I stomped out a flame.
Tendrils of red fire dwindled. They crumpled under my metal boot and faded from the world without even a trace of smoke. A slew of curses fled from my lips as I unsheathed my sword, already scanning for the source of the attack.
Around us, the wide mountain path stretched in all directions. Or, well, it was wide for us in the backing party. With only half a dozen people to deal with, we had more than adequate space. The main marching groups up ahead were a different story. They barely had multiple paces of clearance on either side—and many of them were practically pushed up against the sheer stone wall.
But as I scoured our immediate surroundings, trying my best to ignore the sounds of fighting at the head of our legion, I came up with nothing. Besides a small group of cultists that had sloppily ambushed us at the approaching bend, there were no other of the savage pyromancers around.
As with all of the previous attacks thrown down at us, this one had come from above.
Gritting my teeth, I took a step back and squinted at the mountain above us. Dozens of paces up, I caught a glint of metal from a natural ledge that was almost out of view. The glint of a knife.
Before I could even call out, though, Kye was on it. Her bowstring flicked forward and the cultist above us stumbled back with an arrow now sticking out of his shoulder. In the corner of my eye, I could already see the smirk growing at her lips.
“Thank the world we have a ranged fighter back here,” Fyn said as he pushed himself up and lowered his sword.
“Thank the world we have one with such good aim,” I added with a nod. Kye flashed a smile my way before looking back to the rising cliff.
She curled her lip and gestured upward. “This is why each section of our legion needs one. A sword might be fine for dealing with a knife-wielding lunatic up close, but you all are just about useless right now.”
My eyebrows dropped. I gripped even tighter to the blade in my hand. “Well, we haven’t had to deal with this before now.”
Beyond Kye, both Fyn and En nodded at that.
“Sure,” the huntress said, not looking away. Unconsciously, she grabbed another arrow from her quiver and readied it in her bow. “But that’s not to say we shouldn’t have expected it. Fire can travel long distances.”
The white flame sent a soft crackle to my ears as if reminding me of its existence. I bobbed my head. “True. I just don’t understand how they can keep it up.” My nose scrunched as I raised my gaze and flicked it over the stone in search of anything abnormal. I saw the ledges—but from so far away, they looked completely empty. “The fire can travel, but their magical reach is doing the exact same thing.”
En furrowed his brow. “What are you talking about?”
Turning to the man, I smiled. It took far too much effort to stifle laughter when Kye smirked. “The flames keep burning,” I said.
Fyn tilted his head back in understanding. “Right. They keep control over it even from so far away.”
“Exactly,” Kye added, shifting her aim to another spot without even missing a beat. “It’s unusual, especially for such a basic strategy. That was… what, the fifth barrage down at us since we started up the slope? And besides the ones I’ve hit with arrows, they’re not slowing all that much.”
“They’re literally raining fire from above,” En said, lacking the amusement I expected. He clenched his jaw. “With how packed together we are up here, it could be deadly.”
Kye was already shaking her head. “No. It’s not. Even if none of you thought about this in advance, Lady Amelia did.” Her features tightened. “I have to give the woman credit for some things.” She shook her head. “Either way, this is what the Vimur’s enchantments were for.”
I swallowed dryly. “Right. The knights most packed together are the ones most protected. They have shields and armor that doesn’t mix very well with fire.”
“They’ve been targeting us more than the other knights anyway,” Fyn said. He nodded to himself silently while his eyes narrowed.
“Why would they be—” En didn’t even get past four words.
“How are we supposed to know?” Kye asked. Her eyebrows raised and her head leaned forward in blatant sarcasm. Which, even though she hadn’t been looking at him, was enough to get En to shut up.
“We’re the most vulnerable,” I said, trying to work through it in my head. It halfway made sense—we were the smallest group in the legion, after all. But thinking back to when the cult had ambushed us days ago, it didn’t entirely satisfy.
“Well, we look the most vulnerable,” Kye said. Her smirk inched its way back. “Hopefully by the time we make it to the top, they’ll have realized their mistake.”
