CHAPTER

13

Kael’s wings didn’t hum. They roared. Wind blasted across his body, a futile protest against his speed as he flew for the nearest group of Weshern Seraphim. No time for patience. He’d seen that look in his sister’s eye. At any moment she might decide she didn’t need reinforcements.

“Chernor!” he screamed as he flung his legs forward and cut power to his wings. The giant Seraph cocked his head as he slowed his own wings and ordered the rest with him to halt.

“What is it, kid?” he asked, gesturing to the rest of the Seraphs racing to engage in the next major battle over the ground troops and war machines. “We’ll fall behind and miss out on all the good stuff.”

Kael flung his arm back to the north.

“The holy mansion’s under attack!”

Chernor frowned as he looked to the distance. Four others in Chernor’s group, including Saul and Clara, pulled back from the chase to join their flight leader in hovering.

“The sky is clear from what I see,” Chernor said.

“Not the sky,” Kael insisted. “On the ground. An army of specters is almost to the mansion. We need to hold them off.”

That got his attention.

“Is your sister following them?” he asked.

“She is.”

“Then let’s join her and rain hell down from the goddamn sky.”

Chernor took lead, Kael falling to the back of their V-shape formation to fly beside Clara. She reached out to take his hand and squeeze it once, but that was it before they both focused back to the battle at hand. They crossed the short mile, rejoining Bree. His sister beckoned them on, impatiently waiting for their arrival.

“Keep high!” Chernor screamed to them as Bree fell back to the other tail end of the V-formation. “Speed and height are our advantages.”

The paved road wound below, flanked by rows of homes on the way to the holy mansion. The specters raced ahead of them, at least forty in number. Chernor angled higher, his hand signaling to hold their elements until his order. Kael clenched and unclenched his gauntleted fist, eager yet nervous for the attack. They would not be helpless like most ground troops, reliant on meager arrows to cross the distance. The specters wielded their own gauntlets and prisms; this battle would be far from even, and Kael had a feeling they were not on the favored side.

Chernor gave the order to attack. Chunks of ice and stone dropped in a steady barrage, punctuated by Chernor’s lightning bolts. It was more than enough to crush the men and women below, but the specters had their own defenses. Two jagged cliffs of stone merged from the concerted effort of multiple specters, rising up from the ground to ram together as a shield. Another wall of ice quickly followed underneath, absorbing the blast of lightning and dispersing it harmlessly. Chernor’s squad’s barrage rained down on the stone, cracking pieces off but unable to pierce through. That which did manage to make it through the cracks in the stone shield had to break the ice next, and often the attack would halt completely.

Distance kept Kael’s group safe from the specters’ stone and fire, but it meant little to the bolts of lightning ripping through their numbers. The Seraph nearest Chernor cried out as a trio of lightning bolts tore through his neck and chest. His convulsions tilted him downward on a collision course with the rows of homes. More bolts passed frighteningly close, filling Kael’s vision with painful flashes and dots. All pretense of continuing the barrage vanished as Chernor twisted and lifted their formation higher and away from danger. Kael followed, his body tense and his eyes wide as the air around him crackled with yellow and white energy. Only Bree refused to flee, instead diving lower with her wings ablaze with light. Kael fought the instinct to follow. She’d be too far away by the time he turned about. He’d have to trust her.

Bree’s dive was steep and erratic, her right arm reaching out as if she were attempting to touch the ground. Preparing for a furious blast of fire, no doubt. Kael doubted any defense the specters summoned would withstand her fury, but they gave him no chance to find out. Lightning lashed the air, a sudden storm unleashed upon the clear blue skies. Bree’s speed, coupled with the dive, gave her tremendous maneuverability, but it mattered not when more than a dozen specters greeted her with lightning and flame. Kael’s breath caught in his throat as his sister ducked and weaved, all thought of attack abandoned. She was a fly weaving through a spider’s web. The slightest error would be fatal.

“Quick!” Chernor shouted as he pulled them up and around to a stop. “Buy the Phoenix time!”

Their leader braced his arm and let loose a tremendous beam of lightning, balls of flame and ice trailing soon after. The specters summoned another set of walls, and the barrage of attacks ceased as Bree fled. She changed directions to fly several hundred feet higher, then joined the waiting group.

“There’s too many,” Bree said. “And they’re too accurate.”

“We can’t just let them go untouched,” Chernor said. “That’s our Archon they’re after. Risking our lives for him is part of the job.”

