Page 145 of Ashes of Aether

“I don’t know,” I grind out. “Stop talking.”

He clamps his mouth shut. I might have felt bad, if not for the white-hot panic pounding through me. My thoughts are jumbled.

I clutch my temple. It throbs manically beneath my fingers. The stone walls spin around me. I think I might fall. But I can’t. If I do, Eliya will die.

I must find her.

I break into a sprint. My footsteps thunder against the cobblestones.

“Reyna, wait!” Koby calls after me.

But I don’t wait. I hardly hear his words. My blood drums too loudly in my ears.

He hurries after me. His strides are almost as frantic as mine.

I don’t know where I’m running to. All I know is that I must save Eliya.

Undead charge at me from all angles. I don’t stop. I carve a burning path through their ranks.

“Reyna!”

Koby’s shout is drowned by my flames and my gasps. With each corner I turn, I pray I will see Eliya’s crimson hair. That it will not be too late.

But it isn’t Eliya I first find.

On my next turn, I glimpse a mousy brown braid fluttering in the wind.

“Kaely!” I shout. We might be sworn enemies, but right now we are allies. The fact we are living makes us so.

Except it’s not Kaely that turns to me. It’s somethingelse.

Shadows swarm inside the wight’s empty sockets. Loose bandages dangle from its arms. Scorched skin peeks out between the scraps of white cloth.

The freckles across her cheeks might be hers, but this is not her.

Koby comes to a stop beside me. He grips my shoulder. I feel him tremble.

“Reyna—” Koby begins.

I shake him off. I draw on the surrounding aether.

“Rivus,”the wight snarls. Its voice almost sounds like Kaely’s, but deeper. And the syllables reverberate in its vocal chords.

I thrust out the crystalline staff, both my hands clasping it with strained force. “Muriz!”An aether barrier forms around Koby and me. It absorbs the dark magic and has power left to spare. I let it erupt. “Quatir!”

A wave of violet light crashes into Kaely. She staggers back.

But I have no chance to launch a subsequent attack. Three ghouls spring at us.

“Ignir’alas!”I call. Flaming wings crash into them. Fire devours their rotted skin and their yellowed bones.

I turn back to Kaely. Her shadowy orbs flicker between Koby and me.

“Telum!”Koby cries. A blast of aether races toward her.

“Ekrad,” she says, drawing the shadows around herself. Koby’s attack bounces off her shield. “Gavrik.”

A storm of shadows races forth. It splits into hundreds of ravens, all with razor-like beaks.