Fyn nodded, raising his head again. His normally-cheerful smile was only a ghost of its former self. “Hopefully.”
En’s expression darkened. “With all that fighting up front, who knows how long it’ll even take to get to the top.”
“They shouldn’t have issues,” I said, trying to keep my tone firm. Over the clashes of metal and screams of pain that suddenly sounded a lot louder, it was harder than it should’ve been. I shook my head. “The knights at the front are some of the most competent. The cult would have to outnumber them two-to-one for it to be a threat. Which…” My lips tugged upward as I glanced over our oppressive legion. “That’s not something I can really see happening.”
“Not much we can do from back here anyway,” Kye said, her tone much more hollow. “There is too much space and too many bodies between us and the action. We have to focus on our own problems.”
Fyn’s nodding became a little more confident. “Exactly. They’ll continue to push forward... All we have to do is keep up and stay alive.”
The entirety of the backing party nodded at that. Then, as the explosive sound of flames enveloped the front of our legion again, we fell silent. Back into step and back into focus. Fyn was right. We just had to keep up.
Which was exactly what we did as the legion pushed forward. After breaking through the first ambush by the cultists, we all picked up the pace. Our marching accelerated with a sense of urgency only possible through such casualty. I tried to ignore the knights that I saw dragging or limping off to the side.
And with the barrages of fire being sent down at us periodically, it wasn’t all that difficult. Each time metal would glint from above or red-tinged fire would flood into my vision, my blood got filled with white-hot steel. I didn’t have time to worry about other sections of the legion.
Because, as Kye had said, we had our own problems.
So we dealt with those problems as they came. Attack after attack and flame after flame, we kept the damage to a minimum. We stayed vigilant as scouts for the back of the legion and made sure that anytime there was a cultist to be shot, Kye knew where they were.
Every once in awhile as we pushed up the winding path, though, the marching would slow. Screaming and fighting would echo from the front of the legion. Bursts of flame would outshine the warm glow of the sun. And the urgency would increase as soon as each ambush was dealt with.
More lives lost, I assumed. I hoped it wasn’t many each time. Hoped that their losses weren’t in vain. That each one was necessary for us to make progress. It didn’t sit well with me, but it loosened the knots in my gut enough for me to breathe.
Feeling guilty wasn’t going to get me anywhere, I reminded myself. We were here. This was it. I told myself that with each new ambush.
Until eventually, they stopped. As our legion made its way up the final slope to where the temple’s entrance was, there were no more cultists. No more screams or fighting or plumes of flame. No more resistance. It was eerily quiet.
My dread took the opportunity to show its face again. It rose up like steam in my head and forced my breathing to quicken. But in a way, it was fine. It was better, even. I preferred the fear of possible deaths over facing the reality of them. It felt—
“Agil!”
I lurched, throwing myself backward as red flame flashed at the corner of my vision. Stumbling, I skidded backward over rough rock and only narrowly avoided the eruption of heat in front of me. Red fire soared into the sky and licked against my skin while it burned on nothing but stone.
Gritting my teeth, I shot my gaze up and scoured for the source of the magic. But unlike the attacks we’d sustained below, there weren’t many ledges above us now. The flat area that held the temple’s entrance was only a few dozen paces up.
A glint of metal. I twisted, tightening my grip and darting my eyes to the curved knife of the cultist leaning just over the edge. In the man’s fiery eyes, I saw only an odd sense of greed.
“Kye, up on the—”
“I got him,” she said without missing a beat. Her arrow crunched into the man’s chest and sent blood streaming down his chest a moment later. He stumbled backward and relinquished control over the flame before me.
It dwindled and faded, burning away into smoke as it died the natural way. Walking forward, I shoved my metal boot down on it for good measure.
Still seething, I turned to Kye. “How the fuck can they keep doing that?”
Kye blinked, twisting on her heel to meet me. “Doing what?” she asked, lowering her voice.
Flicking my eyes up the sheer stone side of the mountain, I followed her lead.
“Controlling the fire like that from such a distance,” I hissed. “Manipulating energy gets more difficult with distance, right?”
