Page 84 of Flight of Fate

“You’re too weak, Myron.”Kaira grabs her daggers more tightly.

“I’m the only one in possession of a power that could block out a piece of the shield,”I remind her because, with one look at Herinor and Silas, I know they are in possession of neither their magic nor their physical strength, or they would have long blazed through this shield, carrying the humans along.“And I’m not leaving them behind.”

Gaze cutting to mine with more upset than I’d expected, Kaira takes a deep, steadying breath.“Neither am I.”

Before I send out my power, there’s only one thing I need to know.“How many magic wielders are in the camp?”

Herinor doesn’t need to say anything for me to know that the answer is‘too many’, but he does anyway.“The guards who’ve checked on us were all human, but the shield is too strong to be cast by only one Crow.”He sways on his feet, the woman with the green cloak bracing him as much as she can manage. Beside me, Kaira makes an unintelligible sound that could have been worry or disapproval.

For a moment, I think she’ll leap right into the barrier at the sight of the woman so close to the warrior Crow, but she merely reaches into the pocket of her jacket, withdrawing the vial we plucked from a soldier’s corpse in the clearing before.

“This could melt a hole into the shield.”She doesn’t wait for a response as she uncorks it, ready to splash it onto the wall separating us from the last of my court.

“It could also draw the attention of whoever cast the shield,”I warn her, though we all know whatever we do to break the shield will eventually draw the camp toward us. So I nod, an unnecessary approval when there is little else we can do without wrecking ourselves to shredded, bloody ribbons.

Holding her breath, Kaira takes aim and splashes, the clear liquid colliding with the near-invisible shield with a slick, wet sound.

I don’t know what we all expected, but most certainly not the smoke rising from the spot where the liquid evaporates like ice in the desert.

Leaning closer, Kaira and I inspect the shield, looking for any sign the liquid has left a hole, but all we find is a small spot where the wall of magic has thinned, the view a bit clearer, less laced with glimmering silver.

The shield must be too strong to break apart at a mere vial of the drug.

It doesn’t change anything, and I’m not trying to figure it out when rallying my power is taking everything out of me. The disappointment on Kaira’s face is enough to make me tap into the shallow depths of what’s returned of my magic. If this is the only way, so be it.

A thin silver glow appears in my free palm while I keep the other one firmly wrapped around the hilt of my sword. The humans stumble a step back on instinct.

“Prepare to run.”Not giving myself a moment to doubt whether this will work, I send the power collecting in my hand at the shield, willing it to burn through the protective layer. For a moment, nothing happens, and I wonder if I’m doing it right or if the amount of magic at my disposal is so minuscule the barrier will simply ignore it like a crow does a slight breeze. Then, silver light flares, and shouts erupt from the center of the camp as we draw the soldiers’ attention.

Not long and they will figure out what’s going on, and I really don’t want to test our luck after the past hours. If they get us before we can get the prisoners out, there won’t be an escape. There will be only pain and death, with death being the more merciful option.

“Hurry, Myron,”Herinor grits out, his teeth bared even though he’s using the mind link.

I don’t pause to inform him I’m not planning on drawing this out. Footsteps approach. Fast. And from the side of the camp, two men come running, their swords drawn. At least, they aren’t wielding bows and arrows, or we’d be fucked.

“Faster.”From the way Kaira shifts on her feet, I should wonder if she’s ready to leap into the shield and risk being grated like cheese, then her hand locks around my wrist, fingers digging in with painful force. Before I can wince—or demandwhat she’s doing—she drops the empty vial still in her other hand and opens it toward the shield.“This is magic the way fireballs thrown by Flames are magic,”she merely says as if that’s an explanation, but when tendrils of silver peel away from the shield, turning soft orange as they creep and coil into her open hand, I understand.

“You’re siphoning from the shield.”

Her victorious smile is almost worth the blast of power erupting and throwing us all to the ground as the shield collapses a few heartbeats before the two guards would have made it to the prisoners.

“Kaira?”Ignoring the searing pain lashing down my side, I collect my limbs and roll over, preparing to fight.

Kaira is right there with me, blood dribbling down her chin and bracing her hand against a tree a few feet back where the explosion delivered us.

“Crow magic and Flame fire,”I muse into the mind link, thinking back to all the theories we’ve had over the combination of those two.

Kaira huffs a dark chuckle, already limping toward Herinor, who groans as he pushes off the ground, Silas still on his back. A glance at the blasted tents confirms nothing is moving there, the soldiers who were shouting now silenced, perhaps forever.

“Can you walk?” the male asks the older man struggling to get into an upright position. The ugly wound on his leg is spewing blood, and his complexion is so black and blue from old injuries I can’t tell if any new ones were added in the explosion.

The man hobbles a step, staggering into the younger one, who is more stable. The woman crawls toward them from a few feet away, shaking her head as she takes in the destruction behind her: Torn tents flap in the wind like banners of doom, the stench of blood and pain laces the air, and where a cauldron had been sitting on a fire, ready to feed a company of soldiers,the flames are eating up whatever they can get their scorching tongues on as they spill into the icy land.

“How are we alive?”The woman stumbles to her feet, almost tripping over her cloak. Unharmed.

They are all unharmed—at least by our magic. As if on instinct, it destroyed everything surrounding us, but notus. Not the court we are trying to save or the allies they brought along.

Holding out an arm to help the older man across the debris of trees and ashes, I give Kaira a clipped smile.

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