No longer part of herself, her entire soul with her mate on the other side of the reflection, Meira clawed at the rock that encased her feet, as if she could dig herself out of it. “Let me go. I have to go to him.”
“Stop,” Carrick ordered in his gravelly voice.
“Let me out!” She pounded a fist against it, the pain jarring up her arm. Then again, ignoring that pain, and again, only vaguely aware of the gargoyle’s stone hands trying to pull her back, digging into her skin.
“Carrick, please.” Her voice shattered on the shoals of the words. She sucked in a breath as a compromise struck. “I’ll go to Kasia and bring more dragons. Please let me do that, at least.”
He searched her eyes, stone face unforgiving, and despair threatened to drag her into a pit of darkness. Then a grinding sounded, and the rock around her feet peeled back, parting like a curtain drawn back. As soon as the hole grew big enough, Meira sprinted to the mirror, turning the reflection to a room in Ben Nevis where she knew Skylar waited.
She needed both her sisters for this.
“Fuck me.” Skylar spun from her pacing in the war room. On the multiple monitors, one of which Meira had just jumped through, faces reflected back. A dragon from the Black Clan, based on his dark eyes, no doubt in communication about what was happening at Ararat. On the other screen, Kasia and Brand stood in silence, dead serious, worry pinching her sister’s lips.
“I need you to—”
“We know,” Skylar cut her off. “Kasia saw it in a vision.”
“My forces are ready to go,” Brand, an image on the screens, said. “We’ll meet you in our training room.”
No waiting or explaining. Thank the gods for Kasia’s visions.
“Let’s go.” Grabbing Skylar by the hand, she had them both through to the same chamber used for training and to launch dragons out of the hangar in the Gold Clan’s mountain. Only here, the skies were clear, pale blue. And quiet. They stepped through the same glassed-in control room to face a legion of gold dragon shifters, still in their human forms, at attention in orderly lines.
Meira studied Skylar. “You already sent Ladon’s forces. Can you—”
Skylar strode away, face as white as Meira had ever seen. “My mate is being overwhelmed as we speak, and my people are dying. I’ll do what has to be done.”
They met Brand in the center of the room, Kasia’s hand in his. He didn’t bother with small talk. “Do them in batches, Skylar. You’ve used a lot of your energy already. We can’t have my people trapped in that fucking sightless, soundless in-between place.”
The blackness Skylar and Kasia both dealt with when they teleported. Meira knew it existed for her, too, but the portal she opened held it at bay. At least, she assumed that was how it worked. No one else did what she did, so who the hell knew?
“Where do you want me to put them?” Skylar asked.
“The hangar in Ararat,” Brand said. He leaned down and planted a hard kiss on Kasia’s lips, then put his forehead against hers in a silent exchange almost painful to witness.
“I know,” Kasia choked and smiled.
Jaw hard, Brand released her to step into line with his men.
Skylar nodded a half second before blue flames licked over her body, her black hair floating away from her body in the fire. Each group of fighters was instructed to hold hands. None balked. Most had seen or at least heard of what the Amon sisters were capable of by now. With a hard shove, the first group of twenty disappeared.
Then another.
And another.
If anything, rather than flagging, Skylar sped up, and Meira lost track of how many had been sent.
Sweat beaded Skylar’s brow, and her hands visibly trembled, but she pushed through, continuing on. Until she pitched forward, hands on her knees, chest heaving as she sucked oxygen into lungs as though she’d sprinted a marathon.
“Are you okay?” Meira asked.
Skylar shook her head. “I need to send more. Ladon needs…more.”
Meira put a hand on the back of her sister’s head. “You’ve done enough. Let me finish.”
Before anyone could ask more, she fired her own flames and set the reflection in the glass to that of the Ararat room. Through the portal, they could see Brand’s forces. As Samael’s had earlier, they shifted in waves, launching into the air with a roar of challenge.
“Go!” she yelled at the remaining fighters. “Fast. I don’t know how long I can hold this for so many.”
Taking her at her word, the shifters sprinted through. Until, finally, the chamber was empty except for her and her sisters. Kasia supported Skylar with an arm around her waist. Meira, hand still on the mirror, held her other one to her sisters, and together they stepped through into chaos.
Blue, gold, white, green, black, and red dragons—all six clans pitted against each other for the first time in millennia—swarmed the mountain in a mass of color and fire. The scents of sulfur and blood permeated the air. There was no making sense of it.
…
A cry rose up from outside, and both Samael and Brock looked up to find gold dragons materializing in waves, each launching itself from the training chamber into the skies, pounding into the fight with their size and strength.
Brand had come with his men. Thank the gods.
Five of the gold fighters turned and came after the dragon who’d once been their prince. Shooting Samael a snarling glare, Brock, no fool and obviously realizing the odds had just been evened, took to the air, flying away. Samael stumbled as he went to follow, but as quickly as Brock and all the red dragon shifters had appeared in the fight, they disappeared again.
Black fucking magic.
Gold, blue, and black warriors pulled up. The thundering cry of battle cut off in a beat