Blinking rapidly and wiping sweat from her brow, she nodded. “Yeah. What are you—”
“Then doing what they’re doing has to be a lot of soul drain.” I took a deep breath of dry air and tried to calm myself. To push down the anger that was mixing with my dread.
The realization dawned on Kye’s face. She furrowed her brow and looked up again. “Yeah. How are they…”
“That’s what I’m asking you,” I said, shaking my head lightly as I pushed past her to keep up with the rest of our party. The huntress followed silently in my wake, the air lightening in tandem with her perked ears.
When she turned back to me, she was barely keeping back a scowl. “I…” She trailed off and bit her lip. I raised an eyebrow and offered a gaze exasperated enough to force her to continue. “I don’t know if this is true—but there are myths about the Scorched Earth, too.”
I lowered my head. “There are?”
Kye nodded slowly. “The world’s damned cult has been around for as long as the stories about Rath have anyway. It only makes—” She stopped herself with a shake of her head. “Anyway, most of the stories attribute their power coming directly from Rath.”
I tilted my head. “We already knew that.”
Kye narrowed her eyes. “Maybe we don’t understand it, though. When you… when you cast, you use your soul to manipulate the energy around you, right?” I nodded; she rolled her wrist. “We draw from the latent energy of the World Soul, but they”—she gestured upward—“might draw energy directly from Rath herself.”
I blinked, my lips curling. Kye’s face was dead serious.
“Oh,” was all I got out before I scrunched my face. “Does that mean Rath… creates energy?” The ideas and information swirled through my head, only aided by the eerie silence blanketing the mountain path. For a moment, I considered Ray’s explanations about other forms of energy that were simply beyond the human soul.
I shuddered.
“Fuck if I know,” Kye muttered. Her hand crept down to her quiver to pick out another arrow—one from a supply that was almost half-gone already. “But that might be why—”
“Hey,” En said from up ahead. Kye snapped her mouth shut and shot the knight a glare. He didn’t seem bothered. “Why the hell is it so quiet?”
I opened my mouth. But as his whispered words echoed off the stone wall, I didn’t speak. I let it trail back into relative silence that was completely unhindered by the activity of the cult. With as close as we were to their temple, I couldn’t help but listen to the thundering of my heart.
“They’re preparing an ambush,” Kye said, her eyes still swirling with energy. If she casted any more, I swore I would’ve passed out. “A larger one. They’re definitely up there, though.”
The pit in my stomach deepened. The white flame flickered brightly enough to echo its own concerns. And as my thoughts spun, I just tried to hold onto what little hope I could that Kye was wrong.
She wasn’t.
The first thing I heard as the battle above ensued was laughter. A whole maniacal symphony of it flooded the air and crashed down over the cliff edge.
After that was what I’d expected more. Grunts of pain. Screams and shouts. Orders barked left and right. Shrieks of metal. Crackling explosions of flame that somehow felt even more powerful than before. The storm of battle had finished its rise and was now raging with fury.
But even as knights charged up the remaining slope with their weapons raised and their shields in hand, we couldn’t do anything. The terrifying sounds, the flashes of light, the stench of smoke—we had to sit uselessly through all of it.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
It took more than a whole minute before we even saw the top.
And even once we got there, we did nothing but stare. Sprawled over the large and relatively flat area that was seemingly carved out of the mountain’s slope was… chaos.
Directly ahead of where Kye and I ended up were the knights who’d been at the tail of the main marching group of the legion. Beyond them, my eyes could barely track the movement.
In a sea of metal that was only a little more sparse than before, dozens of knights engaged with dozens of cultists. The knife-wielding pyromancers danced with crazed intent around their slower, armored counterparts. And for a while, it looked like neither side was making much progress.
But as the hour-long seconds ticked on, it became obvious who would come out on top. Even with the force that the cult had gathered to defend the temple’s entrance, they were still outnumbered. They were still completely and utterly outmatched.
