Terrible heat washed over me as I pressed myself into the trampled grass and covered my head with my hands. Next to me, Henry was doing the same. The air vibrated above my back as a seemingly unending torrent of dark red flames swept past over me. I barely dared breathe for fear of scorching my lungs.
By all hell, how much raw power did Sienna Hall actually possess?
“Run!” Paige called the second that the fire died down.
Henry buried his large hand in the back of my shirt and all but hauled me with him as he shot to his feet and took off towards Paige and the others. I stumbled before managing to get my feet underneath me properly. While we ran, I cast a glance over my shoulder.
A few constables had managed to throw themselves down on the grass too before the flames hit, and the ones farther away had been outside the blast radius, but the whole area where the weapons tent had previously been located, as well as the tents behind it, was now only a smoldering patch of black earth and melted metal. She must have directed the flames to slant downwards, so that they missed us but reached all the way to the ground behind us.
Incredulity bounced around inside me as I took in the completely obliterated crates of metal weapons as well as the sheer size of the scorched area. Fucking hell. If Sienna had possessed a more stable mind and an ability to actually make long-term plans that weren’t solely based on whichever emotion she was feeling that very minute, every dark mage in Eldar would have been forced to bow at her feet. I had never met anyone who possessed this level of sheer destructive power.
The constables who had been fighting close to us jumped up from where they had taken cover on the ground as well. I checked to make sure that Callan, Malcolm, and Grant were out of the way and sprinting in the same direction as us before I slapped my palms together and shot a poison cloud over my shoulder. I had no idea if it hit because I had to return my attention to the scene ahead.
Fury crackled on Sienna’s face, intense enough to burn the world down. Next to her, Sam was speaking rapidly while making calming gestures. It was at that moment that I realized how incredibly lucky we had been that Sienna had even had the presence of mind to scream that first warning for us to get down. Because based on the expression on her face, she was close to losing her mind with rage. Though to be fair, if I had been flung through the air in the way that she had been, I would have felt the same.
Paige was standing next to Sienna and Sam in front of the collapsed tent that the fire mage had crashed into. A hint of wariness flitted across her features when she looked at Sienna, but she appeared entirely unharmed, which made relief wash over me.
Callan positioned himself between us as we ran towards the three of them. Malcolm and Grant were racing towards us from the next row of tents.
“You okay?” Callan demanded as soon as he reached us.
“Yes,” Henry and I replied in unison. “You?”
He nodded.
“We need to get back to the gardens,” Grant called as soon as we were within earshot.
Sienna still looked like she was planning to march right onto the smoking grass and rain hell down on the surviving soldiers. But even though her fire had taken out a large portion of them, there were still too many of them for us to fight without significant risk. Sam pulled desperately on her sleeve, trying to get her to run too.
When we reached them, she at last tore her furious gaze from the constables and let out a snarl. Then she whipped around and joined Paige and Sam as they took off towards the mansion too.
Behind us, orders rang out.
I sucked in a deep breath of air that smelled of ash and smoke as I tried to keep pace with Callan and Henry. Brown tents flashed past us as we hurried back through the same path we had already cleared.
We had only made it halfway when the sounds of a pursuing army echoed from behind our backs.
“How the hell did they know that we were coming?” Malcolm snapped as he and Grant joined the rest of us.
“I don’t know,” Paige pressed out between rapid breaths. “I swear, they were moving the bulk of their army towards the food delivery.”
“And they did. If they hadn’t, if we’d faced their whole army, we would be dead right now. So they must have just moved parts of it to the weapons tent. But how could they have known that we would hit that one?” His dark eyes flicked towards her. “Did they spot you?”
“No!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
“Then how—”
“Can we argue after we’re safe inside the mansion?” Sam interrupted. “Please?”
“We still need—”
“Watch out!” Callan screamed.
I flew sideways as his arms shot up, shoving me and Henry to each side of him. White lightning crackled through the air a fraction of a second later. My heart squeezed tight as a pained grunt tore from Callan’s lips.
Landing on my shoulder in the grass, I watched the lightning bolt sink into Callan’s left shoulder with enough force to knock him back a step. His whole arm twitched and jerked uncontrollably as he collapsed to one knee.
Shadows shot up from the ground, high enough to block out the slanting sun, as Malcolm raised a black wall in front of us. A moment later, a combined attack of water, wind, and lightning crashed into the shadows with enough power to tear the darkness apart.
Through the rips in the shadows, five people became visible.
Chancellor Godric Quill, Lance Carmichael, and his three friends who possessed lightning, wind, and water magic at a dark mage’s power level. Behind them, more constables were running in from the tents on both sides of their siege to block our way back to Grant’s mansion.
My heart thrashed in my chest as I shoved myself to my feet and sprinted over to Callan. He was gritting his teeth so hard that a muscle in his jaw ticked, and he had wrapped his right hand around his left arm. That one still hung uselessly by his side while the fingers twitched.
“Sam,” I called as I reached Callan.
Boots thudded against the ground on our other side as the pursuing soldiers closed in from behind our back.
“No,” Callan growled. “We don’t have time. We need to go before we’re completely boxed in.”
“Did you really think you could outsmart me?” Chancellor Quill called across the muddy grass. Smugness laced his voice. “You forget, I know exactly how you think. You attack the food. Then more food arrives. You assume I’ll send people to protect the food, so you go for the second-best target instead. Did you learn nothing when we spoke below the mountain in Castlebourne? I can read you like an open book.”
