Hunting Fiends for the Ill-Equipped (The Guild Codex Demonized #3) - Annette Marie Page 0,92

it, Zylas.

He raced forward, just faster than the giant lizard—but the platform was too small. His runway was rapidly vanishing, and the ocean was no escape. If the īnkav decided to brave the cold, it was an even more efficient hunter in the water.

Zylas didn’t have time to draw on his magic—it would take too many precious seconds to conjure a spell powerful enough to harm the massive creature—but I didn’t have to worry about sprinting and evading. I concentrated. Heat burned through me as I drew on his power. My skin was burning. My innards were burning. My human body wasn’t built for his power—but if Ezra could survive it as a demon mage, I could survive it too.

Zylas swerved. Robin!

I switched the rune I was about to manifest. A levitation cantrip appeared in our path, but the īnkav was on Zylas’s heels, cutting off his turn.

He leaped onto the glowing cantrip.

“Surrige!” I shouted.

The spell shot us into the sky, the īnkav’s jaws snapping as we soared out of its reach. I could see the whole platform, could see the creature’s true scale. I could see the small figure staggering along the floating pathway toward the shore—Amalia, fleeing the helipad.

As we reached the apex of our leap, Zylas and I extended our hands, glowing with identical magic. Rune circles spiraled up his arms, pulsing with power.

Crimson glowed over my fingers, and on the platform, a huge cantrip took form—bigger than anything Zylas or I had ever created. It spanned the center of the helipad from top to bottom, the īnkav in its middle.

Power blazed through Zylas.

Evashvā vīsh!

“Igniaris!”

Curved blades in the shape of a cross formed in front of Zylas’s palm, then blasted downward. Beneath the īnkav, the fire cantrip erupted. A roaring inferno exploded into the sky, the swamp beast vanishing in the hungry flames. Its enraged screech rent the air.

We plummeted—falling straight toward the fire. Heat buffeted us, then frigid cold washed over me as Zylas drew on the heat to replenish his magic. We dropped.

Gaping jaws surged out of the crackling fire.

Zylas twisted in midair, the spiked teeth just missing his legs as he kicked off its snout, propelling us away. The creature twisted after us.

“Impello!” I cried, flinging my hand back, but I was too hasty, panic fogging my head, and the crimson rune wavered.

The īnkav burst through my attempted cantrip, its slimy skin scorched but not even blistered. A cross-shaped slice marred its back, but the wound had barely broken its tough hide.

The failing portal had done more damage to the creature than either Zylas or I could do.

Zylas slammed down and pushed into a sprint, but we’d landed too close to the platform’s edge. He had to veer, and the īnkav cut us off.

The demon leaped. Snapping jaws. Slashing forelegs with huge talons. The world spun. I didn’t know what was happening, couldn’t create a rune, didn’t know where to cast it—

Zylas’s claws bit into my leg, tearing into my skin. He wrenched me off his back and flung me away.

I clamped my arms over my head an instant before I crashed into the concrete feet first. A snap in my ankle. Screaming, I tumbled to a halt, brain locked with agony. Darkness crowded my vision, unconsciousness threatening.

Then I heard Zylas cry out.

I wrenched my head up, terrified of what I would see.

The īnkav had caught Zylas in its jaws, and the only thing saving him from death was his shoulder armor, the plates caught between its teeth, preventing its powerful jaws from closing all the way.

Zylas twisted desperately, trying to pull free of its jaw. Muscles flexed in the creature’s huge head.

Terror hazed my mind. Daimon, hes—

His armor shattered.

He screamed. Zylas, who’d been ripped open, torn apart, and broken by his enemies, all with hardly a sound, was screaming as those jaws crushed his shoulder and those teeth buried deep into his body.

I was screaming too. I couldn’t summon him back into the infernus now—couldn’t risk that it would kill him. Forgetting the pain in my ankle, I shoved up, my hands slipping in water.

No, blood.

Braden’s body had somehow escaped the inferno of my giant cantrip. I grabbed his limp, cold arm as, ten yards away, the īnkav dropped Zylas. He hit the ground, unmoving, silent.

Zylas!

Nothing.

I gripped the dead sorcerer’s artifacts. “Ori decem!”

A ring flashed. Power surged in my hand and I raised it in time for my fingers to close around the hilt of a shimmering blue blade. The handle felt like