The knights were just… better fighters. They had better control over their dodges. They were more accurate with their attacks, and the cultists struggled to keep up. They struggled to inflict even a speck of damage without resorting to spewing flame. Yet even that was countered in most cases by the strategic use of a shield.
The cultists were determined, but there wasn’t much other than that. They didn’t have versatility or coordination among their numbers. It was a struggle for them to do anything other than singe hair. And heavier longswords or battleaxes made quick work of their light armor.
As I watched, the swordsman in me itched for action. In each encounter, my instincts screamed about the subtle mistakes among the knights. The miscalculations and missteps that resulted in some sort of a disadvantage. But either way, the knights were winning. And either way, I couldn’t do anything about it.
Moving to add my own blade into the mix would only complicate things. I knew it as well as Fyn, En, and the rest of the waiting knights did. We couldn’t afford to take the chance of messing up a battle that already looked like a victory because we were bored. It didn’t make sense.
Though, that didn’t make us any less restless.
Shaking my head, I scanned the area instead. I tried to look past the symphony of blood and blade to inspect the temple itself.
After the open terrace that the fighting was taking place in, a rough set of stone columns held up a carved roof that was set into the mountain. Beyond the columns was a wide set of wooden doors with multiple cultists directly on guard. Somehow, they looked even more crazed than the ones fighting.
My lips curled into a sneer. The sight sent my stomach rolling in disgust. Because even with our show of power—even with the way our knights were decimating the resisting forces, they seemed unbothered. Their minds were so dead-set on defending Rath’s place of slumber that they forgot fear. It was like they didn’t even have time for grief despite the bodies of their own that were piling up.
In the corner of my eye, another knight’s skin was decorated with a myriad of burns. An armored companion of theirs only stopped for a moment to prevent them from falling before jumping back into the action.
I took a shallow breath.
Perhaps we weren’t that different.
A bitter taste fell on my tongue as I considered it. The ideas circled, only aided by the white flame. But I’d worried about this before, I realized. I’d worried about morality enough already for a lifetime. It was something I’d reluctantly have to accept.
Because whether I liked or not, it was more than me and my musings. There were too many lives at risk—for both sides.
Lives of knights I’d been marching with for days. Lives of citizens who had been tormented by the cult and its attacks. Lives of those on the continent at large that wanted nothing more than to not burn in a pledge of red flame.
We had a responsibility, I reminded myself. A responsibility to win.
And as I watched the battle winding down in front of me, I knew that responsibility still held. Our knights were better fighters than the cultists. The pyromancers weren’t able to keep up. And eventually, their ranks thinned to only a handful of wounded lunatics.
Even in their crazed states, they knew they were outmatched. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean they retreated. They fought tooth and nail until their bloodied bodies were little more than a hindrance. Then, once the dust settled, there were no more tendrils of red flame to scorch the rock.
It stung that we were helping the reaper do its job.
We’d won anyway, though. I had to be happy about that; the white flame blazed with pride in the back of my head. A small victory, but it was one we had to take.
There was still a lot more to be done.
“Reform positions,” a voice said. It cut through the heavy breaths and aching grunts. All others died in its presence. All attention shifted to the woman walking to the center of the stone terrace.
We all knew exactly who she was.
Lady Amelia wiped blood from the blade of her sword as she started shouting orders. In a flurry of cold, calculated words, she ordered the legion back into its ordered groups. Watching them form, I could see how our ranks had thinned.
But it wasn’t like the bodies on the ground had left it much of a mystery.
“Now,” the knight general called, brandishing her sword anew. Walking to the front of our spread-out legion, she eyed the temple entrance. “We have a temple to storm.”
A moment of silence was all we got before the chaos started again. The knight general cocked her head toward the doors and started running. The closest set of knights followed in her wake. The reinforcements from Ord followed after them. And before I knew it, the world around me had descended into noise. It had become a stampede that I had to either take part in or get trampled.
In a cacophony of yells, footsteps, and metallic clangs, we charged past the temple’s columns and straight into its main chamber. Before I knew it, the distinct sounds of fighting had resumed at the front of the legion.
