But as one of the arrows grazed the edge of her robes, her head snapped toward Lea.
My head jerked, stuck in this moment between Lea here in the woods and Harper down in the city below, what remained of the hunters and their shades pouring in through a giant crack in the center of the dome’s surface.
From where I hovered in the treetops, I could just make out Harper’s blonde hair waving like a flag on the castle steps. She was surrounded by guards, but my heart clenched. I wanted to go to her. To protect her.
But I couldn’t abandon Lea.
The hunter moved toward her, and without time to formulate a plan, I flew around and shifted to human form between them. I crouched down and touched my icy hands to the tree’s limbs, pushing my magic outward from my body so that ice traveled the path from my hands to where the hunter hovered. I lifted my palms upward and the ice rose to encase the hunter’s entire body, blue light flickering from inside the magic.
She was frozen, but I knew the ice wouldn’t hold her long.
“The dome’s been breached,” I shouted to Lea. “We have to go. Are you okay? You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing,” she said. “But I can’t leave. I think this hunter is the one who’s been shielding all of the others, and I think she’s the one whose magic just brought down the dome. We have to kill her if the others have any chance of survival.”
I glanced back toward the castle. Harper had a sword in her hand and was rushing into the mass of dark hunters and shades. I reminded myself of her strength, but a piece of me could not bear the thought of her fighting without me by her side.
But there was no time to act. The ice around the hunter’s body cracked and her bony hands broke through, ripping the ice from around her. She turned her red eyes to us, anger flaring as she prepared to scream.
They Aren’t After Me
An explosion rocked the city. Hunters poured through the crack in the dome’s final shield and chaos erupted on the streets below.
I didn’t know what to expect, but my greatest fear was that the hunters would head straight for the homes in the main village to steal demons for the Order of Shadows. That’s why I had told the guards to hide the children in the rooms below the castle.
But the hunters didn’t head for the demons. They headed straight for the castle. Straight for me.
I took human form and planted my feet at the bottom of the steps. I summoned my energy and my arms rose as flames coated my hands. With a flick of my wrists, streams of fire shot toward the group of hunters first to reach me.
Beside me, Gregory conjured spears made of pale shimmering light and hurled them toward the hunters, one at a time. A few of the spears flew straight into the hearts of the smaller hunters and their bodies disintegrated into dust.
Confused, I watched as the hunters fell way too easily. What was going on?
“Shades,” Marcus shouted as he approached through the wave of attackers.
“What does that mean?” I asked. “They aren’t real hunters?”
“Not all of them,” he said. “Jackson sent me to find you. He said it looks like most of them are just conjured mirrors of the hunters. The real ones have been protecting them, but it looks like they are vulnerable, now. Aim for their hearts.”
Jackson was alive. “Where is he?”
“He was still outside, fighting the larger hunters,” he said.
I took a deep breath and turned to focus on the fight at hand. Jackson was a skilled warrior, and he was out there with Lea and Aerden and Essex. They could handle themselves, but I hated that I couldn’t see him.
Still, everyone was counting on me to lead them, and we were under some serious fire.
“Princess, we need to get you inside to safety,” Gregory said, grabbing my arm.
I pulled away. I had already stayed out of the fight long enough. It was my duty to protect this castle and the children hiding inside. I wouldn’t back down while everyone else risked their lives.
“I’m staying,” I said, meeting his eyes so he knew there was no use arguing with me. “Concentrate our forces on the real hunters. We can’t let them inside the castle.”
I shifted and flew toward the entrance to the castle’s throne room and grabbed a long sword from a pile of weapons the guards had collected from my father’s training rooms below. I turned my eyes toward the approaching hunters.
With lightning-fast movements, I shifted back and forth between my two forms, sword flying as I fought my way through the lesser shades toward the real hunters.
By now, many of the guards had realized what was going on and had come up on the backs of the hunters, surrounding them. In minutes, the smaller shades had all been destroyed, leaving us with five real hunters left to kill.
I took a deep breath as they approached, their mouths open and ready to scream.
I didn’t want to wait for the first one to reach me. Instead, I shifted, gathering speed in the air as I reformed and aimed my sword at the heart inside her rotting flesh.
Only, the sword could not penetrate her shield.
The force of the impact twisted the weapon from my hand and it fell to the stone street with a loud clang.
Spells soared through the air as all our forces threw every ounce of power toward the hunters. But nothing seemed to damage them. I expected the hunter standing above me to attack, so I left my sword where it lay and shifted quickly to move out of her way. I expected her to search the crowd for me and move in for her attack, but she didn’t.
Instead, she set her eyes on my father’s castle and floated up the steps at terrible speeds.
They aren’t after me.
“Don’t let them reach the castle,” I shouted to anyone who could hear me over the sounds of battle. I had no idea what it was they wanted from inside. The children? I wasn’t sure, but whatever it was, it was important enough to send a massive, coordinated attack against our city. Which meant it was extremely important for me to make sure they never got inside.
