Page 118 of Slaying the Shadow Prince
Several traps similar to those he’d seen laid out for bears lay camouflaged by bracken amid the blooms, creating false pockets of safety where wraiths might land in an attempt to escape the burning sensation of the sun orchids around them.
Clever, brutal and strategic, just like Drue.
The Naarvian forces worked quickly and efficiently under her orders, looking to her for reassurance. She gave it to them, never faltering, never showing weakness, and Talemir loved her even more for it. She was a beacon of hope, not only for him, but for her people as well.
As though feeling him, she looked up from where she conferred with her father and Wilder. Her gaze locked to his, and she nodded.
They were ready.
Talemir swallowed the lump in his throat. It was time for him to do his part.
He raised a hand to where Gus was waiting by an unlit pyre. The young boy saluted him before touching his torch to the kindling, the fire roaring to life. A moment later, another fire was lit, and another, and another, setting off a chain of signal blazes all down the coast, right to the cliff of the lair.
Then Talemir let darkness reign.
His talons unsheathed, his wings flared and Talemir tipped his head to the blood-red sky and opened himself to the onyx power within. Tendrils of magic poured from his claws, from his chest. He summoned it into being from the depths of his cursed heart and sent it wide, back west, to where the wraiths waited.
In an instant, he felt otherworldly attention tug towards him and he knew it had worked.
They were coming.
‘Ready yourselves, Naarvians,’ he called, his voice echoing across the plains.
Drue and Wilder fell into place at Talemir’s side.
Darkness still shimmered all around him, but he turned to face the forces, the people of Naarva whom Thezmarr had failed before, the people he was determined not to fail again.
‘I know I am not who you would choose to have fighting at your side,’ he called to them, projecting his words to the far reaches of their formation. ‘I know you have lived in the shadows of the wraiths for far too long, that you have fought the darkness valiantly, tirelessly. I cannot promise you songs of victory, but I can vow that we will meet darkness with darkness, that my shadows are your shield and I will wield them upon the enemy with the same wrath you feel in your veins, for I feel it too.’
There was a beat of silence, a beat of hesitation, before steel sang as it was unsheathed from scabbards.
Talemir’s heart seized as Drue unsheathed her own sword and raised it above her head. ‘Today,’ she called, ‘we rise as one against the darkness. Today, we drive those monsters back to the festering hole from which they came. Who’s with me?’
A thunderous cheer echoed across the field of blooms.
The people of Naarva united once and for all as darkness blotted out the sky.
31
Drue
The wraiths came first.
‘Wilder! The archers!’ Drue shouted, not tearing her gaze away from the incoming swarm, her heart racing.
‘Nock!’ Wilder commanded. ‘Draw. Loose!’
A volley of arrows treated with the orchids’ essence shot through the air as the throng of monsters swept in.
Ear-piercing shrieks rang out across the field and leather-skinned creatures fell from the sky, hitting the earth hard, screaming upon contact with the blooms. Arrows shredded their wings, pierced their sinewy flesh, bringing them crashing down —
‘Loose!’ Wilder yelled again.
Drue sprang into action, her flaming blade already swinging. She moved from one fallen wraith to the next, following Talemir’s lead as he carved out their black hearts in quick succession. Wilder delegated command of the archers elsewhere and did the same as the swarm multiplied on the horizon, cold sweeping in around them, along with the putrid scent of burnt hair.
Whips of shadow lashed through their formations, sending their forces scattering, screams of agony piercing the air.
‘Reform the lines!’ Drue roared into the madness. ‘Reform the damn lines!’