With the front line taking most of the violence, I steeled myself and looked around. I took stock of the area we’d just forced our way into.
My eyes widened as I scanned the cavernous space. Similarly to many of the buildings in Norn, it was little more than a repurposed cave. The only difference was that the cave we were charging through was far larger than any in Norn. It was far larger than any I’d ever seen, in fact.
From the entrance, a wide, paved stone path led all the way through the space to another set of double doors on the opposite side of the room. To our left, the temple descended into makeshift living areas with crates and boxes of supplies sitting next to other rough pieces of furniture around stone tables.
And even the other side of the temple—the one decorated with statues, altars, and abstract monuments—appeared rushed and unorganized. Everything my eyes glossed over looked like it existed solely for the purpose of getting the temple up and running.
Well, it wouldn’t be up and running for long.
A shriek of metal. Way too close to my ears.
I twisted, stepping away with my sword at the ready. But the defending knight who’d stumbled through the backing party wasn’t done. He wasn’t out of the fight.
When a cultist surged, aiming for his neck, he ducked. He twisted out of the way and brought his shoulder up underneath his attacker’s arm. A blur of motion followed.
The cultist was laid out on the floor before he even knew what was going on, and he gained a slash through the heart before he could really figure it out.
The knight stood silently for a moment, taking a breath and slumping his shoulders as he stared down at the crazed, dying pyromancer who was clutching his bleeding chest. He shook his head only once before raising his sword again and running back into the fray.
An action that was probably a good idea for all of us.
The front line had taken a lot of the initial damage, but it wouldn’t last. It wasn’t lasting, in fact. Our legion had a lot of manpower, but the temple was even larger than that. Simply by the natural course of battle, our forces were spreading out. The cultists were breaking farther and farther through the ranks.
Some were even making it all the way back to us.
A curved dagger gleamed in red firelight as a cultist ran at Kye. I gritted my teeth and surged, pushing off the ground with everything I had to come to her aid. As the uncoordinated man lunged toward the evasive huntress, I knew she didn’t really need my help. But I didn’t particularly fancy standing on the sidelines any longer either.
The knife-wielder swiped with his blade. Kye stepped out of the way and kicked the man in his shin. He winced and stumbled forward, nearly falling onto the stone before he regained balance. As soon as he did, he took a breath.
I didn’t let him take another.
Before the man even realized I existed, my blade had sliced his hand. He screamed in pain as blood drained onto cloth, but even that was cut short. I was still running, after all. And I didn’t plan on losing my momentum.
Skidding to a stop directly in front of the man, I knocked him off his feet as gently as I could manage. He still went tumbling, grasping desperately to thin air. There wasn’t anything to grab. All he earned himself was a couple extra bruises on his arm when he slammed into the floor.
Kye shot me a glare as I walked up to the man. I had to fight back a smirk while I stood over his helpless form with my blade at his neck. As havoc moved around me, I didn’t have much time. But pushed on by the discipline I still held close, I looked the man right in his eyes.
Only crazed, murderous intent stared right back.
I sighed and put an end to both of those feelings.
“Not much of a fighter, was he?” Kye asked as she walked up. Notching an arrow in her bow, she eyed the man to make sure he was dead. He was.
“Didn’t look like it,” I said, my voice a lot less enthusiastic than I’d intended. “He looked like he didn’t even know how to use that knife he’d been given.”
Kye shrugged. “He probably didn’t. I mean, it’s not like they can build a temple like this with only fighters in their ranks.”
I furrowed my brow at that, but the meaning was clear. Looking down at the bloodied man, I noticed that the armor didn’t even fit properly. Gritting my teeth, I fought myself not to get angry. I reminded myself where I was. Reminded myself that I didn’t have time for—
The twang of a bow. I blinked, looking up only to see Kye smirking. Beyond her, a cultist reeled backward as her arrow pierced through his armor and painted his shoulder a brand new shade of red. Looking up, the man tore her arrow out and cauterized the wound with a scream.
Before the pain could stop him, he was already moving toward us.