“Gregory,” I shouted as I ran back toward my sword and retrieved it from the street.
His head turned toward me, but his arms were raised, pushing a hunter back with all his strength.
“Do whatever you have to do to keep them out here,” I said.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
I nodded toward the castle. “I’m going after that one.”
I shifted, sword in hand, and flew up the steps toward the hunter. She had almost reached the entrance to the throne room. I knew I wouldn’t be able to kill her with her shield still in place, but as far as I knew, hunters couldn’t pass through solid objects. I just had to find a way to hold her back.
I flew past the hunter and reformed in the doorway just in front of her. I dropped the sword onto the steps and flattened my palms toward the stones below. I cursed the wide entrance to the castle. This wasn’t going to be easy and it was going to cause some real damage, but I had no other choice.
I exhaled and pushed my power deep down in the stones at my feet. With my mind, I wrapped my energy around those stones and lifted my hands, pulling them with me. A wall of rock rose from the ground, covering half of the main entrance with more than a foot of solid stone.
I stumbled back and took a deep breath.
The hunter was almost to the entrance, and there was still enough of an opening at the top for her to pass through. I knew I wouldn’t be able to raise the floor any higher, but there was just as much stone above the entrance as below. I pushed my palms out toward my side and ropes of white smoke formed.
I whipped the ropes up toward the balcony, wrapping the smoky coils around the stone banister. With all my strength, I pulled downward. The balcony collapsed on top of the stone barrier I’d built, covering what remained of the entrance and blocking the hunter from going inside.
She reached the top of the steps just as the last of the stones settled into place. Her skeletal hands circled my wrists and yanked me backward, breaking my concentratio
n. But the damage was already done. If she wanted inside the castle, she was going to have to find another way in. I prayed the guards had done a good job of sealing all the balconies and windows.
The hunter’s long green fingernails raked across the skin at my wrists, drawing blood. I twisted and pulled away from her grasp, but when I tried to shift, I stumbled, my vision blurring. I fell against the stones at the entrance and blinked my eyes.
My vision didn’t clear. I closed them harder and reopened them, swiping at my eyes, but my movements lagged behind my intentions. I opened my mouth to speak, but all I heard was the sound of the hunter’s laughter.
I stared down at my bloodied wrists. She’d poisoned me. I could feel it snaking its way through my bloodstream like a virus, hot and sticky and dark.
I struggled against it, but there was nothing I could do. I collapsed against the stone barrier, unable to lift my arms or move my feet. Everything around me slowed to a crawl, the sounds of battle no longer in my ears. All I could hear was the slowing beat of my heart as my body began to shut down.
The hunter descended on me, and the flash of a dagger caught my blurred vision as she removed it from beneath her ropes and brought it to my neck.
I wanted to cry out for the guards, but my tongue wouldn’t work. I had never felt more helpless in my life.
On instinct, I struggled to bring my hands to my throat, to shield myself from the blade. They only jerked and slowly moved up my thigh, and then froze. I couldn’t move them an inch farther. The poison worked fast.
The hunter leaned in, preparing to slice my throat, but something about the movement of my hand made her stop. Her head jerked downward and even with my poor vision, I saw the red in her eyes flash bright in recognition.
She removed the blade from my neck and took my hand in hers, instead. She touched my skin almost lovingly. Reverently. The edge of one long fingernail scraped across the top of my sapphire ring, as if she were petting it.
My stomach lurched, and I tried to pull my hand away from her. I wore this ring to keep it safe. To keep it out of the hands of the Order of Shadows. I’d rather die than see them get it back.
I had no idea what use it might be to them now, since the sapphire gates had been destroyed, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I had earned that ring, and as the life drained from me, I no longer had the strength to protect it.
The cold steel tip of her dagger pressed against the base of my finger, just below the curve of the ring. The hunter smiled as she pushed the blade into my flesh.
Go To Her
The hunter rushed toward us. Her red eyes grew wide and her mouth opened in a horrific scream that echoed off the trees and knocked me to my knees. I fell against the limb and covered my ears. I had heard the screams of many hunters over the years, and I knew the force they were capable of, but not once had I ever been downed by one of those screams.
I struggled to stand and lift my bow, but the sound pierced my skull and made my muscles tense and weak.
Jackson pulled me up and wrapped my arm around his shoulders. He shifted and flew backward into the darkness beyond the dome, keeping to the forest shadows. He looped around and brought us back to another set of trees closer to the main city.
He settled me against the trunk of the tree.
“Are you okay?” he asked, out of breath and glancing back toward the castle.
I followed his gaze to where Harper stood, sword in hand.
My heart ached. I had become so used to turning my sadness into anger, but maybe the injury and exhaustion had weakened me. Tears threatened to fall.
Jackson was honorable and would never leave me alone in battle, but his heart was with her. And in that moment, as he stared toward her with such fear and love in his eyes, I realized that it was truly over for us.
Even with the engagement, I don’t think I’d really come to terms with it. Not like this.
