Page 64 of An Archer's Reckoning

My feet carried me forward on their own.

Before I realized it, I was standing in the center of town.

I looked down at the Ranger I’d uncovered before, a man I had trained beside when I was a cadet.

Righteous fury rose.

My magic raged.

Without thought, I called air from every direction, demanding it bend to my will.

The tornadic cacophony was deafening.

When I could hold no more, I screamed my anger toward the sky and threw my palms outward, releasing the powerful pulse. Like a crater carved by a fallen star, snow billowed around me for a hundred paces.

Ancient trees bowed against the powerful gust.

Loosened boards flew from buildings and fences.

What remained of the town’s walls shattered and flew.

The thick blanket of snow was blasted away, forming massive drifts well beyond the wall.

Freed from their frozen tomb, broken bodies stared up in anger and anguish, frozen in their final agonizing moment of life. Some lay buried under fallen roofs. Others bore gashes from swords. Even more were riddled with arrows and bolts.

“Ayden!” I shouted, knowing my voice would reach no living man, but desperate for anything that might offer hope. “Damnit, Ayden Byrne, answer me!”

No one stirred.

I dropped to my knees and focused all my will. I grasped my Light as one ready to wring a chicken’s neck. Its power pulsed and writhed, yet I held firm.

In my mind’s eye, I conjured Ayden. His hair blazed beneath the bright sun.“Hear me, Ayden. Where are you? Spirits, are you alive? Tell me you still live. Please . . .”

I knew he couldn’t respond. Even if he had survived the devastation, he had no magic. Unless he slept and I entered his dreams, he could receive my mental plea but not reply.

Still, I could not surrender. The enemy had taken so much. They could not tear hope from my chest. I could not let them.

So, I walked among the dead.

“Declan.”

“I must do this. I have to know.”

Tears stained my face as I kneeled beside each of the fallen. I gripped hands and muttering words of comfort and farewell. I memorized each face, seared each fractured pose into my thoughts.

Hundreds—a thousand? How many lay frozen . . . and broken?

My mind could no longer count.

My eyes begged to turn away, to close, but I forced them to see and remember.

The snowy shroud blown aside, I saw them now.

I saw them all.

But I did not see Ayden.

Chapter 22

---