I wasn’t so horrified by seeing Ashael slump to the ground.
Only one thing could kill demons: stabbing through their eyes with bone from another demon. With one eye remaining, Ashael would survive, but he couldn’t teleport anymore. He’d barely be able to move. Every part of me screamed with vengeance.
How dare they harm our brother!
I ripped the blood out of the vampires and ghouls, which is what I should’ve done as soon as they’d swarmed, had I not been distracted by Morana’s freeze bombs. Ian slipped in the new pools of it before teleporting over to grab Asahel. They both disappeared, only to reappear inside my net.
Before I could gasp out that I was being crushed by their combined weight, Ian was gone, and Ashael was curled next to me.
“You guard his remaining eye, and you guard her heart,” Ian said. “I’m getting Morana and ending this.”
“You can’t touch her, she’ll freeze you solid!” I snapped. “She’s going subzero on everyone. Look!”
I gestured down the mountain. Marie’s army was now being swept aside by huge sheets of ice that rushed down the mountain like an endless, glittering avalanche. Bones and Mencheres were farther up the mountain, standing side by side, the ice forking around them as their power swelled. Moments later, the ice broke around Marie’s army, too, as the vampires’ combined telekinesis shredded it into something that resembled snow.
Then Remnants began falling from the sky. I was shocked until one glance at Marie explained why. She’d been hit by a freeze bomb, and the Remnants were controlled by Marie’s will and her blood. Right now, both were frozen solid.
“If you touch Morana, she’ll freeze you so hard that you’ll shatter,” I said to Ian as I blasted Marie free. “I’m the only one that can survive her, so find a way to get me free.”
Ian cursed, but began to teleport among the vampires and ghouls, alternatively ripping through their hearts with silver or tearing off their heads. With all their blood on the ground turning into crimson ice from the freezing temperatures, they were no match for Ian. Soon, they were all dead.
Morana must have realized that, because ice began shooting at us like it was coming from a warship firing on all guns. I screamed as countless shards ripped into me, making me deranged with pain.
What are you waiting for? my other half snapped. Fight ice with ice!
I pushed past the pain enough to form a barricade around my net that was so thick, Morana’s ice bullets didn’t get through. After a few moments, I healed enough to see and hear again . . . and let out a scream when I realized that Ian was on the outside of the barricade. Not protected within it.
Liquid darkness shot out of me with the same velocity as the ice bullets that kept chipping deeper dents into my barricade. That darkness flowed past the hole I’d made at the bottom of my barricade without even thinking about it. From there, the darkness spread out in search of Ian.
I didn’t need to see him to know when it found him. As soon as it did, I could feel Ian, and I grabbed at him with hands made of liquid midnight instead of flesh.
I pulled Ian into the barricade, closing it around him and building up the ice thicker against the endless barrage of bullets. Next to me, Ashael groaned, and tried to flip over.
“Is he . . . ?”
“He’ll be fine,” I said, watching as countless holes over Ian’s body began to close and the smashed pieces of his skull knit itself together. He’d been hit so fast that he hadn’t had time to use his cursed fruit power, and for that, I was glad.
Then, I was blind, deaf, and immobilized again as another freeze bomb hit me. I broke out of it, but it took longer this time. All the freezing, unfreezing, and healing was taking its toll, especially on my wits, and all the while, the temperature kept dropping.
Morana wouldn’t need individual freeze bombs soon. This whole place would be a massive, frozen prison.
“We need heat to counter this,” I said to Ian as soon as I unfroze him and Ashael, since Ashael’s injury left him too weak to do it himself. “You have to teleport away and get some.”
Ice shards fell off Ian’s brows from how sharply he drew them together. “Leave you? Are you mad?”
“Not yet,” I said, and made a doorway in the ice dome around