The moon was full and visible through a haze of dust, filtering down on an incongruously peaceful scene. We couldn’t see over the high bank, but it sounded like the battle was trending away from us. And the water felt like balm on my bruised body. And I still couldn’t quite believe it.
It seemed like a miracle.
Well, sort of a miracle, I thought, as a Svarestri leapt down the bank at us.
And, before I could blink, was torn off his trajectory and slammed into a nearby tree, still burning from the bolt through his heart.
But I didn’t let out the breath I’d been holding, because someone else was there a second later. Someone new. Someone with golden armor incised with designs I didn’t know, and golden hair, and a face more human than the other fey’s, so human it might have fooled me except for an otherworldly beauty so great that even here, even now, it made me stop and stare in wonder.
Sharp green eyes played over the riverbank where Pritkin and I lay, motionless. Pritkin’s hand clenched on my thigh, but I didn’t need it. My hand had been outstretched on the bank in front of me. Had been, but wasn’t now, because now we were in water and back on earth and the illusion Pritkin had crafted was so pure, so perfect, that for a second even I didn’t believe we were there.
I guess the fey must have agreed, because the next time I blinked, he was gone.
And I collapsed against the bank, gasping for breath.
“Sky Lord,” Pritkin whispered, almost inaudible despite being right in front of me.
“No shit!” I whispered back, when I could talk.
And then, slowly, slowly, we crawled to the top of the muddy incline. And peered over the top. And saw . . .
A battle like nothing I’d ever witnessed or dared imagine.
What looked like entire mountains were being ripped out of place and thrown at beings who threw them back, aided by cyclones of power that tore at my hair and threatened to send my body flying, despite the fact that the main battle had to be half a mile away now. Lightning tore at the sky, and then through a column of Svarestri, crackling over armor that, for once, mostly held. Except for one guy at the end, who must have already had his weakened, and who was knocked back twenty feet or more.
But the others kept fighting, and a column of golden warriors suddenly disappeared into a fissure in the earth, which immediately closed over them. But they burst back out of it a moment later, not all of them but most of them, in the middle of miniature cyclones that allowed them to tear through the air and flank the Svarestri. Who were slowly being beaten back, toward the portal hovering in the air where there had once been a hill and was now a blown-out cavern.
The warrior we’d seen a moment before with the fancy armor seemed to be directing the fight, but he kept looking back this way, as if something puzzled him. As if he couldn’t see us but nonetheless knew we were there. Pritkin must have gotten the same idea, because his hand tightened on my shoulder, and we started slowly backing down the slope—
Started but stopped, in my case. Because the next second, a boulder the size of a house bounced across the landscape, having been thrown from the fight. And right in front of it, screaming his head off, was—
“Rosier!”
I yelled it before I thought, relief springing the word to my lips before I could clamp them shut, but it shouldn’t have mattered. Not with the symphony of destruction taking place all around. But despite the fact that the wind tore my voice away, three heads swiveled instantly toward mine. Rosier abruptly changed course, running hell-bent for leather in our direction; the golden fey, who had just turned to look at the combat again, jerked his head back around; and a woman I hadn’t seen, because she was right behind Rosier, lifted her chin and looked straight at me.
And then was right at me, pointing finger and flashing eyes and that damned cherry-covered parasol and all—
And then three things happened at once: the golden fey threw an energy bolt, Cherries threw a time spell, and I threw myself at Pritkin and shifted. But not far. Because we had to find Rosier, and where the hell was—
Shit!
I shifted again as another bolt slammed down where we’d been standing. And then another, and another, like the damned fey could feel us or something. We’d no more materialized somewhere than he swiveled and threw again, deadly accurate and so fast that I was dizzy in seconds, just trying not to die. And then—
And then I wasn’t fast enough.
We slammed into existence on the hillside right next to the mill, because, Rosier or not, I was trying to get farther from beautiful death over there. But whether through chance or some kind of weird fey ability I didn’t know about, a bolt was there almost before we were. I had a chance to see it flash, to feel the heat, to think—no.
And then to think, oh, crap, because the bolt just stopped, frozen in the air, inches away from my eyes. Which would have made me fairly close to ecstatic, except that I hadn’t done it. And the person who had was just behind it.
“I—I can explain—” I told Cherries, whose face was currently almost as red as her favorite fruit.
“Explain?”
Okay, maybe not. And then a time wave tore through the air, which didn’t make much sense, because if she wanted me dead, she’d just had a perfect opportunity. But I shifted anyway, before it could hit, and a second later we rematerialized on the roof. Because I needed a goddamned vantage point.
“Who are you?” Pritkin asked, voice full of wonder. “What are you?”
“Fucked, if you don’t shut up!” I said shrilly.