Water and lightning slammed into the remnants of Malcolm’s shield, and the last of it faded away. Sienna answered it with a massive wave of fire that burned the tents between us and Quill to cinders.
“We can’t get through that way,” Malcolm snapped.
I whipped towards the emotion mage. “Grant, any other ways in?”
“Not from this location,” he answered.
“Then we go into the hills and try to get around them.” I spun towards our healer. “And Sam, fix Callan on the way. Let’s go.”
Before anyone could protest, I dragged Callan with me as I took off towards the only open space left. Paige and Henry flanked us. After another wave of fire, Sienna sprinted after Malcolm and Grant as well while Sam hurried over to us.
Orders to follow echoed across the burning grasslands as Quill’s side and our original pursuers gave chase.
I tried to suppress the panic that crawled its way up my throat.
With great effort, I managed to relax my grip on Callan’s arm and release him when Sam caught up with us. Shimmering turquoise magic appeared between his palms as he touched them together and then held them close to Callan’s shoulder.
Lightning zapped through the air. We all ducked while continuing our mad dash towards the nearest hill. Slapping my palms together, I blindly threw a cloud of poison over my shoulder. Wind magic rushed somewhere behind me.
Sienna let out a scream. Fire tore across the grass, setting tents aflame and slowing our attackers. But not stopping them.
My heart pounded in my chest and it felt as though I was inhaling shards of glass. I sucked in desperate breaths as we at last cleared the final row of tents.
And came face to face with a wall of flat earth.
We all skidded to a halt.
Where the sloping ground should be was now only a flat wall, impossible to run up, as if someone had used wind and water and fire magic to carve a smooth surface into the hill. My heart sank, because that was exactly what Quill must have done.
I whipped my head from side to side, but the impassible barrier ran far to both the left and right.
“They’re coming,” Henry yelled.
A boom shook the warm afternoon air as a blast of wind magic collided with his own. Whirling around, I touched my hands together and shoved a massive poison cloud towards our hunters. Jessica and Darren yanked up two thick shields of water and wind that blocked the attack before it could strike.
Next to me, Sam was still trying to fix Callan’s injured arm. Paige called up a water wall that blocked part of the lightning bolt that Leoni shot towards Callan, but because of Leoni’s superior power levels, parts of it went through anyway. A low groan ripped from Callan’s chest as the remnants of the lightning bolt cracked into the same arm that Sam was trying to heal.
Rage roared through my head.
Slamming my palms together, I sent a gigantic poison cloud towards that fucking insolent lightning mage. A grin danced on her features and her brown eyes glinted in the white light from her magic as she shot another bolt towards Callan. That time, a combined shield of wind from Henry and water from Paige managed to block it entirely.
Fire tore through the air as Sienna unleashed her wrath on the constables, and darkness whipped in its wake as Malcolm’s shadows joined her. Soldiers screamed and turned to run when Grant’s pale violet mist hit them. But more kept taking their places.
Both sides that had been pursuing us had now caught up. And with the unscalable wall behind us, we had nowhere left to run.
I shot attack after attack at the growing semicircle of soldiers. Their sheer numbers, combined with the fact that they had Leoni, Darren, and Jessica on their side as well, put us at a severe disadvantage. And if they decided to rush us again, we were doomed. Lance was here now. All he would need was one touch while someone else pinned us to the ground, and it would all be over.
Fucking hell. We should never have gone out here. I should never have convinced them that we should carry out this attack. And now Callan was hurt and we were trapped out here and fucking Levi Arden had forsaken his promise to us.
Anger and dread and panic all mixed into a terrible storm inside me. I cast desperate glances between Paige and Callan. I couldn’t let them get hurt. Not because of me. I had to find some way to make sure that they got out.
But as I met Callan’s gaze, I realized that he was thinking the same thing. His eyes were swimming with soul-shattering terror as he looked between me and Henry. Sam was still trying to heal his unresponsive left arm, but the second lightning bolt must have reopened some of the damage.
For a few seconds, it felt as if the whole world went silent. As if nothing and no one else existed apart from the two of us. I saw the moment that he made his decision. A steely sense of determination fell across his features.
Then the rest of the world crashed back in around us.
Callan pushed Sam aside.
Flicking his gaze between me and Henry, he said, “Climb.”
Panic squeezed my heart like an iron fist as he lurched forward as if to sprint right into enemy lines in order to buy us enough time to somehow get over the wall behind us.
“No!” The word tore from my throat as I threw myself towards him to stop him while Henry did the same.
Fireworks exploded into the rows of constables.
We all threw up an arm to shield our eyes as purple and orange and yellow and red light lit up the grasslands before us. It stunned Callan enough that Henry and I managed to yank him back before he could start running again.
I blinked desperately against the lingering blindness as I tried to figure out what had just happened.
Screams echoed across the landscape.
Followed by deafening booms. And more light.
Then shadows streaked across the blue sky above our heads.
They were followed by a gigantic sheet of metal that temporarily blocked out the entire sun.
Shock crackled through me as I whipped around and stared up at the hill above us.
Levi Arden slashed his arm through the air, sending another sheet of metal flashing above our heads and slamming right into the constables, as he strode down the hill. Two explosion mages on his left shot a barrage of firework into their ranks as well, while a shadow mage poured darkness towards the other side.
My mouth dropped open as I watched what had to be a hundred dark mages stride down the hill in a massive line while throwing battle magic at our enemies.
The King of Metal had come.
