Astra and Jericho stood back to back, casting light and fire at every shadow hound that tried to attack them. Haldor had come down, casually approaching them with his black whip loose, eager to bite into them. Viola left me in the doorway and joined her daughter and the fae dragon, producing light of her own to keep the shadow hounds at bay. For a while, it worked, until Haldor lashed his whip at them.
All three ducked, but the whip would certainly strike them eventually.
I felt helpless on the edge of this battle, and the thudding of incoming clone guards rushing up the main extension alley didn’t help, either. Myst was thrown back, landing on her back with a grunt of pain. Still, she refused to yield. My friends were three against Haldor, but the Valkyrie was on her own. With Brandon gone, our edge was gone, too. Worst of all, Isabelle, Chantal, and Voss weren’t here. Only the ashes of their doppelgangers remained. Either Myst had been wrong since the beginning, or Torrhen and his Berserkers had swapped Isabelle and the others out for copies, in anticipation of our arrival.
We were losing precious time and hurtling toward a bloody end. I was no match for the Berserkers, and Myst on her own wouldn’t be able to hold them and the shadow hounds back.
“Where did you take them?” Myst asked Torrhen. Panting, she pulled herself back to her feet, gold and steel armor jingling as she moved. The darkness persisted around us, blocked only by the Daughters and the fae dragon’s light. “Isabelle, Voss, Chantal. Where did you take them?”
“Finally, she figured it out,” Haldor chuckled, tightly gripping his black whip as he circled Astra’s cluster. He was biding his time, patient in his pursuit, knowing that it would only require a second’s worth of distraction to take them down. For now, however, their combined light held him and his shadow hounds back.
“You’ll never find them,” Torrhen said. “We didn’t bring you here to find them.”
He raised his long black daggers and lunged at Myst once more. She dodged him and swerved, lashing out with her sword in one swift motion. The illuminated blade cut through the shadow, making him shriek from what I hoped was pain. It wasn’t enough to bring him down, though. No.
But it did make him angrier.
Haldor muttered something under his breath, and two of the shadow hounds moved away from their position near Astra to focus on the Valkyrie instead. They nipped at her ankles first, fangs hitting metal once, twice… by the third bite, their sharp, jet-black canines had pierced Myst’s protections, sinking deep. She screamed in agony and fell. All Torrhen needed to do now was deliver his final blow, and I had no idea what that would mean for the Valkyrie.
I couldn’t let that happen. Reaching out a hand, I took advantage of how useless the Berserkers thought I was, since not even the shadow hounds felt the need to take me on, too focused on the strongest in our group. The tendrils of my glamor extended and shot right into Torrhen’s head. It made Haldor laugh. “Watch yourself, Torrhen. This one’s a spirit bender.”
“That’s annoyingly familiar,” the all-seeing Berserker muttered, then stilled when our souls made contact. Despite Myst’s earlier warnings, my glamoring was the last resort. My last and only weapon against these bastards. I’d done it with Haldor before, and he had almost killed me. Maybe I was crazy to try it again with Torrhen, but what other choice did I have? We were outnumbered and outgunned, with clones coming in hot. Another minute here, and it would be over for us. The darkness would prevail.
My insides tingled. The more I used this ability, the stronger it made me feel. It was as if a part of me had been itching to do this again. There was something about the Berserker’s spirit that thrilled me. I held on tight and manifested my influence, drawing energy from within to make my will known. “Stop,” I said, my voice dropping low.
To my astonishment, Torrhen gave me a troubled look. The shock quickly turned to anger as he realized that I had managed to get a pretty good grip on him. All eyes were on us now. Astra’s. Viola’s. Jericho’s. Haldor’s. Myst’s. The Valkyrie was livid. “No,” she said quietly. “No, Thayen, you don’t know what he can do…”
It was too late. I felt Torrhen’s power flowing through me. It took me a second to understand that by glamoring this particular Berserker, I’d also granted him access to my soul. This was a two-way street. Suddenly, I was on the receiving end of enough power to fill an atomic bomb.
The burn spread through my body. My muscles stung as if they were being peeled off the bone, one by one. I heard myself cry out in agony, and a sneer worked its way across Torrhen’s face. He’d turned the tide against me so fast. Myst was right; I was woefully unprepared.
“I’m going to kill you slowly,” he said. “Your audacity deserves nothing less.”
He grunted, and a pulse of pure heat exploded inside me. I dropped to my knees, my breath cut short, the pain unbearable. Myst screamed as she struggled to release herself from the shadow hounds’ fangs, Astra too far away to reload her glorious sword. I had a feeling the end was unavoidable now. At least I’d go down fighting.
Light flashed, a tongue of pure white that licked at Torrhen’s face. The connection between us snapped. I was free again. In terrible pain, but free. The light transformed into a figure. A female figure with gold and steel armor much like Myst’s. Long, silky blonde hair. Incandescent blue eyes.
Another Valkyrie.
“Regine?!” Myst