“But we don’t need to risk it yet,” Kael said. “We can outrace them to the mansion. One of us can fly the royal family out of danger while the others prepare the defenses.”

“You can fly my father and mother out,” Clara corrected. “But I’m not going anywhere. If Center wants to send her specters to my home, I’m going to be there to give them a proper greeting.”

“Then let’s not waste time we don’t have,” Chernor said.

They flew to the holy mansion, giving the sprinting group of specters a wide berth. Kael glanced over his shoulder, trying to catch sight of the larger engagement of armies. They were but distant colors and dots. Center’s troops were spread out across dozens of miles, and the minor islands likely attacked from multiple locations. The battles he could see were certainly not the only ones. It might take days to fully realize the cost in lives on all sides.

Chernor’s squad crossed over the outer fence to land directly upon the steps of the holy mansion. Soldiers standing before the heavy doors hurried to open them. Kael let his shield sink into the dirt, its heavy weight returning as he shut off the light elements attached to it.

“You four stay out here on watch,” Chernor ordered. “Me and Brett will get the Archon and his wife ready for flight somewhere safe. I’d say we have about ten minutes before the specters get here, so don’t get too comfortable.”

Chernor and Brett didn’t even wait for a salute in response before rushing into the mansion. Kael rubbed at his eyes, and then, with a moment of panic, looked through the thick glass in his left gauntlet. His light prism was pale, much of it cracked and gray. Less than a fifth, by Kael’s estimate. When he checked the additional prisms powering his shield, he found them similarly dull. On the plus side, at least half his ice remained.

“This shield and these wings are doing a number on my light prisms,” Kael said.

“Mine’s not in too great a shape, either,” Bree said, popping open the compartment for her light prism. She slid it out and then offered it to Kael. He stared at it for a moment, confused as to her request, until the obvious connection clicked. His blood. He’d used it to repower their prism when they flew far beyond Weshern’s shores to the edges of the dome. With the battle far from over, it made no sense letting their momentary rest go to waste.

“Oh, right,” Kael said as he removed his gauntlet. “It’s been a long day.”

“I’d expect it to keep getting longer,” Saul said.

Kael offered a hand to Bree, trusting her more than himself. She put her prism into his palm, then used the tip of her sword to open a small cut along the bottom of his wrist. He lowered his hand, letting the blood run to his palm and into contact with the first of several light prisms.

“Mine as well, please,” Clara said, retrieving her own. Kael felt the energy flowing out of him and into the prism, banishing the gray and sealing over the cracks. His blood dried and peeled from the prism’s touch, which turned flawlessly white. He handed it back to Bree, then held up a hand to Clara.

“Give me a moment,” he said. “Doing that feels a bit like a crazy sprint.”

She kissed his cheek and did just that. Kael put a bit more of his weight on his shield, staring to the dirt as he waited for his momentary vertigo to pass. A sprint, yes, but not just a sprint. It felt as if something he didn’t understand was siphoning out of him.

“All right,” he said. “Hand me another.”

Kael watched the far distant battle as he filled the fourth. The sun was on its downward descent, the red sky highlighting the silver and gold of their wings. Keeping his mind distracted helped with the sudden exhaustion associated with refilling another prism. They were much too far to have any idea what was going on, the wings like little flittering stars, but he did see that four such golden wings had pulled away from the rest. They hovered in place for a long minute, their light steadily growing brighter.

“They’re on their way here,” Kael said, realizing what was going on. He wanted to run but the dizziness kept him still, so he clutched his shield and pushed his worried sister away.

“Find Chernor,” he said. “Isaac and Avila need to leave this instant!”

Bree vanished through the doors. Kael tossed Saul his recharged light element and then began wrapping a cut piece of his pants around his palm as a bandage.

“It’s only four,” Saul said. “We can take them. There’s no need to panic.”

Kael flicked power back onto his shield, allowing him to easily lift it from the dirt.

“We’ll see,” he said. “But I’ve a feeling they know what they’re doing.”

By the time Chernor and Brett arrived with the royal couple, the specters were closing in on them, as well as the four knights approaching in the sky.

“I see we have company,” Chernor said, squinting at the knights. “Four’s not too bad. If we’re careful we can take them.”

“We don’t have time to be careful,” Bree said. “The specters will be with them. If we fly now, they’ll catch us carrying the royal family. If we engage them in the air, the specters will attack the mansion uncontested. If we focus on bringing down the specters, the knights will bring the whole mansion down.”

“There’s no good options left,” Kael agreed. “We’ll have to lure the specters and the knights inside the mansion and defend it while Isaac and Avila flee.”

