Page 25 of Raven's Dawn

What could I do? How could I help her? The moment I stepped away from my guys, I’d lose the connection that allowed me to see. I couldn’t run that way and put a blade through their hearts.

Was there a spell that’d work from here? If there were no allies on this field, yes. I could take all three of those guys down in a heartbeat. But not without hurting everybody else I cared about. There were a million different spells for that. Fire, acid, spells that would break every bone in their body or melt their eyes from their sockets.

But there was no way to attack them all at once and get her out of that cluster.

A hand gripped my shoulder.

I jumped.

I spun around.

Luci. Like everyone else’s, his eyes were closed. “Dusk spell.”

“Amara,” I said, shaking my head. “She’s?—”

“We’ll worry with that in a minute.”

“She doesn’t have a minute?—”

“If she goes down, we’ll bring her back. We need to level out the playing field first.”

That made sense. It made my stomach turn, but it made sense.

I nodded.

He took my hand. In my mind, he spoke the words of the spell. I thought it over a few times in my head. Then he swapped out the words that were needed to reverse it. Essentially flipping the positives and negatives and vice versa.

“On three,” he said.

Doing my best to remember it all, I nodded. Then I followed his lead. As he spoke the first word, I did the same. Line by line, we repeated it on a loop. Spells gained strength with each repetition. They had to be chanted like a song. The more power you had behind it, the faster it would work.

That’s why he came to me. That’s why Luci didn’t try to do it on his own. Because even with my help, we both knew the same thing. Whoever these people were, they knew what they were doing. There were at least a dozen of them, so one person’s magic would be enough to reverse it. The only reason the two of us combined were close to enough was because he was who he was, and because my power was amplified by my guys.

Our chant growing louder, we closed our hands tighter around one another’s. Squeezing with all of our might, practically screaming the words, we pressed on as the bright light dimmed. My eyes were still shut, so I couldn’t see it precisely, but even through my eyelids, I could sense it growing darker.

It’s working, I said to his mind.

So long as we don’t stop, he said. Just don’t?—

Glass shattered at my heels, right beside where my leg met Ezra’s shoulder.

Everything spun. Like I had fallen onto the fastest merry-go-round. Sick, stomach spinning, my legs gave out beneath me.

“No!” Luci cried.

Darkness.

10

WARREN

The light burned out.

And they were gone.

Ezra wasn’t at my side anymore. Rain wasn’t behind me. It was just me, Graham, and Fedga, a soldier who I’d briefly met yesterday.

He was almost healed. I’d brought his soul back to his body. Graham had done a good job, and although there may have still been some discomfort, the skin had mended. He wasn’t bleeding out anymore.