Page 202 of The Trials of Ophelia
And I had been waiting to let it burn.
Angellight twirled along my limbs in strands of scorching gold as I fell to my knees. Murals blurred across the sky, the darkness fading with each pulse of light I emitted. Like I was swallowing up the threat, eating away at it before it could reach its destination.
And then, I exploded with searing light, and scorched the plane to ashes.
Chapter Seventy-One
Malakai
“Jezebel!” I’d said it so many times, I knew she wouldn’t answer, but I was lost. I’d carried her into the trees what felt like ages ago, and she hadn’t stirred. “Jezebel, please wake up.”
I begged and begged. Didn’t care who heard. The battle still boomed through the valley, screams echoing along the mountains.
Erista was beside me, quiet with Jezebel’s hand wrapped between hers. She hadn’t given up, and with her being a Soulguider, that promised me more than anything.
“Come on, Jezebel,” I pleaded.
Finally, she stirred.
Her eyes blinked open slowly, assessing us. “Malakai…” Then, she was standing, much steadier than I’d expected. “E, we need to go!” Grabbing Erista’s hand, she darted through the trees before I could speak.
“What in the fucking Angels?” I growled, and ran after them. Bare branches jutted across the path. I ducked and wove as they did, following their scampering forms. No one who was just unconscious should be that fast. “Jezebel!”
“I’m sorry, Malakai!” she called back to me. “Go back to the lookout. We aren’t done with this fight yet!”
Go back to the lookout? She’d been out, for Damien’s sake. She needed a healer.
We rounded a bend, emerging into a clearing, and I blurted, “What’s going?—”
But my words died under a rush of wings.
“What in the fucking Spirits is that thing?” I yelled. Jezebel whirled to face me, but backed toward the beast.
Wings. Large, leathery wings and a body three times the size of Ombratta.
Jezebel sighed as if I was the ridiculous one. “Malakai, I do not have time to explain this right now.”
A second one of those creatures emerged from a high cave in the mountainside, assessing us all. It opened its maw and a column of white-blue flame shot toward the sky.
The first one laid its wing against the ground, and Jezebel scrambled onto its back.
“What are you doing?” I gaped.
“Trust me.” And it was in her solid stare that I felt her assurance. She’d been planning for this all along. Ophelia had her contingencies, Lyria had hers, and Jezebel…well, Jezzie clearly had secrets no one knew about. Plans to save our asses in this battle.
“Let’s go,” Erista said. I hadn’t noticed her mounting the second beast, but she sat comfortably astride it now.
With a confused nod from me, Jezebel kicked her feet and the beast rose into the air.
I raced back to the lookout in time to see them clearing the far end of the battlefield. They soared through the night, clear over the armies, faster than any creature I’d ever seen, and disappeared.
Forcing myself into action, I rejoined the fight with Mila and Lyria.
I didn’t know how much time had passed when light exploded in the sky. Dazzling strikes beating through the rolling darkness.
Again and again, they burst on the horizon, forking toward the ground in a shower of golden lightning.
Though the bolts didn’t hit them, the Engrossian-Mindshaper army screamed. Torturous, blood-curdling echoes against the rocky mountain facades, like life was being torn from their bodies.