“Flee where?” Saul asked.

“The tunnels,” Clara said. She hugged both her parents, and accepted their kisses in turn. “Please stay safe, you two.”

“Make us proud,” Isaac said, saluting them all. “And improper or not for me to ask, please, keep my daughter safe.”

“We’ll do what we can,” Kael said, forcing a smile.

The two hurried back inside, soldiers slamming the doors shut behind them. The secret door to the nearby escape home wasn’t too far from the entrance, but it would take them a long while to crawl the tunnel. If the specters flooded the mansion too quickly they might discover the tunnel and pen in the royal family before they could escape. Kael could only hope that, live or die, their group provided enough time.

“Well, I’m glad you two are done doing all the planning,” Chernor said, lightly punching Kael on the shoulder. “That’ll leave me the easy stuff, like taking out several knights and a few dozen specters.”

“We need to take positions inside the mansion,” Brett said. Of the five, he looked the most displeased with the change in plans. “Near windows, I’d say. We must whittle at their numbers if we’re to have any chance of survival.”

“We’re vastly outmatched,” Chernor said, his eyes never leaving the army of specters. “Forget defending doors and windows. It’ll just be a losing battle. I say we let them in uncontested.”

“You’d not fight back?” Kael asked, baffled.

“I never said that,” Chernor snapped. “The far battle looks like it’s going our way, so those specters and knights are on a strict time limit before reinforcements arrive. If we fight, they’ll collapse the whole building down on top of us and hope for the best. But if we sucker them into coming inside, we might have a shot in close quarters.”

“If they come inside to search, they may not have enough time to retreat safely back to Center,” Clara said.

“They’re not planning on leaving this island,” Chernor said. “They’re here to kill our Archon and Archoness. Between safe holes, tunnels, and our own elements, there’s too much chance the royal family survives an outside barrage. They won’t risk that failure, not if they have the chance to get up close and personal.”

“Are you willing to bet your life on it?” Kael asked.

The big man grinned.

“Well. Yeah. I wouldn’t be in charge if I wasn’t.”

It made sense, though the idea of letting Center’s specters walk right into the holy mansion was most unpleasant. If only the specters had been without aerial support. No matter how fast they ran they’d never have kept up with a pair of Seraphim wings.

“Then let’s do it,” Kael said. He dropped to one knee, pressed his gauntlet to the stone walkway, and then yanked it back. A wall of ice rose from the ground, hiding their movements from the approaching forces of Center. They were not yet through the front doors when the first specter attack plinked against the ice.

“We won’t win anything close to a fair fight,” Chernor said as they gathered in a circle beside the doors. “Our jobs are to hit and run while retreating farther into the house. Brett and I will take the east wing, Bree and Kael, the west. Saul, Clara, you two will stay deep with the soldiers.”

“No,” Clara said. “Kael stays with me.”

Chernor didn’t bother arguing.

“Fuck it. Fine. Saul, Bree, you two take the east instead. Everyone meet in the middle of the mansion, and if not there, then meet in the heavens so we can stand together before God and tell him he did a piss-poor job protecting us fools down below.”

They all scattered. Kael reinforced the front door with ice, then followed Clara down the hall, his wings softly humming to keep his body near weightless. A window shattered somewhere near, then another. A stone boulder smashed in the front door, twisting ice and metal into ruin. Clara grabbed his arm and pulled him through a door. Once he was inside, she pushed him out of the way so she could close and lock it.

The two were inside an oval room meant for entertaining guests. Gaming tables covered with little playing pieces sat between the many chairs, and on the northern wall several dozen books rested on a shelf. Clara stepped behind one chair and aimed her gauntlet at the door.

“Wait for noise,” she whispered. “We need the surprise.”

Kael braced his shield beside her while arming his own gauntlet. Whatever retaliation the specters offered, he would be there to protect her.

They listened for the passing of the specters, holding their breath to hear better. Detecting them would be no small feat. The specters moved silent as their namesake, the mansion eerily quiet but for the odd, distant wail or cry. Kael flexed and unflexed his gauntlet, nerves fraying. The search was too organized, too methodical. Where was the needed overextension?

Wait, Clara signaled when Kael started for the door. He frowned to show his impatience, but she shook her head and remained behind the chair.

They come to us, was her response.

Before he could signal back, he heard the tiniest of clicks from the door. Instinct poured power into his shield as he braced his legs. The door exploded inward with a burst of flame and smoke, a scorching fireball ripping through the debris to slam against Kael’s raised shield. It detonated impotently, the heat and flame dissipating into the shield’s glowing aura.

