Page 112 of Bright Soul

He didn’t pause. “Good. During the second half of our plan, I will drop us all in the same audience chamber where Myuna has been sitting this whole time. She…teleported here from my old home world and left behind a hole, so to speak. My goal once we arrive is to send her back through that hole and sew it closed so she cannot return again. It will take me a while to harness enough power to make it possible.”

“What are we doing in the meantime?” shouted a Crystal fae from the second floor.

Madigan gestured up at him. “Good question,” she answered. “We expect that a smaller force of elite torchbearers will remain behind with their goddess. Those of us who choose to fight will be holding them off from Auric as he works his magic.

“As for Myuna, no one is to engage her recklessly. Any attempts to do so may result in the consumption of your soul, or the possibility of being turned into a torchbearer and against your friends. Only Cress Darkmore and her circle will approach her and then it is only to distract. This way forward was seen as the most successful path by both of our Graygazers.”

She turned to Cress, who flexed the powers Braza gave her to make purple-black shadows slide into being, dancing and eddying around her when she raised an arm to wave. “Thank you for your bravery,” Madigan said.

After a tense smattering of applause, she opened the floor to questions. Madigan went over fine details before dismissing us to head off and put the plan into motion. I gathered team four, which mostly consisted of friends, both from Cress’s coven and the defenders who’d helped us clear the library of its monsters.

“Madigan would like a few of our cars to whip through the city streets en route for maximum attention,” I stated.

Ben and Bianca both lit up. “Race you,” she said.

“You’re on!” he exclaimed.

Cress raised a brow, but shook her head rather than say anything. She was probably planning on carrying Ben in her shadows. Instead, she turned to Grant and Willow, making an offer to them in an undertone. They disappeared with her into the shadows and as the rest of us finished coordinating transportation, the merman who’d originally come here for Willow walked up to join us.

It took me a moment to remember his name. Zander. He dressed in what I assumed was a myrmidon’s battle armor, gleaming plates interlocking over his chest like oversized fish scales. One over his heart was etched with a symbol of jagged coral. Those plates continued over a leather kilt that looked like it was designed to wrap around the weak point where fish tail met man’s torso in his aquatic form.

He carried along his heavy trident, using its blunt end like a walking stick. “Where’s Princess Willow?” he asked, eyes narrowing as he took in our group.

“She’s taking a safe route to meet us there,” Ben answered, knowing I was practically incapable of uttering direct lies in my stone form.

“There’s such a thing as a safe route?” the mer warrior asked skeptically.

Ben smirked. “Let me put it this way, it’s less dangerous than Bianca’s driving.”

She shot him a venomous look. “We’ll see about that. I’ll meet you on the road.” With them both heading off to claim a vehicle, my team headed out behind them, while I emerged into the early morning through the front doors and spread my wings, carrying my shield for now. Flying might’ve been slower travel than the maximum speed of a car, but nothing could beat the feeling of air under my wings.

I knew the way from my trips scouting or performing search and rescue. The safe house was a dance hall, where an overflow of healthy noncombatants had been living ever since Myuna had consumed her unnatural creatures. The survivors were now out in the parking lot, many clustered in family groups. Some of them held suitcases or sacks of belongings, others had the clothes on their backs and clutched weapons, ready to fight for their freedom.

Spotting Cress’s purple head of hair, I came in for a landing nearby and checked my momentum with heavy strokes of my wings to land without cratering the asphalt. “Willow?” I asked the brown-haired girl next to her, who ducked her head too readily.

“Nope,” replied the changeling in his usual voice, before switching to speak in her usual wispy tones. “She’s wearing a set of Crystal fae armor over there. I assume she’s taking some of that off before she gets in the water and sinks like, well, a stone.”

I glanced in the direction he pointed. Her thin outline was bulked out by the hard facets of the armor. It did look too heavy for her. “Oh, I put a glamor over her trident,” Ambrose added. The graceful weapon seemed to resemble a hammer, like a guardian witch would wield. If anyone checked her aura, thedeception would fall apart, but no one would be looking in the midst of battle.

“Did she make a separate bargain for such services?” I asked.

“Curious?” he countered with a lift of a brow. “As a matter of fact, no. I wanted to see King Laiken’s palace and politics for myself. It seems a shoo-in for a hellhole worse than the Autumn Court, but maybe I’m biased.”

“Perhaps,” I muttered.

“I mean, there shouldn’t be undead,” Cress pointed out.

Ambrose smacked his lips. “Guess it’s hard to get worse than that.”

We lapsed to companionable silence after that, with some of the survivors around us drifting close enough to eavesdrop. I noticed Ambrose practicing some of Willow’s typical poses and expressions, like he limbered himself up for a performance as her for the foreseeable future. I wondered what he planned on doing when he was asked to demonstrate some of her magic.

Well, a problem unrelated to the challenges ahead. While I pushed away any squirmy feeling of nerves with ease as a gargoyle, Cress tugged some of my stoic calm to wrap her own emotions in a dampening blanket rather than bounce on the balls of her heels or pace as we waited.

The sound of wheels screeching on pavement had all of us looking up. Two cars came zooming into the parking lot, engines purring as they came to an abrupt stop and fighters piled out. “Incoming!” Shouted one of the guardian witches coming from one of the vehicles.

A third truck struggled along, its side clearly gouged by massive claws. I loaded a quartz spike in my right arm, lifting my palm and waiting to sight the creature that’d done such damage in one long swipe.

Weapons unsheathed and magic ignited around me. We all heard it coming, thethump thump thumpof heavy paws.

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