Page 110 of The Eternal Mirror
He peers down at me from a great height, and I nod. I get it—he told me to stay close. I whisper a spell, and I’m on his back, gripping the scales of his massive neck. He roars—and the sky responds. Then we’re rising.
The enemy breaks, scatters, screams, and runs for cover.
And they burn.
As fire rains down, bringing death from the sky.
Chapter 40
Khaos
The world burns beneath my wings.
Ash coils up from the forest, curling through the night air in glowing orange spirals. The last of Khronus’s army scatters like insects, their screams barely audible beneath the roar of fire, the collapse of trees, and the pounding of my own heart, like war drums in my chest.
Amber is behind me. Safe. I made sure of that.
I’m not sure what’s left of anything else.
The battlefield is a graveyard. Bodies litter the camp like discarded weapons. Some of them are ours. Most of them are not. All around the camp are the charred remains of those who tried to flee—beast and man alike. They came here to crush us—butinstead, I crushed them. Claws, teeth, and fire. No mercy. Not today.
And now there’s one left to kill.
I see him below. Khronus. My father.
He stands at the center of it all, inside his wards, surrounded by burning bodies, cloaked in silver-blue energy that flickers and cracks like lightning. There’s blood on his hands and a smile on his face that I want to tear off with my teeth.
I dive.
He doesn’t run. Of course he doesn’t. He stands there like a god carved from broken glass.
Then he lifts a hand.
A blast of light erupts from his body—wild, fractured magic, radiant and wrong. It hits me mid-dive, hurling me backward through space.
Pain explodes down my side. Amber screams but doesn’t fall. Then the blast fades, and I’m spiraling out of control. I crash hard into the burning treetops. I manage to right myself, skidding through the dirt and ash.
Finally, I stop. I stand, head hanging, wings torn and bleeding. Amber slides from my back.
“Crap,” she mutters. Then she crashes to her knees and throws up, hair hanging down over her face.
I give myself a shake and turn to face where I last saw Khronus. He’s gone. Vanished in the explosion caused by whatever magic he used to bring me down. He’s out of my reach and I throw back my head and roar my rage.
The camp is wrecked. We won. And I’ve never felt more hollow. More like a total loser.
I shift back.
The pain follows me. Human again, but my side feels like someone tried to rip me in two. My skin is scorched. My breath is fire and dust. Usually, shifting will heal the damage from a wound, but damage from magic is tricky.
Amber pushes herself to her feet, wiping her mouth, then steps toward me. She lays her hand on my chest, and some of the pain fades. “I have so little left.” Her voice breaks at the edges, as if she's speaking through broken glass. She doesn’t say Sheela’s name. She doesn’t have to. It’s carved into the hollows of her face.
I can see that she’s drained. Using the celestial fire always exhausts her. Her cheeks are hollow, her eyes shadowed.
“Then save it for others who need it more.”
She nods, then looks around at the carnage. “Where did he go?”
“Vanished. Some sort of spell. He’s getting more powerful.”