A thin smile grew at my lips. The white flame added to it, sending energy twitching in my muscles. As I watched the man approach—this one obviously far more skilled than the previous—I studied his form.
But as it turned out, none of it was necessary.
“Finally some action!” a cheerful knight yelled with a smile on his face. Barreling past me and Kye without a second thought, he intercepted the charging maniac.
The steel of Fyn’s blade shot out. The cultist’s eyes widened only a fraction as he blocked the blade with his daggers. But at that, Fyn’s grin only deepened. He pushed forward, forcing his weight into the cultist until…
“I could not agree more,” En said in the most annoying way possible as he slammed into the cultist from the side. A stifled shriek was all the unprepared man got out before he was skidding on stone. The two trained and armored fighters were on him shortly after that.
“Neither could I,” I said, a smile tugging at my lips. Despite the way all of the bloodshed made my stomach roil, it still put me directly in my element. It got my blood boiling in the best way.
By the time Kye and I got to the cultist our companions had started with, the man was already dead. He’d left En with a mild and, according to him, excessively irritating burn on his hand—but that was it. A few scorch marks on Fyn’s armor were the only other evidence that he’d put up a fight at all.
As I slowed, Fyn twirled his sword alongside me. He grinned and scanned the room for whatever he could find. He didn’t look for long, though. It wasn’t as if the temple had a shortage of cultists that were crazed and angry enough to come running at a group of four.
Fyn found one in short time, but I didn’t pay him much attention. There was no need. As the knight kept chuckling, I had no doubt that he would be absolutely fine, so I turned my attention elsewhere. I tracked across the room for a place where I could actually be useful.
In the sea of chaos, though, it was hard to discern anything. Among the screams and shouts, it was hard to pick out any sounds in particular that came from more than a pace away. Through the smoke and blurs of motion, it was hard to identify a single body in the crowd. And aside from occasional bursts of fire, nothing really caught my—
The white flame froze. It flickered alert and dragged my attention with it to a burst of red at the corner of my vision. From across the room, I realized with narrowing eyes.
Just before one of the stone altars stood another robed cultist.
Except this cultist wasn’t armored at all. Except for the metal covering his gloves.
“Kye,” I said as I started forward. The huntress turned.
“What do you—”
“Grey robes,” I said, cocking my head in the direction as I adjusted my grip. “Metal gauntlets.”
“Son of a bitch,” she muttered and followed directly in my wake as I weaved around a fight and broke into a run. Stone flew under my feet at a pace only exceeded by the arrow Kye sent streaking through the air.
The cultist yelped when the metal tip pierced into his arm. But despite the short show of pain, he only turned to us and smirked. Tearing the arrow out, he began to laugh. The sound echoed in my ears far closer than the distance between us.
I made sure he’d regret even opening his mouth.
Flicking his scorched metal fingers together, a flame spawned under my feet. It licked and burned the fabric of my uniform just above the boot, but I pushed out of the way. I twisted and clenched my jaw, letting attacks and stances stream through my head.
Despite myself, the slew of maneuvers in my thoughts forced a considerable grin across my face. Because this time, they were actually useful.
My blade tore through the air toward the frustrating man. He caught it.
I’d expected that.
My arm wrenched backward, pulling him forward half a step before he relinquished his grip. The white flame’s energy twitched in my muscles, and I took full advantage. I ducked and twisted to the side with as much finesse as I could to shove my blade up against the man’s open side.
He scrambled backward, scowling at me. But the contact that I felt through my bowed, trusted steel was not one against metal. It didn’t scrape. In fact, it squished a little as blood flowed out through his skin and down toward the hilt of my sword.
A stray chuckle slipped from my lips as I tore away and spun quick enough to see the furious pain on his face. He twitched and stepped toward me for only a moment before remembering himself. Before remembering the fire he had access to.
He seared shut the wound in his side like it was the most natural thing in the world.
I swallowed dryly, letting another set of maneuvers flit through my head. Some of them even enlisted help from the white-hot presence burning in the back of my mind. But none of it was needed.
