Page 133 of Kingdom of Shadows and Wings

Features pinched, Nick and Abel hover on the fourth, still open side.

A deafeningsmackprecedes intense vibrations as a stone slab drops across the top of the three walls, cutting off the light. Falling debris, no larger than pebbles, rains down on Zephyr and me. I cough and wheeze at the dust. Zephyr sneezes.

On the only open side, Olive, Nick, and Abel gawk at me from outside the stone walls—alarm in their eyes.

Their fear doesn’t come close to matching mine. I’m quaking to the point my teeth clack, and my heart pounds so hard I can’t pull in a full breath. Desperate for freedom, I nudge Zephyr toward the opening.

It narrows until I’m no longer sure it will allow his wingspan to pass through without injuring him.

I gasp and rein Zephyr in.

Loud rumbling causes the surrounding walls to tremble…while the top slab descends at a rapid pace, determined to crush us in here no matter how far we descend…or how fast I lead Zephyr to the sole opening.

I suck in a startled breath. “Nick, icenow.” He has to freeze this damn thing before it kills me.

His power transforms the three walls into solid ice, but the top slab still descends. Shit.

“Olive, air!”

Try as she might, her air magic doesn’t do shit to blow the walls away.

The slab keeps descending.

Terrified, I struggle to breathe and think.

“Try to fly out here.” Abel gestures me toward the opening where he and the others hover, his face stricken. “It’s your only chance.”

“No. Fuck, no!” Olive’s terrified voice cuts through me like a blade as the side she and the others are on trembles, a fourth wall now rising from the ground.

Chapter Forty-Eight

A spear whizzes past Abel, almost grazing his shoulder. Arrows fly as the other unit attacks.

With a screech, the top slab slides lower, almost touching my head. At the same time, the ground rises beneath our feet. If they continue on their current trajectory, they’ll eventually meet in the middle, crushing Zephyr and me in the process.

A terrified cry rises in my throat. I push it back and gape as the fourth wall keeps rising, my gray-faced friends blocked from the waist down on the other side. “Everyone’s magic now! Bombard this thing!”

Air, ice, and earth magic from Olive, Nick, and Abel blast my stone prison as I shoot fireballs at the slab above me. Sparks fly, crackling the air, and dust trickles down while the other team continues their assault, this time with throwing stars. One slices Olive’s right bicep. She hisses.

“Leave me.” They have to save themselves. “Go!”

“Screw that.” Olive grips her injured bicep, staunching the blood, and gives me a pissy look. “I’m not leaving you.”

Abel and Nick say the same. Together, we blast the walls with our magic. I unleash as I haven’t before. Squeezing Zephyr with my thighs, an inferno streaks through my veins and blazes into the wall. Within moments, the structure buckles beneath my power and, little by little, the slab above me yields and eventually tumbles over the top of the second wall.

A loudsmackcuts off a fledgling’s scream. More shouts. The ground vibrates.

As one, the walls surrounding me lower, showing a dead alicorn crushed beneath the stone slab. His unmoving rider is trapped beneath him, blood pouring from her caved-in skull. Her teammates circle overhead, sobbing and arguing whether to try to retrieve the body or leave her and get the hells out of there.

The macabre sight induces me to get my ass in gear. Once I free myself, I don’t waste a single moment aiming Zephyr to the next column and battling its power, which consists of more earth magic.

The next pillar combines the four elements, switching from fire, to water, to air, to earth so fast that while we’re battling one power it’s already morphed into another.

“Fuck!” Nick bellows. “I’m tired of this shit.”

So am I, but we still have the eighth and final column to conquer. I dread what surprises it might hold, but I don’t lose hope as I fly Zephyr toward the pillar. Success is within our grasp?—

A screech rends the air, and my gaze flits up to find the orange dragon making a low pass overhead.

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