Page 192 of The Demon Tide

And their fates shall determine

the future of all Erthia.

CHAPTER ONE

BATTLEMAGE

Elloren Grey

Voloi, Noilaan

Raz’zor launches himself toward the Vo Mountain Range like a bolt shot from a crossbow. Nothing prepares me for the speed at which we fly, Or’myr and I leaning low to cut the wind battering the geo-shield prickling over our forms. Power surges through me like a storm ready to burst from my skin as I grip my cousin’s wrist to enhance his power with mine.

Raz’zor swoops down over Voloi’s besieged tiers so abruptly my stomach heaves as we speed around pillars of smoke toward the Vo River and Vogel’s incoming horde.

Or’myr spits out a curse as a Mage on dragonback veers toward us, gray eyes glowing bright. The Mage lifts his wand, and I’m assaulted by an aura of dark trees aflame with gray fire.

“He’s an Earth and Fire Mage,” I snarl over my shoulder.

Or’myr murmurs a spell, his purple aura contracting inward with lethal force. He flicks his wand out the same moment the Shadow Mage does, a gust of iridescent violet wind blasting from Or’myr’s wand as a silver-dark blaze of fire flies from the Mage’s. Or’myr’s gust slams against the Shadowfire, driving it back in a spray of violet sparks. The Mage’s dragon splays out gray wings as Or’myr thrusts his wand arm out again, hurling a bolt of purple lightning that forks all over the Mage’s silver-flashing shield.

The corrupted dragon screeches as Or’myr’s lightning pierces its shield. Raz’zor swings us sideways to avoid a collision just as the Mage and his dragon erupt in an explosion of purple flame.

The blast ringing in my ears, we level off, soaring over the Shadow-tide-enveloped First Tier, then zooming over the Vo River. Shadow dragons streak through the sky as they swarm Voloi and battle Noilaan’s sparse forces, explosions detonating, the Wyvernguard Islands’ ladder of connecting walkways collapsed and hanging like broken branches from its surviving North Island.

A fresh rush of Yvan’s Wyvernfire floods my lines, flashing gold through my graying vision, my heartbeat quickening with urgency. Two more Shadow Mages close in from the left and right, alarm sparking through my nerves as I realize they’re zooming in too quickly for us to prepare a counterstrike. They level their wands, dark lines of earth magery whizzing toward us.

Raz’zor retracts his wings and drops into free fall.

I jerk my head up just as the Mages’ vine spears collide, their dragons shrieking as their magic punches into each other. Raz’zor splays his wings out, halting our rapid descent and narrowly avoids contact with the color-muting Shadow tide.

Heart thundering, I glance over my shoulder to find the two Mages and their dragons tangled in vine-netting and pinwheeling toward the Shadow-coated river.

A cyclonic fog aura suffuses my mind and I whip my head around to find another Shadow Mage closing in, his foggy magic shot through with dark lightning.

“He’s got air and fire...” I manage just before the Mage swirls his wand and draws up a portion of the Shadow tide to envelop us in a dark haze. Or’myr’s diaphanous amethyst shield spits purple lightning then vanishes, a slithering rush of Shadow coursing over my skin.

“Elloren,” Or’myr gasps as he holds up his wand hand, tendrils of the Shadow smoke snaking over it.

Alarm tightens my throat. Or’myr’s purple coloration is gone, as is the purple of his geo-wand, no color remaining on him save the Gardnerian green of his gaze.

Which means Or’myr’s purple-oriented power is shut down.

Or’myr curses as his bindings tying us to Raz’zor begin to give way and Raz’zor arcs straight up out of the Shadow tide. I fall back against Or’myr’s chest as we blast through it, the breath whisked from my lungs as another Mage zeroes in, his aura of cold icing through me.

“Ice!” I cry, and Raz’zor pitches left as a dark spear lances through the air beside us in a frigid whoosh, barely missing Raz’zor’s wing. Another Shadow-ice spear zips past our right and Raz’zor tilts to evade it, the spear just missing Or’myr’s head.

Raz’zor swoops upward, the river’s surface to my back, the ghoulish Void moon directly above like a giant, all-knowing Vogel-eye.

We level off and I look at the crater-slashed mountain before us, dragons spilling out of its gaping maw. A bloodred conflagration ignites within Raz’zor as he accelerates toward the incoming horde, his scaled hide growing feverishly warm.

He opens his jaws, whips his head to one side then lashes it forward, spraying a line of red fire in a punishing arc, the incoming dragons exploding into balls of ruddy flame.

Death to Gardneria, Raz’zor snarls into my mind and I draw in a hard breath, Yvan’s magic crackling hotter under my skin as we zoom forward, more than halfway across the river now as Raz’zor begins to restore his depleted flame. Vogel’s Void tree shudders into the back of my mind, silvery-black fire crackling all around its gnarled form.

Oh, you sense me, do you?I seethe.

Rage firing through me, I reach into my grayed tunic’s pocket and grab my wands. A cataclysmic wave of power rushes toward my wand hand and I ready the Fire Strike spell, my quivering hand fusing to the wood as the wands take on a red-hot glow.

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