Ruined - Amy Tintera Page 0,103

Maybe Olivia could heal him.

Nic gasped. Then his chest stilled, his head rolling to one side. Em swallowed, dropping his shoulders. She looked at Aren and Olivia, standing several paces away. Olivia was breathing heavily, fury dripping from every pore.

Yells sounded from the fortress, and Em stepped out of the trees to see the warriors charging at the Lera soldiers. It was a bad move, considering they’d probably just lost most of the Ruined they’d put into place.

Olivia stormed toward the fort, her arms outstretched. “You think you can hurt me?” she screamed. “Try again, cowards. TRY AGAIN!”

Four Lera soldiers were in the air suddenly, their bones shifting and contorting in ways that made Em’s stomach rise into her throat. They hit the ground, dead.

Killing four people with Ruined magic should have immediately exhausted Olivia, but she didn’t even slow down. She charged forward, yelling at Aren to help her. He ran after her.

Em darted into the battle and drew her sword, her heart thudding in her chest as a warrior raced past her. A few more steps, and she would be in the thick of the fight. Swords clashed and yells sliced through the night, sending the hairs on the back of her neck into full alert. The warriors and the Lera soldiers were hard to tell apart in the night, and all she could see was a huge swell of bodies, tangled together and crashing into one another.

Was Cas in there? Was he fighting alongside the Lera soldiers? Had he known they were going to release Weakling right after Olivia escaped?

No. Of course he hadn’t. He’d been with her the last few days, and then locked up in a cage as soon as he arrived.

A man was in front of her suddenly, and she didn’t have time to worry about Cas. He launched his sword straight at her chest, and she quickly blocked the attack. His face was vaguely familiar from her time at the castle.

“Emelin—” His shout died as she drove her sword through his chest.

She whirled around, finding Iria fending off an attack from two Lera soldiers. Em jumped to her side. She blocked a sword just before it connected with Iria’s arm. The Lera soldier blinked in surprise as Em appeared, and she took advantage of the second of weakness. She slid her sword into his stomach, then used her foot to knock him over.

“Thank you,” Iria said, breathing heavily as she extracted her own sword from the other soldier’s chest.

Em surveyed the scene in front of them. Dead warriors dotted the ground, far outnumbering the Lera soldiers. She desperately searched the crowd for Olivia and Aren, but they were nowhere to be seen.

Panic seized her chest as another soldier came at her. For several minutes everything became a haze of blood, bodies, and swords as she fended off attack after attack and tried to glimpse her sister in the brief moments between.

She pushed a bleeding Lera soldier away from her, kicking his sword out of his hand as he sank to his knees. She took a step back and hit something solid.

She whirled around. Cas.

He lowered his sword, shaking his hair out of his eyes. “Go,” he said, wrapping his fingers around her wrist. “Tell the Ruined to retreat now, or they’re going to die.”

“I think most of them are already dead,” she said, fighting back tears.

His face crumpled, regret filling every feature. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“I know.”

He squeezed her wrist, then let it go. “Please, Em. Get out of here.”

He turned away, jumping over a dead warrior as he ran toward the fortress. Iria stood not far away, watching as he went. She looked from him to Em, as if deciding whether she wanted to follow.

“Retreat!” Em yelled as loud as she could. “Warriors, Ruined, retreat!”

Iria echoed her, and the warriors began running. There were so few of them left that Em could count them as they ran down the hill—seven, twelve, eighteen. No more than thirty were left, as far as she could tell. They must have started with at least a hundred.

She spotted Olivia, Aren leaning heavily on her as they staggered down the hill. Em ran for them, sheathing her sword. She took Aren’s other arm, swinging it around her shoulders.

Olivia was splattered with blood—her clothes, her arms, her face. It was everywhere.

“Are you all right?” Em asked.

Olivia nodded, her eyes flashing. She turned to Aren. “Don’t worry. I’ll teach you how to stay strong when you use your