sizzling air against my palm, solid but not.
I swung it down. It cut through the sorcerer’s arm. I didn’t notice the blood or gore as I grabbed the sword artifact off his severed forearm. Looping the bloody steel ring around my wrist, I ran for the beast, blade clutched in my hand. My gait was lopsided, my ankle wobbling, but I didn’t stop.
The īnkav lifted its nose away from the motionless demon. Its massive head started to turn, a bulbous eye swinging toward me. I was too slow, too weak. It would bite me in half before I could swing the sword.
Zylas, a dark shape on the ground, moved. His hand lifted. Dim red light sparked on his fingers, and he flung a blazing orb of power into the soft underside of the creature’s jaw.
The īnkav jerked back, its nose swinging toward the demon, that bulbous eye sticking off the side of its huge head.
Blade angled, I took aim. With the momentum of my sprint, with every iota of strength I possessed, I drove the glowing blue blade not into its huge yellow eye but into the pit just behind it.
I didn’t know if it was an ear hole or an organ for detecting heat signatures, but I knew it was a weakness. A tiny gap in the beast’s armor-like skin. And the arcane blade—the only true weapon in the sorcerers’ terrifying arsenal, designed to cut through a demon’s metal armor—plunged into the creature’s skull.
My hand followed, shoving into the hole. Shoving into soft tissue. Shoving that blade as deep as I could get it.
The īnkav flung its head up, lifting me off my feet. My arm came free with a squelching sound, and I fell, landing hard on my butt.
Staggering, the beast swung its head back and forth. Its lower jaw sagged open. Black blood poured from the gory wound, then spilled from around its yellow eye.
It stilled, legs braced, sides heaving. Then it collapsed, belly hitting the platform with a dull thud. Its head smacked the concrete, pale tongue lolling from its slack jaws. Firelight from the single surviving torch flickered over its glistening hide.
Breathing hard, I tried to stand. My ankle buckled and I choked on a scream. Tears streaming down my face, I crawled toward Zylas, following the sound of his hoarse, panting breaths. My hands slid through dark, warm blood. Blood everywhere.
Eyes black as pitch stared at me, hazy with pain. Shadowed with fading life.
“No,” I whispered, kneeling beside him. I pressed my hands to his cheeks. “Zylas, heal yourself. Quickly!”
His breath rasped in and out. A small voice in the back of my head reminded me that his dark eyes meant he was too weak. There was no time to replenish his strength with heat. He would die before he recovered enough strength and power to perform the complicated healing magic.
Assuming he could even heal wounds this terrible.
My whole body shook. I’d been prepared to lose him to his home world. I would’ve watched him walk away from me, knowing he was going back to the life my uncle had stolen from him. Maybe it was a dark, violent, lonely life, but it was his. His choice.
But I couldn’t lose him like this. I couldn’t.
“Zylas,” I choked.
His lips moved, making no sound, but I heard his whisper in my mind.
Vayanin … Robin.
My mouth trembled. My heart broke. This couldn’t happen. I needed to save him. Somehow, I had to. I straightened, gaze slashing across the platform in a desperate search of help.
Cold fingers curled around my wrist. Stay with me.
“I’m here,” I whispered. “I’ll stay with you. I’ll never leave you alone.”
His dark eyes lost focus. His hand slid from my wrist, falling to the blood-coated concrete.
“Robin!”
Amalia’s frantic shout cut through the anguish strangling me. My head jerked up.
Footsteps slapped against the ground. Amalia appeared from the darkness, sprinting toward me. And behind her was—
“Out of the way!”
I scrambled backward as Ezra slid to a stop and dropped to his knees beside Zylas’s crushed shoulder and mangled chest. Dressed in combat gear, scuffed and scraped, he bent over the dying demon.
Crimson lit his left eye—then sparked across the right. Both eyes blazing with potent power, the mage spread one hand over Zylas’s chest and put the other on his crushed shoulder. Circles and runes sprang into shapes under his glowing fingers.
Amalia knelt beside me. Her clothes were drenched, her hair plastered to her face. We didn’t speak as Ezra—or rather, Eterran—worked. Healing spells rushed