Hooded figures with contorted masks marched through the hole in the wall, carrying staffs and wands. They fired magic into the crowd of servants, and a line of people went down.
Before I could gather my bearings, illusion spells were flying everywhere. Portals opened near the castle gates, and cultists stepped through. A shifter that had come through one of the portals morphed into a dragon and began ramming himself against the palace doors in an attempt to break through.
“The palace is under attack!” Ethan shouted. “We have to stop them!”
Ethan changed into a wolven. He ran toward the nearest cultist with his fangs bared. As he jumped, the cultist morphed into a wolven himself, and the two wolves snarled at each other as they drew blood.
Stefan roared as he shifted into a dragon. He charged at the dragon trying to ram down the gate and grabbed onto him with his claws, pushing him back. The opposing dragon gave a vicious cry and swiped his tail at Stefan’s face. Stefan avoided the blow and ducked down, before he retaliated by breathing fire. Plumes of flame raced by overhead, warming the area until sweat ran down my brow. The ground shook as the two dragons warred, causing what was left of the broken tower to crash to the earth.
Theo and Alexei followed his lead. Theo became an alicorn and ran with his horn down at the cultists, trying to charge them off. A few tripped, and Theo trampled them under his hooves, letting out a triumphant whinny. Alexei flew through the air as a griffin, grabbing heavy pieces of stone from the rubble and dropping them from overhead. The large bricks hit the cultists that were too slow to dodge out of the way.
I didn’t have my sword, and I couldn’t fight hand-to-hand combat like this— not when I was so badly injured. The cut on my side still stung so horribly I couldn’t move but stiffly. My magic was my only defense.
“Girls, we have to work together!” I cried.
Kiara, Odette, and Delmare came to my side, and we formed a circle, facing outward. Delmare called battle magic to her hands. She threw bomb after bomb of red illusion magic at the cultists, which exploded on impact and sent bodies flying. Kiara’s mouth moved in a whisper as she focused her empathy magic on the nearest cultists. They grabbed at their heads and sank to their knees as they cried out, as if experiencing crippling emotional pain that made it too difficult to move.
Odette waved her arms, and her eyes sparked as a glowing pink shield settled over our bodies like a halo. The shields engulfed us and outlined our forms, protecting us from any harm. For as much as she goofed off in her Faction Abilities class, Odette must’ve been paying attention to Theo, because her alicorn shield magic wrapped around each of us and didn’t break. Several cultists sent spells our way, but they simply bounced off the shields and ricocheted in all directions.
I busied myself with shutting down those portals so no more cultists could get through. I focused my magic on them and ordered them to close, warring with the power of whoever had made the portal on the other side. Some of them closed easily, but others were more difficult, made by Arcanea whose magic was equal to my own. I had to put all my concentration on stopping them, until my knees began to quiver and I felt like I was going to faint.
I don’t know if I can do this, I thought. I felt so weak. There was hardly anything left in me after my fight with Ethan. I didn’t know how much more my body had to give.
Take heart, young champion, I heard Milonna whisper. Magic cannot be performed if you lose faith.
I put forth a final burst of effort and several portals shut down all at once, leaving only one left. As I was closing the last portal, an arm slipped through. There was a horrible cry of pain. The portal snapped closed, slicing off the arm of whatever cultist had tried to arrive.
My stomach churned as I looked at the dismembered limb on the ground, which was bleeding at the stump. I wondered what cultist had lost it, and where.
We’d bought enough time for the guards to reconfigure. The palace’s armed forces stormed out from the exits of the castle, their swords held aloft. Shifters began cutting down the main line