“You do realize your wolf friend is not alive,” Gaspar said.
“I know. That doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want something to happen to him.”
“It,” Gaspar said. “It is an it.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
Gaspar shook his head in annoyance before heading toward the tree line.
The creatures rumbled as they headed through the shadows, and there was something angry about the sound that echoed through the forest around them.
“She will be nearby,” Eva said.
Gavin started forward, and as he did, the ground started to tremble. It was different from what they’d felt before, this one shaking everything around him. A stone creature hurtled toward him—a wolf racing at him.
Gavin watched it with a frown, and Eva shoved him to the side, the suddenness of it knocking him to the ground. He scrambled to his feet, and the smoke streamed off of her and swirled away. The smoke headed toward the stone wolf and stopped it from lunging at Gavin. The wolf continued to try to get to him and claw at him.
“What happened?” he asked.
“They have turned it,” Eva said.
The ground thundered, and he looked up in time to see the giant stomping across the clearing toward them. Gavin had no idea what to do—other than destroy the very creatures they had sent in to protect them.
“Gavin?” Gaspar asked through the enchantment.
“I don’t know how to stop them,” Gavin said.
He had his core reserves, and he could go at them with the El’aras sword, but he wasn’t sure if it was going to be enough.
He started sorting through the various enchantments he had, and as he fumbled through them, he couldn’t find anything there that would be useful. Maybe he could turn another one of these creatures back against the shadows, but he ran the risk of Cyran just turning them again.
Gavin flipped through his pockets and found something he’d forgotten about.
The paper dragon.
He had no idea whether it would do anything, but he pushed out a trickle of energy from his core reserves and poured it into the paper dragon. It began to stretch longer and spread enormous wings, looking like a massive folded paper dragon, all angular but distinctly a dragon. Then it roared.
The sounds echoed through the forest, painful and overwhelming. The paper dragon swooped forward, grabbed the stone wolf, and flew outward.
Gavin blinked. “Well, I guess that answers what Alana’s magic can do.” He looked over to Eva. “Come on.”
They started forward, and through the enchantment, he heard Gaspar. “There are others out here. Imogen and I will—”
Gavin didn’t get a chance to hear what he and Imogen were going to do.
“Wrenlow,” Gavin said, “help Gaspar.”
“I’m on it,” Wrenlow replied.
Darkened figures slipped all around them, filling the clearing. They were going to be too much for Gaspar and Wrenlow. Too much for Imogen. Too much for even Gavin.
How had Cyran managed to bring so many people to the city without anyone knowing?
Gavin turned, preparing to join the fight, when a flurry of movement caught his attention. He turned and smiled. Enchanters. Constables. Dozens of them. They must have followed the enchantment Zella had given him. They sped forward, attacking.
All around him came the clang of metal as constables battled with the Vuthyl. Gavin could scarcely see them, but that didn’t matter. The constables and the enchanters could. With their enchantments for speed, strength, impervious skin, and enhanced eyesight, they would be uniquely capable of stopping them.
Gavin and Eva continued on, and they made their way into the center of the clearing. It occurred to Gavin that this was the same place he’d come before, where Cyran had brought them when he tried to force them into giving up Anna—the Risen Shard.
Why here?
Maybe it was a place of power.
The clearing around him was no longer quite as dark. Somebody lunged at him, and he drove his fist forward. He turned, and an attacker came at Eva, and Gavin started toward her to help. She somehow forced smoke into the man’s mouth, and he coughed and gagged, then crumpled to the ground, trembling.
Gavin blinked. “Remind me not to go against you.”
The darkness pressed upon them, a swirling sort of energy, and it tried to squeeze toward them. The power within Gavin was almost enough for him to see through it, but there was something different—some aspect of the shadows he couldn’t quite penetrate. The smoke drifting away from Eva cleared that darkness and made it so that he could see.
A darkened figure lay in the center of the clearing. Power began to swirl around Gavin, and he tried to focus on that magic. He recognized it. He’d felt that before.
Jayna’s Toral power.
But if he was right, then she was the one lying motionless ahead of them.
Eva moved forward.
Gavin grabbed her by the wrist, shaking his head. “No.”
“You know who that is,” she said.
“I do, but we need to wait.”
This was all Cyran, all part of his plan. Gavin had no idea what it was, only that he needed more time to figure out just what Cyran was going to do.
“And here I thought you wouldn’t make it,” a voice said.
A strange-looking figure stood next to one of the trees. When he emerged from the shadows of the forest, Gavin recognized him. The rat-faced man. But the voice coming out of him was Cyran’s.
“All of this for a Toral ring?” Gavin asked, shaking his head. “Is this because you want the power, or is to impress Tristan? Either way, I find it odd that you would go to all these lengths to find power you aren’t even supposed to have.”
The sounds of fighting rang out nearby. Someone shouted. Another cried out in pain. Each time he heard those sounds, a part of Gavin raged.
He would protect them.
That was why he had stayed in the city.
“No one is supposed to have this power,” Cyran said. “Only those who claim it can use it. And I finally figured out how to claim one. Just
