Page 197 of The Demon Tide

“Trystan!”

I turn toward the familiar rugged voice, relief swooping through me to find my blood-streaked brother, Rafe, jogging toward us, his tunic thrown off.

We grip each other’s arms as he looks to Hee Muur, the Shadow tide unable to strip the amber color from his eyes, the green glimmer to his skin as undimmed as mine. “We can’t keep holding them off,” Rafe tells her. “We keep killing them, and they keep coming. There are simply too many.”

A sapphire Vu Trin dragon lands beside us. “Nor Hee Muur,” the young Vu Trin sorceress on its back says, military stiff. “The Death Fae, Sylla Vuul, has encased the Wyvernguard’s North Island with a web barrier, but the Mages have begun to break it down. The Vu Trin Mages Fain Quillen and Wrenfir Harrow and the Wyvern Sholindrile Xanthile have secured part of the Third Tier with a horde of Vish’nile dragons, but send word that they can’t hold off Vogel’s forces for long. Hundreds of civilians are trapped on that level.”

An Asrai Fae, Fyordin Lir, is suddenly running toward us, his fierce, lake-blue eyes fixing on me. “Where’s Tierney?” he demands, and I can read his hostility, but also the intense worry in his gaze.

I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

He looks to Heelyn. “Tierney Calix has warded the Vo River. The wards are Deathkin wards, but the power running through them...it’sall hers. Vogel’s Shadow magic can’t get through those wards, but we can’t either. Which means we can’t draw on its power.”

“Then let us siphon your magic into the barrier Hee Muur and I are going to create,” I challenge him.

Heelyn rounds on me. “I never said I’d work with you!”

“If we don’t wall off the Mages,” the Vu Trin scout insists, “they’re going to level the city.”

Dragons shriek overhead, catching Heelyn’s eye, a large portion of the Shadow beasts arrowing straight toward the Third Tier.

“Please, Noi’khin Hee Muur,” I plead. “I can’t fight them alone! Neither can you.Noneof us can. We need to pool our magic!”

Heelyn looks at me,reallylooks at me, her fury shifting to an expression of tortured indecision just as a bright flash of golden fire streaks over the river from the north. We all turn, shock lighting as I make out the luminous figure in the distance, wings outstretched as he hurls a bolt of flame at a knot of incoming Mages and huge swaths of them explode in golden conflagrations.

“So much power,” Vothe breathes out. “That can only be Yvan Guryev...”

Heelyn breathes out a hard huff of relief. “The Icaral has come.” She narrows a glare at me. “It looks like we won’t be needing your magic after all, TrystanGardner.”

Vothe’s whole body gives a sudden, violent shudder. Concerned, I look to him, his eyes clamping tightly shut as every one of his muscles tense, his skin flashing silver lightning like it’s been hit by a wave of power that’s much stronger than his internal storm.

His eyes snap back open, raw horror in them. “Get that barrier up, Heelyn!” he snarls, lightning crackling over his skin. “The time for division isover! Get the barrier upright now!”

I reach for my wand. “Vothe...what...”

His gaze swings to mine, stark pain flashing through it that both silences me and sends a chill down my spine. “Trystan,” he says, “the Prophecy...it’s here. Vogel’s taken control of your sister.”

CHAPTER FOUR

ICARALOFPROPHECY

Elloren Vogel

Over the Vo River

Yvan, no!I mentally scream as he fights his way toward me over the river, blasting through Mages and their dragons, his body trailing Wyvernfire through the ghoulish night.

Horror mounting, I soar toward Yvan with Vogel’s horde,a chill wind whipping against my shielded form as heavily outnumbered Vu Trin do battle against the Mage forces and are mercilessly cut down from the sky in explosions of silver-gray light.

Bucking and writhing against Vogel’s hold over my body, I watch as Yvan advances, hurling fireball after fireball. His gold-glowing eyes come into view and my desperation intensifies, his gaze two fiery stars, set tight on me. Vogel’s malefic excitement shivers through me, the poisonous thought darting through my mind—

Come closer, Beast.

It’s a trap!I try in vain to scream to Yvan, my wand hand sizzling hot with a catastrophic level of power.

Yvan throws out a great arc of Wyvernfire, lighting up the grayed night as Mages are incinerated. But still, Vogel stays my wand hand, the feel of his presence inside me enlarging, my lungs hot and tight as he gathers my power.

Three huge Noi runes suddenly burst into being above Voloi’s riverbank, shot through with blue lightning. A churning wall of storm roars out of the runes, and I startle as a great stormwall forms along Voloi’s coast, Yvan’s flash of mutual surprise hitting me from clear across the expanse between us.

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