Page 95 of Queen of Legends and Lies
“No shit!” His hands are already wreathed in icy magic.
We unleash a barrage of ice and fire as we streak toward the battle, attempting to draw the drachen’s attention so that they turn their backs on the palace and the people gathered in the courtyard below.
It works.
Several dozen wheel around on us.
Stygian maws gape with hunger.
I risk a glance downward. Agnar’s perched on the tiled roof, his coppery wings flared wide for balance. He rips the stone balustrades loose with his magic and flings them like missiles at the drachen.
They smash into the fiends with bone-crushing force, sending them plummeting to the ground.
Stunned. Disoriented. But not for long.
On a balcony below him, Rhiann swings her arms in sharp, slashing gestures, tearing chunks of masonry from the palace walls. A little girl—too young to have magic or wings—hides in Rhiann’s skirts with her arms over her head. Rhiann wears a mask of determination. Silver-streaked hair whips around her face, her body moving to shield the child at her feet.
Rubble hurtles through the air to bludgeon the few drachen close to the land, pinning them down with growing piles of stone. Others are caught in globes of water, edged over in ice to keep them encased no matter what shape the creatures take.
Everyone remembered what I told them about how to use magic to fight the drachen.
A stray thought pierces through my battle focus.
Why aren’t there more of these monsters on the ground?
Agnar and Rhiann seem to be holding them at bay with relative ease. But up here?
I barrel roll just in time to avoid a grasping set of jagged claws. No time to puzzle it out. No time for fear or doubt.
We have to end this. Fast. I can only pray we’re not too late.
Sterling snaps my attention back to the aerial battlefield. “Lark, look!” I track his pointed finger to the ground below.
In the middle of the courtyard, Alannah stands at the center of a tight knot of people. All air wielders. Nobles, guards, and servants alike. Their arms are raised, faces taut with concentration.
A shimmering dome of wind swirls high above them, forming a barrier that stretches from wall to wall. A protective canopy between the wings of the palace and the walls that prevented most of the drachen from landing.
A huge undertaking.
I’ve never seen something that large before, not created from wind.
Their postures are strained, and they tremble as they pour all their strength into maintaining the shield.
Then I notice the shadows. Shade covers the majority of the open courtyard as far as my enhanced vision can see. The thick swarm of drachen—roiling, merging, and separating again—blots out the sun.
My heart sinks as I realize the terrible choice the air users below face.
To reposition the barrier or fight the drachen already within the city, they’ll have to drop the protection for a few crucial seconds.
Then the waiting horde will attack.
Unless we wipe out the airborne drachen first.
All of them.
I scan the chaotic tangle of wings and claws and magic. Dragons grapple with drachen, their scales flashing in the sunlight as they twist and snap at their foes.
Streams of dragonfire destroy everything they touch.
