Cara began running behind me, her eyes turning milky white as she saw the future. Andryn turned around, belting out people’s names. I couldn’t think about what to do. Battles weren’t about thinking. They were about knowing, about doing.
The shifters were already arrayed in the front of the village. Four of them. They’d be cut down immediately. They were faster than the assassins, but the assassins had magic and blades that would keep them from healing. They were the foot soldiers of the supernatural world, and there simply weren’t enough of them.
Touching the ground, I smiled at them. They yelped in surprise as stone flowed up from the ground like molten steel. Wrapping around them and coating their bodies in the thinnest layer of granite I could manage. Nearly weightless to them, it would shield them from much of the magic and the blades.
The gnomes showed up next, and I felt for their magic, combining it with my own. The shifters seemed to become pure shadows, hidden even while in plain sight. As they moved, you could see flashes of them, but otherwise, they were as close to invisible as I believed possible.
“That’s great! Now do me! Armor. A sword. I’ll keep you safe, Rose.” I glanced at Enivyn and took a breath.
“Stay behind me, Enivyn. Keep your back against mine and don’t touch anyone except assassins.”
Light swirled from me to the gnomes, wrapping around them, covering their bodies in the same blinding white brilliance that Cara had used on me. They glowed so brightly that many of the assassins had to pull down their hoods as they approached.
“Watch for the elements of water and fire twinning,” Cara said from beside me.
I nodded. A combination I’d never used or seen used. There was no one with control of either of those elements in the village. The only person to control fire that I’d ever seen was Nyx.
I glanced back and saw that Andryn had his golden sword out and was standing in front of the children of the village.
I pulled on the stone in front of us and right before the assassins reached us, I pulled a ten-foot tall wall out of the ground. Using the combination of mist and stone, I created stairs to the top.
“Deal with any that make it around the wall,” I said to the shifters.
I heard yips but couldn’t see them. Leaping into the air, my wings came to life, carrying me to the top of the wall. Two of the assassins were fairies, and they’d begun to fly over the wall.
I put out my hands and glowing tendrils of light flew from either side of me, ignoring the assassin’s bodies and clinging to their wings. They were unprepared for the attack and did their best to not let the tendrils hit their bodies, but they had never fought a Queen who could burn their wings.
Their daggers were in their hands almost immediately, but they were too slow. With a single burst of power, I felt their wings burn. Screams rang in the air, and the tendrils disappeared as the fairy assassins fell to the ground, their shadowed wings red hot and burnt. Their bodies crumbled as they hit the ground. They weren’t dead, but I’d felt every ounce of their power burn up as they tried to heal their wings.
Others were climbing the wall, and I let loose stream after stream of liquid shadows at them. Some hit. Others didn’t. It slowed them down as the shadows stuck like glue to their faces and bodies.
A commotion came from behind me, as several of the assassins had sprinted around the wall. The shifters were tearing them apart. Completely unseen, they’d waited for the assassins to approach the gnomes, their eyes closed against the blazing white shields I’d given them. Then the shifters had lunged, taking them unaware.
Searing pain shot through me as an explosion hit me from behind. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air as I fell to the ground. As I fell, the ground under me turned to ice, and I slid, the edge getting closer and closer.
I tried to scramble to catch myself, but the ice was slicker than anything I’d ever felt. Combining mist and stone, I created a wall in front of myself. I hit it hard, and my vision blurred for a moment.
Without looking, I knew another fireball would be coming. I’d replayed the fight between Nyx and Sebastian over and over again in my head. Raising my hand, shadows expanded outward, and the fireball hit it with an explosion.
Arrows began to rain on the two assassins who had managed to climb the wall. I looked down and saw several of the villagers firing hunting bows at the assassins. Two arrows hit the one that controlled fire in the chest. He pulled them out, but he wasn’t fast enough.
Wings propelling me forward, my daggers appeared from shadows just as Sebastian’s would have, and I flung the first at his chest, but he dodged, twisting out of the way. A blast of water came towards me, but that meant nothing when I had my shadow shield.
I stabbed the flame assassin in the chest and felt his powers drain. He pulled his dagger from his sheath, but with a burst of power, I ripped the dagger upward through his chest and into his skull. He dropped to the ground, blood pouring from his body.
The water assassin stared at his comrade for a moment too long, and an arrow caught him in the chest. He grunted in pain, and as he began to pull it out, I’d already stuck a dagger in his neck.
As he crumpled to the ground, I sighed and looked over the wall. There were another fifty assassins. We’d killed less than a dozen, and I was fighting as quickly and efficiently as I
