aza leapt forward with a roll, and the Dolobra’s long, clawed arm raked through the air where her head had been. She drew her daggers and swirled to face it. Though it looked the same as she had last seen it, a strain tightened its face, and its muscles twitched and jumped.
“So you’re fool enough to come—”
Aza didn’t give the creature time to prattle on. Darting forward, she slashed her daggers through its ankles, and the beast cried out in rage. It kicked at her, and she sprang away before closing in again to stab at its underbelly.
With a shrill scream, the monster brought its spiked fists down to crush her, and she rolled to the right, breathing fast. She was definitely hurting it, but the longer the battle stretched out, the smaller her chances. She needed a mortal blow—and fast.
She rushed it straight on, and its reaching fingers grabbed at her. She leapt onto its wrist, and with quick feet ran up its spindly arm. Its other hand moved to swat her like a biting fly, but she jumped again onto its shoulder, plunging her dagger, one, two, three times into its chest. The impact of bone on metal rattled through her fingers and up to her shoulder, its stringy muscles cutting loose beneath her blades as she stabbed again and again.
Roaring, it dropped to its knees, and Aza could practically feel the victory close at hand. The Dolobra snapped its jaws at her, and she pushed away. She fell to the ground and rolled between its feet before its claws found her once more. Her muscles tensed to scale its back, when Silvix’s disembodied voice cut through the air once more.
“Behind you!”
This time when Aza whirled, she wasn’t quite fast enough to avoid the blade trying to plunge into her back. The edge cut through her arm instead, and its partner slashed at her throat. She ducked the second and danced away, her arm burning with pain.
It turned out, she wouldn’t have to go back for Mogens. He stood before her now, his skeletal bones gleaming white from his sloughing gray skin.
“It’s rude not to die when expected, but I’m glad to add a fourth Heir to my trophies. Maybe an ear to go with your grandfather’s? A lock of hair perhaps?” He rushed forward again, and Aza parried his onslaught, her arm burning.
This was definitely a hitch.
“Maybe you should set the example.” She darted away, trying to find her bearings, while one eye tracked the Dolobra stumbling to its feet. Its head shook as though warding off invisible blows, its attention no longer on her. Her brother was making good on his end of the attack. She could not waste this moment.
“But you’ll have to wait your turn.” She knocked Mogens’ blade out of the way, and raced toward the creature, letting her yanaa spill from her body in wide ripples. “Come on, you big ugly beast, aren’t you hungry?”
“The wait only makes the marrow sweeter,” the Dolobra replied with a jagged smile.
Her heavy limbs weighed her down while the Dolobra surged forward, his eyes pinned on her like a light in the darkness. Mogens gave chase, but even he had to spin away from the Dolobra’s swinging limbs. Mogens’ dagger just brushed her shoulder as she slashed at the Dolobra’s hands.
“Too slow,” she taunted, beating away Mogens’ stabbing thrusts.
She whirled back again, but the Dolobra’s fist caught her this time, whipping her across the field in a crunch of bone. She wheezed and clutched her cracked ribs. The Dolobra stalked closer to its wounded prey, and she pulled the knives from her belt, throwing them with shaking hands.
“Hush now, my lovely, we can go slow,” crooned the Dolobra.
She staggered to her feet, blade at the ready, but knowing she wouldn’t be able to evade again.
Silvix’s voice whispered in her ear, the only aid he had to offer. “Now’s your chance girl, release all your yanaa onto the Dolobra. You can trap it here.”
Aza smiled at his words, and Mogens snarled from across the field. “You overestimate her. She has neither the skill nor the heart.” He laughed. “The Shadow Heir works alone, after all.”
She coughed, the iron tang of blood in her mouth. “Who wants to repeat old tricks anyway?” And with that, she lifted her head back and howled long and loud. The Dolobra’s fingers closed around her, and black edged her vision as it squeezed her already broken bones.
“One down,” Mogens said. “Now for the boy.”
Before Aza, the Dolobra’s snapping jaws opened wide, drool dripping from the long mess of teeth. Struggling, she screamed with rage and pain and fear. She had been too late after all. Her timing had been off. She only hoped Zephyr and Makeo would have the sense to retreat.
Then the Dolobra paused. Aza squirmed as its foul breath misted hot against her face, just before its head slumped forward to reveal Makeo on its back, his broadsword gleaming black and a gaping wound all but decapitating the Dolobra from the rear.
His chest heaving and the Dolobra’s head hanging from a sinewy strand, Makeo met her eyes for only a pained moment before disappearing back into the living world.
But Aza didn’t have time for relief. Still encased in the Dolobra’s tight death grip, she fell to the ground. Mogens turned toward her once more, strangely unaffected by the death of the Dolobra they’d gone through so much effort to free.
“Such a clever rabbit, and yet here you are still wriggling in the trap. Too stupid to know you’ve already lost.” He raised his dagger. “It’s really a shame you won’t get to see what happens next.”
Aza struggled to get free, her arms hidden by the Dolobra’s claws. Gasping with pain and vision dotted with black splotches, she shifted her dagger in her off hand. It was suitably loose, but the other was still hopelessly pinned in the Dolobra’s grasp.
Still, she only needed one.
Mogens’ dagger arced down onto Aza’s head, and she threw herself back, burying the blade into the meat of the Dolobra’s fist. Not missing a beat, her free hand snaked from its hiding place to slash across Mogens’ throat.
“Come now, Mogens,” she tutted. “Eyes deceive.”
Still the green light burned in his eyes, and panic coursed through
Aza. If she didn’t kill him here, she might not get another chance. Flooding yanaa into her blade, she slashed again and again, hacking until his head rolled from his body. And still she was unsatisfied. She struggled to free herself from the Dolobra’s fingers, but not before a mass of dark worm-like creatures wriggled from the silver grass, swarming over Mogens’ body with circular, leeching jaws.
“Fear not, girl. Even he cannot escape this fate,” Silvix said, his silvery form looking on beside her. “In the Shadow Plane, nothing goes to waste.”
She watched in transfixed horror, as thousands of the wraiths dismantled Mogens before her eyes, until even the rotten smell of him had been whisked away on the wind.
“Thank Odriel. He’s finally gone.” With that, Aza let herself slump over with relief, her strength still bleeding away with every second.
But she didn’t have but a moment before the black worms swarmed toward the Dolobra. Her mind scrambled for the door as the wraiths frantically wriggled between the creature’s fingers. At last, she tugged open the door and slipped back into the world of the living.
The noise of the battlefield ripped through the quiet of the Shadow Plane, and Aza opened her eyes to dark chaos. Farther back in the trees, the ghostly white mass of the Dolobra had collapsed into a dead heap. But the battle raged on nearly oblivious to this victory. Shouts and screams ripped through the chaos of the night, the Maldibor and the Rastgol clashing together between the trees and the field beyond.
So Mogens hadn’t been the one controlling them. That left just one other option.
Her brother was easy to find with his fiery blade cutting through the night. She stumbled toward him, ribs and arm screaming with unseen wounds. It’s all in my head. It’s all in my head, she repeated to herself, her teeth grinding together. There’s nothing wrong with my bones and muscles. But that didn’t stop the pain.
“Zephyr,” she yelled, her voice lost amid the din of battle.
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