Page 74 of The Midnight Death Match

My muscles relax, and before I know it, I’m actually enjoying the experience. Not enough to let go of the reins like my father does, but enough to relax. A little.

Mirendel rises from the morning mist with spires silvered in the early light. Its city walls gleam faintly with bright colors, but somehow they seem dimmer than I remember. Even from a distance, I feel something is off. Wrong. The air is too still, the sky a breath too dark.

Vash lands hard against the stone terrace of Einar’s home, his claws raking sparks. Sapphire circles above. They’re both uneasy. So am I.

Einar steps out the moment I dismount, his jaw tight, hands curled into fists. “Something’s stirring. I smelled blood on the wind.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

Lys appears from the tower stairs, quiet and composed as always, but there’s an edge in his gaze that wasn’t there before. “The wards flared last night. Silent warnings with no breach,but something pressed against them.” His eyes flick to the outer cliffs. “From below.”

A tremor moves through Sapphire’s scales. She snorts, restless.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

Lys’s voice drops. “It means they’re going to attack.”

My breath catches. “In Mirendel?”

He nods, his expression tense.

I glance toward the streets in the distance. The townspeople are waking. Merchants. Scouts. Students and teachers. Families with small children and baskets of bread.

They don’t know what’s coming. Or maybe they do.

Because the stillness? It’s not peace. And if I noticed the shift in colors, those who’ve lived here their entire lives would have noticed it more than me.

It’s fear.

I turn back to Einar. “Where’s the council?”

“Scattered. Some left. Others want to hand you over to the movement. I won’t let that happen.”

My mind wrestles with the news. The answer becomes clear. “Then we prepare without them.”

Lys nods. “The wolves are gathering, and they’re not alone.”

I draw my sword. Let them come. We’ll be ready.

Without another word, we head through the house and toward the city.

A warning bell tolls once, twice.

The city erupts.

Howls split the morning calm—raw and inhuman, echoing from the southern cliffs. The wards flare bright white then crack like shattering glass.

“They’re inside!” a voice screams from the lower levels.

I rush to the edge of the nearest building just as the gates burst open in a shower of splinters.

They come like shadows given flesh. Dozens of wolves. Some monstrous, others barely more than boys in half-shifted form. All marked with sigils burned into their fur, eyes glowing like coals. Behind them, cloaked figures weave through the gaps—sages, human conspirators, and things too warped to define. Dark magic bleeds into the city like smoke along with them.

Rebels and scholars alike scatter into formation. Archers take the walls. Warriors charge to meet the tide. The air fills with the clash of steel, the scream of magic. More fae flood through the gates.

Mirendel’s colors fade even more than before.

“Go!” I shout, my voice already hoarse. “Defend the library! Protect the archives!”

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