Kye came in directly after me with her bow in hand. And another arrow came with her. The gauntlet-wearing cultist noticed, though, and side-stepped her attack with ease. He twisted to glare at the huntress, whose antics had only deepened the fiery color in his eyes.
She, however, was not one to be intimidated.
As the cultist curled one of his gauntlets into a fist, she spun away. Her feet slammed into the ground and pushed in the opposite direction of where I was standing. She only spared me a single knowing glance before she hit the ground again.
Her idea became crystal clear instantly.
It was really quite simple, but the cultist we were facing didn’t seem as adept as his gloved counterparts had been. Without thinking, he turned, sparking flame in his hand and hurling it at my companion. At first, my eyes widened, but I shook my head shortly after. Kye would be fine, I told myself. She had to be.
I just focused on pushing forward. With the crazed man’s back turned to me and the white flame crackling up a storm in my mind, I could all but see what was about to happen.
The air around me felt light. Slick. Exciting. Full of energy that I could shape to my whim. It tingled against my skin, and with a deep breath, I focused on it. I felt my soul as a muscle, envisioned what I wanted to do with it, and executed in a flash of blazing white.
Our adversary had only just started to turn around when my blade slashed up his side. All the while white tendrils of flame lashed through the cloth of his robes and left burns wherever they met.
He screamed in pain, stumbling off to the side and glaring right into my eyes. I offered a grin. Despite my heavy breathing and the increasing headache, I tried to taunt the man. To get him as frustrated and distracted as possible.
Which, as it turned out, wasn’t all that difficult.
The man lunged at me, trying to grasp at the cloth of my uniform. I saw the red sparks flying off his gauntlets. They were set to burn holes straight into my chest. And they almost did, actually, until an arrow stuck itself into his neck.
“Insolence!” the man rasped, his voice no longer a whisper in my ear. Blood flowed down his neck while he scrambled away from us. His hands itched at the splintering wood that had almost punctured his throat, probably trying to find a way to tear it out safely.
But I didn’t care. With his hands up and his eyes glossing over, he was vulnerable. Vulnerable enough for me to—
A bright flash of light.
Searing orange lined in red exploded somewhere behind me. The light burned my peripheral vision in a single moment before it faded. Before the entire room reacted.
My ears twitched. The violent ambience of the temple dampened. It dipped and lowered, as though all of the fighting had suddenly been put into slow motion. But even as the light faded, the noise didn’t pick back up. It dwindled as if sound itself was too scared to enter the room.
Swallowing dryly, I turned.
A splitting, horrifying wail echoed a moment later.
My eyes flicked across the room, searching for the source of the scream. It wasn’t hard to find. Across the room, past a group of fighters that had been brawling a moment before, was a knight. One of Lady Amelia’s own, I realized.
He scrambled away from our knight general’s immediate group. Away from both enemies and allies as his hand tried desperately to pat out the small spark of red flame singing through his armor.
The spark, however, didn’t stop. It flared with new fury and flashed through the air toward the man’s neck.
I stepped forward and raised my blade, but there was nothing I could do. There was nothing any of us could do. He screamed again and again as the red spark erupted into a ring of flame that burned across the man’s neck and crept under his armor.
Another flash of light.
The man kept screaming as he fell to his knees. His shrieking rang louder and louder off the dull stone walls. But it also rang hollower and hollower.
Until eventually, it didn’t ring out at all.
He collapsed to the ground with only a small trail of smoke.
I gawked, my eye twitching at the sight. Beside me, I heard Kye let out a hollow curse. Even the crazed cultist who’d been fighting us a few seconds before was silent. The remaining sounds of fighting became dull and muffled, like they’d been covered by some unnatural force.
Then a new sound arose. Everything else became overpowered by something far more sinister. Something that echoed off the walls as much as it did the confines of my inner ear.
A laugh. A cackle, even—one that wormed its way into my consciousness like an undying whisper. One that taunted me and brought up anger I’d never wanted to see again.
That cackle was familiar, I realized. And I recognized it in an instant.