“Go on,” Persh’al shouted, nodding toward Ember as his whip cracked around an orc loyalist’s leg and brought the magical crashing to the ground. “We’re almost done here.”
Cheyenne darted toward her friend and slid to her knees in the grass. “Ember. Hey. You okay?”
Ember blinked her large, luminous violet eyes and shook her head. “Yeah, I’m just…fuck.”
“Uh-huh.” The halfling let out a wry chuckle despite the situation and studied her friend, who was now in full-on fae mode. “You were standing.”
“And now I’m not.” A small, unsure smile spread across Ember’s lips.
The rolling O’gúl tank let out another fiery red burst of magic that hit the ground a foot behind Ember’s wheelchair. The chair went sailing, and Cheyenne threw a shield up behind her friend to keep off most of the dirt chunks and small rocks rocketing toward them.
“I’ll be right back.” The halfling lurched to her feet and ran toward the war machine. The activator identified three more weak spots, and Cheyenne swiped her hands through one after the other. Fragments of black metal and blue chips and panels of thin steel mesh ripped away from the machine and flew across the clearing. A piece that looked like one of the floating spy orbs in Wildhaven burst from the machine’s side, and Cheyenne sent it into the head of a skaxen loyalist about to throw himself on her. The orb cracked against his skull with a hollow metallic ring, the loyalist dropped, and the activator lit up with the final attack directive.
Cheyenne focused on the pulsing blue light emanating from the machine’s torn side and opened fire with her crackling black energy spheres. They penetrated the metal hull one after the other as the machine’s forward-facing windows opened and sprayed the ground with more pellets of red magic. The halfling stepped forward and pushed against the pressure she felt in the earth. Another rippling wave of dirt and buried stone hurtled away from her foot and hit the war machine, toppling it and exposing the undercarriage. The activator went haywire, blaring an alarm in Cheyenne’s vision and zeroing in on the final target beneath the O’gúl tank.
She roared with effort, and instead of sparking black orbs flying from her hands, she sent a column of black energy in an endless stream at the exposed heart of the war machine. The contraption sparked and let out a low whine that grew to a shriek before it exploded mid-air. Blue light and metal shards sprayed in every direction, peppering the clearing and burying themselves in the ground, the trees, and any magical not quick enough to get out of the way.
Cheyenne fell to her knees and summoned a shield in front of her. Persh’al screamed as a shard of metal ripped through his side and sent him spinning to the ground. Somehow, when the halfling tossed a hand toward her friends and L’zar’s loyal followers, she pulled enough shields into place to protect the rest of them from the shrapnel. Metal pinged off walls of dark light as the Crown loyalists cried out, unprotected from the barrage.
Breathing heavily, Cheyenne gave herself a moment to collect her thoughts before looking at the smoking, sputtering remains of the war machine. Nothing but the spinning top remained, its blue lights blinking in random bursts before they died.
Then she got to her feet and faced the others. Her shields dropped, Byrd rushed to Persh’al’s side, and low groans of pain and disorientation rose from the last of the O’gúl loyalists taken down by their own malfunctioning machine.
A bolt of silver raced across the clearing and stopped in front of the dismantled tech. Corian gazed down at the wreckage, then met Cheyenne’s gaze and nodded.
The halfling turned, stumbled, and righted herself before hurrying to Ember’s side again. She knelt in the grass. “Sorry.”
Ember barked a laugh. “For what?”
“That last distraction.” Cheyenne gave her a crooked smile, then glanced up at where the looming portal from Ambar’ogúl had opened beside them. “You got rid of the other big one, didn’t you?”
“I guess.” Ember shrugged and stared at her unmoving legs. “I have no idea what happened. I just did it.”
“That’s a start. Thanks, Em.”
The fae blinked at her friend and let out a disbelieving laugh. “Yeah. Anytime.”
“I’m still a little lost with the whole fae-Ember look. You decide at the last minute to slip that ring on for the magical fight?”
Slowly lifting both hands, Ember turned them toward Cheyenne and shook her head. “No ring.”
“No ring! Whoa.” The halfling gave her friend another once-over. “Was that on purpose?”
“I don’t think so, and I don’t know how to turn it off.”
“Well, maybe the ceremony turned it on. For good.”
Ember swallowed and stared at her glowing pink hands. “Guess we need to find me a different illusion charm, then.”
Cheyenne snorted, then Maleshi’s sharp order cut through the clearing.
“Line them up!”
She turned to see General Hi’et, silver eyes blazing and no less terrifying in the ripped pink cocktail dress, shoving a bound goblin loyalist to his knees. Shit.
“I’ll be right back, Em.”
“Yeah.”
“You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. I just need to sit for a minute.” The fae snorted at the unintended irony, and Cheyenne pushed to her feet again and headed toward Maleshi.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Byrd, Lumil, and Corian had gotten busy rounding up the surviving loyalists bound with flickering ropes of crackling silver magic. Over two dozen magicals with the bull’s head emblem on them somewhere, either pendants or patches, had survived the battle they’d brought to the Nós Aní ceremony. They snarled and struggled against their bonds, but Lumil was ready with her supercharged magic of spinning red symbols around her fists. One blow with those was enough to keep the prisoners quiet. Most of them, though, shot vengeful looks at Gúrdu, who was standing guard over the line of loyalists on their knees.
