But the shadow magic wasn’t the only thing I took from Einar. I also drew on his strength, pulling his fire into me to bolster my flagging reserves. Heat and light and magic flared between us as the bond opened wide, and I gasped against his neck as pure energy rushed into me. I took as much as I could, then allowed some to filter back into him, mingling a bit of my life force with his.
“Adara,” Einar whispered, and my heart swelled with love at the sound of my mate’s voice. “I’m so sorry.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but before I could, Einar was ripped from my arms. I leaped to my feet as Dune and the other shadow guard attacked, fire racing up my arms as I blasted the closest two. They screamed as they went up in flames, my fire eating through their armor and devouring their flesh.
“Your pathetic fire magic won't save you!” Dune shouted. He struck Einar with a pulse of shadow magic, and I cried out as it slammed into Einar’s chest. But though the blow sent him stumbling back, the magic itself seemed to bounce harmlessly off him, as if it couldn’t find purchase.
Einar’s eyes widened, first with surprise, then delight. “Well, well,” he said, a wicked grin spreading across his face. “It looks like I’m immune to shadow magic now.”
Dune gave him an ugly smile. “That may be so,” he said as the other shadow guards took up position around us. “But you’re severely outnumbered.”
I glanced around at the twenty or so guards, my heart sinking a little. Even with Einar’s magic coursing through me, I wasn’t at full strength, and neither was he now that I’d taken power from him.
“If you surrender,” Dune said in a soft voice, “I’ll spare the rest of the ice fae. No one else has to die tonight.”
I clenched my fists. The sounds of fighting had died away from outside. I didn’t want to think about what that meant, didn’t want to think about the fact that Tamil wasn’t here, didn’t want to consider that after everything, Einar and I could still lose this.
“You’re lying,” Einar snarled. “Even if you show them mercy today, the ice fae will still die by your shadow mistress’s hand eventually. Sparing them now won’t save them from that fate.”
Dune opened his mouth, but an unearthly screech drowned out his words. We all turned toward the mouth of the cave just in time to see Leap shoot through the entrance on the back of his cloud, Mavlyn and the Oracle with him. I gaped at the small army of harpies on his tail, the sound of their wingbeats and battle cries filling the air as they dive bombed the shadow soldiers.
Einar and I exchanged amazed, bewildered glances, then charged into the fray. I fired off a barrage of ice stakes in Dune’s direction, and he dodged, but a well-aimed air blast from Leap sent him stumbling straight back into my path.
“Kill that slimy bastard, Adara!” he shouted as he attacked a pair of shadow guards. The harpies were tearing into them with knives and claws, Mavlyn using her vines to yank them off their feet and slam them into the ground. Even the Oracle was in action, using her wind magic to trip up the soldiers so Einar could slash and stab at them. It was a beautiful, violent choreography, and my battle spirit rose inside me, banishing the last of my fear and exhaustion.
“Adara,” Dune croaked as I advanced on him. Tiny flames sparked to life across the surface of my skin. “Please. We have a history.”
I laughed, my steps quickening as the fire spread, enveloping me in its orange glow. I could see myself reflected in his eyes, the blue-white heart at the center of a towering column of fire.
“We may have a history,” I agreed as I backed him up against one of the temple pillars. “But I’m not the same girl you knew, Dune.”
I pressed my body up against Dune’s, the way I’d once done when we were teenage lovers, when I'd been infatuated. The flames jumped from my skin to his, and I leaned in to whisper in his ear as his flesh began to smoke.
“I’m Adara, princess of Ediria, daughter of dragons and fae. And I’m going to make you pay.”
Dune screamed as my fire bit into him, eating both at his flesh and his shadow magic within. He struggled against me, tried to buck me off, but I held him fast against the pillar, looking into his eyes as I let my magic do its work. I refused to turn away even as his flesh melted, as his blood steamed away, as his bones crumbled away into nothingness.
Only when he was reduced to nothing but the flecks of ash coating my skin and hair, did I finally step back.
The sounds of the fighting rushed back in from around me, and I turned to see Mavlyn use her vines to rip the arm off a shadow guard soldier. The rest of them were either dead or dying, their bodies lying next to the acolytes they’d murdered. A few harpies had joined the numbers of the dead as well, but most of them were still standing, helping my friends make short work of the remaining enemies.
“Adara?” Quye approached me, her eyes wide with concern. I knew what I must look like, my hair a wild mess, my skin and clothes covered in the ashes of my former boyfriend. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I told her even as she laid her hands on my arms. A cool wind whispered up my body, brushing away most of the ash. “But what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in the air temple?”
“Oh, that place is overrated,” Quye said with an offhand wave. “It’s far more exciting out here in Bala Oighr.”
Leap snorted as he came up to us. “What Quye really means is our Uncle Oren wasn’t happy about how easily we breached security to get to Quye last time. He thought cutting her off from the winds and hiding her away in a mountain fortress was the best way to deal with that.”
“Luckily, Leap and I were able to figure out where she was, and we busted her out.” Mavlyn looped an arm through Quye’s, smiling. “And it was a good thing, too. Without her, we wouldn’t have been able to convince the harpy queen to lend us her warriors.”
“I would have come even if Queen Makani had refused her help.” One of the harpies said as she stepped forward, and I started—it was Amelie, the one whose life I’d saved using the golden apple I’d filched from Lady Mossi’s orchard. She smiled, exposing her serrated teeth. “Well met, Adara.”
“Well met,” I agreed, looking around the room. But whatever joy I’d felt sputtered out as my gaze landed on the body of the dead priestess, still lying a few feet away from the door.
“Where is Tamil?” I asked.
A rustle of wings alerted me as Einar—who had flown to the cave entrance to check for any remaining shadow guard—landed. My heart sank straight into the soles of my boots at the sight of Tamil’s limp body in his arms, her furs soaked with blood.