Clara retaliated immediately. Three jagged spikes of ice shot from her gauntlet through the doorway, two finding their mark. A specter dropped dead, chest and abdomen completely punctured. Two more stood beside him, gauntlets sparking with electricity and frost. The first charged in, using his lightning to blind and disorient. Kael fell back, his shield up to protect him and Clara from any attacks. Shield still up, he pushed his flat palm to the floor and focused his mind on the desired shape. Ice crawled across the carpet for several feet before bursting upward inside the doorway, separating the two specters from each other.

With no room to run, the specter released his lightning in a powerful attack. Kael trusted his shield, his eyes closed as the strain pulled against both mind and element. Clara dropped to her knees and formed a second ice wall, trapping the specter between the two. With a savage cry she stood and flung both arms forward, sending her ice wall crashing backward to smash against the other. The two walls crumbled together, gore and mangled metal all that remained of the first specter.

Both walls now crumbled, the second specter had a clear shot and tried to blind Kael and Clara with a wide spray of frost, the cold sticking to the tables and furniture and clouding the air with white. Kael shrugged off the cold while squinting against the sudden flurry. Their foe dashed aside, rolling below a spike of ice from Clara’s gauntlet before coming up with a blast of his own. Even through the frost, Kael could see that the specter’s aim was slightly off and he would strike the side of Kael’s shield, so he stayed put. Ice piled against a bookshelf to their left, sealing it over. Clara retaliated with smaller orbs of ice from her own gauntlet. The specter dropped to one knee and curled a half sphere of ice about himself for protection. The sound of steel rang through the room as the specter drew a sword in his left hand.

“Your Seraphim training betrays you,” the specter said. “You lack understanding. You lack imagination.”

The specter clenched his fist. The ice across the bookshelf exploded in a spray of razors, bypassing the protection of Kael’s shield. He dropped to the side, crying out in pain as the thin shards struck. They were sharp but frail; their Seraphim jackets and uniforms provided adequate protection. Their exposed faces and necks were a different matter. Thin, stinging cuts opened across the both of them, the damage superficial but the distraction the attack caused deadly. Both their guards down, the specter lunged with his sword. The tip passed by Kael’s shield and would have pierced his heart if not for Clara’s quick reaction.

Clara shot a beam of ice directly into the back of the chair she stood behind, flinging it forward to slam into Kael’s back. The force rammed him into the specter, closing the distance and plunging the thrust harmlessly into the air behind him. The two tumbled together, one over the other. Kael reacted without thinking, shutting off the light elements to his shield the second he was atop the specter. The shield’s tremendous weight returned at once, to gruesome results. The specter screamed, the bones in his right arm and shoulder pinned beneath and snapping like twigs. Kael grabbed for the specter’s throat, closed his fingers about it, and let loose his ice. It spread from his palm, encasing the specter’s head and neck in a frozen coffin.

“Holy shit,” Kael said, rolling onto his back. Blood trickled down his face and neck. “I feel like I’ve been clawed by a dozen cats.”

“The scars will give you character,” Clara said, offering him a hand.

He took it and stood, sparing only a glance at the specter he’d crushed. The macabre image was more than enough to force his eyes away.

“Where to now?” he asked.

“We follow the sounds of battle.”

Such sounds had grown numerous since the start of their fight. The specters must have reached the first line of defense set up by the house guards. Kael sealed off the broken doorway to protect their flank and then exited the other side. The carpet in the hall was slightly charred. Farther ahead he saw two bodies lying facedown, their corpses blackened to the bone. They lacked any armor or weaponry. Servants, then, or perhaps one of many nobles trapped inside when the battle began.

“No time,” Kael said, powering up his wings. “Fly with me.”

The hallway was tight but he could manage to fly if he kept his wings steady. His silver wings hummed, and Kael burst down the short hall. When it split into a T, Kael barely slowed. He twisted the upper half of his body while crouching his legs. He slid in the air to the left side of the hall, and the moment before he hit the T he kicked out against the wall, shoving him into the right hallway.

A lone specter stood guarding a doorway, her back to Kael. The woman spun upon hearing his wings, and fire swelled in her palm for a brief moment before she dove to the ground. Kael shot overhead and twisted his body around, enduring the awful pain in his back and sides to reverse his direction. He floated a half second, momentum equalizing, and then he shot back to the specter. She rolled onto her back, gauntlet up to release her flame. He gave her no target, just his shield. Judging the distance, Kael cut off power to both his wings and shield. Immediately he felt the heavy pull against his limbs. Like a stone he dropped, the lower edge of his shield leading. The specter pushed off with her hands and legs, trying to dodge, but she misjudged his path.

