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“Wait,” he snapped.
“For what?” she snapped back. “They can’t take them. You know what they’ll?—”
“Haste is useless. Wayland can take two, maybe three of them, but the youngest are defenseless and his mother is shackled. They’ll kill them all or use the younger two for bait if we move too quickly. I’m thinking.”
He was right—again.
Emiel’s father boarded next. He was weeping with his arm outstretched toward his wife, who couldn’t return the gesture without scorching her wrists. She paced toward the carriage last, about to step inside when two guards cut her off. They shoved her back before hopping inside with the others, and slamming the door shut.
A moment later, the driver whipped the horses and left.
As it disappeared down their driveway, Thessa asked, “Why would they leave her? Why are we still waiting?”
“Start conjuring your magic and listen for my whistle. Do the same thing you did at my house, and I’ll take care of the rest.” Without another word he dipped out of the bushes.
The four remaining soldiers stretched their arms, aiming for Emiel’s mother. Just as Soren approached, fire rushed from their fingertips, incinerating her in one blink.
Thessa gasped. They were too late, again. Steadying her breath, she reigned in her focus.
The soldiers whirled around to find Soren standing with predatory stillness … until serpents poured from his fingertips.
Flames were cast, killing them on impact. “Where have you been hiding? Soldiers, it looks as though our prisoner—or should I saydemon—has come to his senses and turned himself in.”
Soren snarled.
He’d lost everything and yet there he was, tossing more serpents at the soldiers. As one was incinerated, another leapt. One even found its target’s neck, spinning around and squeezing. The soldier turned purple and crashed to his knees.
Retaliating swiftly, a shallow line of fire appeared between the Elementals and Soren—a barrier his magic could not cross.
Soren hissed.
Why had he not whistled yet? She could extinguish that fire.
Between leaves and flickering flames, Thessa winced when the soldier who’d been choking for air caught the blade tossed at him. He slashed the serpent, again and again, until his body was entombed with them.
The three remaining soldiers watched in horror. One shot a look across the flames and questioned Soren, “What are you?”
Soren growled, “Your worst nightmare,” as he let his magic erupt. Tendrils of liquid night shifted to serpents around his feet like a rippling mound of death.
His magic was not like any other magic, and she was fascinated.
“Now,” the soldier called, and flames streaked across the sky. Fireballs crashed into his pit of serpents.“Again.”
More fire.
Soren’s whistle rang through the air.
Thessa bolted from the mulberry bush and treaded through his bed of beasts. Stepping beside him, her magic stood as tall as he, encasing them both.
“Looks as though our prisoner has brought along a demon companion. The general will be awarding our unit that bonus after all,” he sneered at his fellow soldiers. “Well, first, she’ll be disappointed, had she known the prisoner was a demon from the start we could’ve had more fun with it in the dungeon.” He paused, eyeing the pile of ash that was once Emiel’s mother, and then back to Soren before continuing, “So tell me,demons, where’s your friend, Emiel? Does he wield flames like his father or shadows like his mother?”
Thessa looked to Soren for silent confirmation. Indeed, Emiel’s mother was not an Elemental.
Laughter echoed behind the barrier of fire. Elementals no longer feared shadow-wielders, not with their numbers being so vast, and the power to overcome them. But Soren was something else entirely, something to fear.
Shewas something to fear.
“Fine, have it your way,” the talkative soldier called out before more fireballs shot across the sky.