I turned my head to the side and wiped a tear from my eyes, swearing that would be the last. I would not let this make me weak. I would rather die than let a broken heart destroy me.
“Go to her,” I said.
He shook his head, his eyebrows pressed together. “No, I won’t leave you,” he said. “Let’s just catch our breath and take care of that hunter together.”
But then he stood, gasping. He took two steps forward and brought a hand to his mouth.
I forced myself to stand, and when I looked toward the castle steps, I saw her. A hunter had forced Harper to the ground, a dagger pressed to her neck.
“Jackson, go,” I said more forcefully.
“You’ll be okay?” he asked, but he was already moving.
“I can handle myself,” I said, pulling my sword from my belt.
He swallowed and nodded, our eyes meeting as he glanced over his shoulder at me. “Thank you,” he said, and disappeared.
I took several deep breaths, pushing against the flood of emotions that consumed me. Anger. Loss. Aching regret.
I focused on the anger, drinking it down. I forced my thoughts to the Order and how they had taken so much away from me. From all of us. I channeled those thoughts toward this one hunter still out here in the woods with me.
That bitch was going down.
I straightened my shoulders and looked up toward the trees, trying to locate her in the darkness. But I didn’t have to search. She had found me first.
Before I could shift or move or think, the hunter was on me, her long bony fingers devoid of any flesh as they wrapped around my arm. She dug one gnarled fingernail into the wound on my arm, and I cried out, the pain so great it resonated through every inch of my body.
It was impossible to shift to demon form when such pain gripped me. None of the training I’d done over the past one hundred years had prepared me for the power of that pain. I was helpless against it, a feeling I loathed more than any other.
I pushed against it, like fighting through a deep fog. Somehow, I managed to place my uninjured hand on my sword, but before I could draw it and sink the blade into her decaying frame, she pushed me backward with such force, bones cracked as I hit the trunk of the mighty tree behind me.
I fell against the ground like a ragdoll, and as I lifted my head, I saw a streak of white light rushing toward me. A spell that should have ended me with its power.
I braced myself for the blow, crying out as I realized this could be the last moment of my immortal life.
But the impact never came. Instead, something burned white-hot against the flesh between my breasts.
The key.
It seared my skin, and without thinking, I clawed at the rope that held it around my neck and pulled it away from my flesh, bringing the key outside my shirt.
The diamond gemstone at its center glowed with a faint light and the moment it reached the air, it connected with the residue of the hunter’s spell, solidifying it in midair, like water freezing.
When magic was cast here in the Shadow World, it left an invisible trail, able to be seen and followed by those who had the special gift of tracking, but I had never seen a trail solidify like this.
It crystallized, a faint white mist lifting from it as it snaked from the key to the hunter. It all happened so quickly, I could hardly make sense of it.
Her head jerked backward in surprise. She prepared another attack, but I took full advantage of whatever miracle had just saved my life. I pushed up against the tree and forced myself to a standing position. Every bone and muscle protested, but I clenched my teeth against the pain and drew my sword.
I reached out and gripped the crystal rope that now linked us together. With all my strength, I pulled her forward.
She opened her mouth to scream again, but before the sound could leave her throat, I plunged my sword deep into her rotting heart.
The hunter’s red eyes flashed with anger and hatred, but it was too late for her. She sputtered and coughed, her rancid breath a whisper against my skin as she withered to nothing, her bones splinteri
ng and cracking. When her eyes went dark, I leaned against the tree and put my foot to her stomach, pulling my blade from her chest and pushing her to the ground.
As she fell, something at her neck glittered in the light. I realized whatever had originally caught my eye in the trees was now reflecting the light that shone from my diamond key.
A necklace?
Her body shook as what remained of her flesh dissolved into a thick, greenish-black liquid that bubbled like acid between her bones.
I got on my hands and knees beside her and used a stick to search through the mess of decaying matter until I found it.
A glimmering pendant made of pure white diamonds.
My pulse quickened.
Some of the more powerful hunters I’d fought in my lifetime had worn jeweled talismans. Gifts from their ruling priestess. I’d defeated hunters wearing each of the five main colors of the demon gates, but I’d never seen diamonds.
Diamonds were rumored to be the gemstone of the mysterious High Priestess. Had she been the one who sent her hunters to destroy the Southern Kingdom?
What did it mean?
I pressed a hand to my chest, wincing at the tender flesh. The diamond had somehow absorbed her attack, but it had burned the hell out of me in the process.
I didn't have time to figure it out now, but there was one thing that tugged at the edge of my thoughts.
Where the hell did Aerden get this key?
Careful not to touch it with my bare hands, I ripped a strip of cloth from the hunter’s robes and wrapped it around her diamond pendant. I stuffed it in the pocket of my jeans and went to join the fight inside the domed city.
Everything You Had
The tip of the sharp blade pierced the skin at the base of my finger, but before the hunter could push it any deeper into my flesh, her body jerked and her hand opened, her long skeletal fingers spreading wide as her blade dropped to the ground near my feet.
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