He landed directly from above, the immense weight of his shield slamming the hard ground with its bottom edge, decapitating the specter where she lay.

Kael rose to his feet, his shield at guard, the light upon it reigniting. Two specters rushed out from the bedroom upon hearing the noise to avenge their fallen comrade. They unleashed a swirling mix of lightning and stone, a powerful barrage that would have crushed any other Seraph. Light flared about his shield, surging with power. Kael gasped at the strain, feeling it tearing at his mind and sucking the air from his lungs. The lightning fizzled, the stone cracking to dust the moment it made contact with the brilliant blue sword emblazoned across the center of the metal.

Clearly the two specters hadn’t expected him to endure the attack, either, and they hesitated for a moment to work through what they’d witnessed. It was in that moment of hesitance that Clara turned the corner, gauntlet up and ready. Two long spears, one for each specter, pierced their backs. One died instantly, his rib cage ruptured. The other rolled across the ground, the spear glancing off his silver wingless harness. He came out of the roll before Kael could ready his own ice, the furious specter flinging his open palm up to fire. Nothing emerged from the dead focal point but a soft burst of sparks from the damaged unit. Kael ended him with a lance of ice to the skull.

“This is awful,” Clara muttered. Kael turned to find her standing before the open door the two specters had exited. Her arms were crossed over her chest as if she were cold.

“Don’t let it in,” Kael said, coming to her side. He didn’t need to look into the room to see the innocent dead within. He didn’t need to confirm the pain and sorrow he knew she felt. “We can break later, but not now, all right? Not now.”

“I know,” she said, turning away. “But knowing changes nothing.”

The end of the hall was a grand dancing room, not quite the extravagant ballroom where they’d hosted the solstice celebration but large enough to fit the six house soldiers who were standing side by side in the center. Their shields were linked together, that wall of steel the only protection against the elements of the two specters darting before them, the bodies of four dead guards at their feet. The specters alternated hits, one thrusting the moment another retreated away from a spear. Their gauntlets flashed with elements, either fire or lightning to bathe the shields. The guards screamed every time, but they fought through the pain to hold their ground.

“I’ll take left; you take right,” Kael told Clara behind him, the hall not wide enough for the two to stand side to side. “Fire on three.”

Any missed shot risked harming one of the guards, but the longer the battle lasted the more their lives were at risk anyway. Together they raised their right hands, Clara steadying hers with her left hand, Kael positioning his shield below his arm as a brace. The two specters still had their backs to them, too focused on their vicious dance to realize they were flanked. Kael led the countdown, not tracking a specific specter since they too often switched locations but instead keeping it focused on the left half of the doorway.

“One, two, three.”

Kael unleashed three thin lances of ice, not trusting his aim but trusting the shields of the guard to withstand should any of Kael’s attacks miss. Two did, and as he’d hoped, their long, sharp tips broke against the steel. The third lance struck the specter through the shoulder and pierced out the front. The hit knocked him closer to the guards, and off balance; he was easy prey for their spears. The other specter fared even worse. Clara’s lone shot cracked against the back of his skull and knocked him out instantly.

Kael felt no elation at the hits, too drained for anything other than relief. A flick of his thumb shut off the element to his shield, and he leaned against it to take in a quick breath.

“How fare the others?” Clara asked the soldiers as she joined them in the room.

“We do not know, Miss Willer,” their leader said after bowing low. “We are the last of us in this wing.”

“Start patrolling the east then,” Clara ordered. “Push the invaders from our home.”

“As you wish,” the leader said. “For Weshern!”

“For freedom!” the others shouted in unison.

Kael rubbed at his eyes and pulled his shield up from the ground as Clara returned.

“Are you going to make it?” she asked.

“It’s not like I have a choice,” he said, grinning to hide how tired he was. “What next?”

“Next we find Saul and Bree,” she said. “And we make sure not a single damn specter escapes death.”

“You’re scary when you’re bloodthirsty—you know that, right?”

“And you’re surprisingly handsome while cut up and bleeding.”

“I do what I can.”

Despite their flippant words Clara took his hand in hers and squeezed it tightly.

“Thanks for being here when I need you,” she said softly.

“Nowhere else I’d rather be,” he said, squeezing back. “So let’s find some unwanted guests and show them how scary we both can be.”