The young Druids came back to the western shore with us and they brought us up to speed with what they’d been doing since they arrived on Marton. The flying horses they’d brought with them didn’t stay for long. They flew back as they couldn’t stand the high noon temperatures of the desert. It turned out that the creatures were dependent on a milder climate and were quite independent, despite the young Druids’ efforts to keep them around.

They met with Jasmine once every full moon, until she stopped coming. When Draven told them she’d been seen hiding on Antara, Malachy and Ori were the first to express their anger and contempt. Had she at least warned them, they would’ve kept the others from checking the western shore and getting killed or taken by Destroyers.

Once we reached the ship, we relieved the two succubi that had been left behind to stand guard. Draven and I gave them our horses so they could reach the rest of the Green Tribe safely.

The stallions galloped down the black stone passage that Draven had pulled out of the ocean to connect the ship to the shore. Once we watched the two succubi vanish behind the palm trees lining the beach, we got on the ship.

The Druids and I followed Draven’s precise instructions in lifting the anchor and setting the sails, after which he muttered under his breath and a flash of white light left his body. The waters around us soon moaned as the shipped was pushed out onto the ocean, stunning the Druids.

“Whoa,” Ori gaped at Draven as he held on to one of the pillars. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

Draven smirked and pulled the Druid scrolls we’d brought from Stonewall out, and tossed them over to them. They anxiously unraveled them, studying the spells with broad smiles.

“It’ll take us a few good hours to reach Stonewall,” he said. “So, you might as well start reading up.”

Draven used the ocean in our favor again, using his newly acquired skills to send the ship cutting across the waters and covering hundreds of miles in one tenth of the time it would’ve normally taken for a vessel of this size to travel from Marton to Antara.

* * *

The ship slowed down as we approached Stonewall, the grey citadel rising proudly on the rocky shore, its derelict harbor waiting quietly below. Draven steered and docked the vessel beautifully, with a little help from the foamy waters. I couldn’t help but watch with fascination as he manipulated the waves to get us safely back on dry land.

As soon as we climbed off the ship and rushed up the stone steps leading to the eastern terrace, I got a whiff of burnt wood and flesh. My stomach instantly churned, and I looked over my shoulder to find Draven frowning.

“You can smell it too?” I muttered.

He nodded and we picked up the pace, followed by the young Druids.

We reached the terrace above and I could see threads of black smoke rising from the other side of the citadel. I couldn’t push the anxiousness back so I stopped and used my True Sight to look through the stone walls and identify the source of the smoke and its unpleasantly familiar smell.

I saw Jax, Field, Hansa, Anjani and the others on top of the front steps leading into Stonewall, with hundreds of incubi and succubi bodies burning at their feet. Dread came over me in waves of hot and cold as I ran into the citadel and rushed through the maze of corridors leading to the front side.

“Serena, what did you see?” Draven called out from behind.

“Something’s horribly wrong,” I replied, breathless as we crossed the courtyard.

I caught glimpses of Eva and Bajang cubs watching from the open windows, their faces shadowed by frowns. I didn’t like any of the feelings I was getting from the atmosphere.

We reached the steps and I stopped next to Anjani and Hansa, looking down at the massacred bodies blazing in the afternoon sun. Worms crawled from the piles, squealing and flailing. Some succumbed to the flames, while others made it out and vanished below the tall meadow grass.

“Oh, no,” I gasped, realizing what I was looking at.

“Sluaghs,” Draven breathed out next to me.

I looked at Anjani and Hansa first, and noticed the charcoal smudges and the deep cuts on their arms and legs. Hansa was holding her right shoulder, where a deeper wound pushed out silver blood.

Jax paced around furiously, while Field was slumped on one side against the wall as Rebel nursed his bleeding side with wet cloths. Several Bajangs were left from her garrison – I counted about a dozen. They’d just finished burning all the bodies and they all carried deep wounds on their arms and legs. Jax’s wards helped them up as well.

I didn’t see Phoenix or Aida anywhere, and the thought alone made my heart constrict in my chest. There were four shifters left, licking their wounds in front of the fire below, occasionally snapping their fangs around an escaping Sluagh and tearing it to shreds before spitting it out.

Jovi came running back from the meadow, sword and shield in his hand. He was livid.

“What happened?” I managed to ask as soon as he reached us.

He ignored me completely, dropping his gear and ramming his fist into the wall with a thunderous growl. He punched the stone over and over again, cracking its surface.

“They found us,” Field mumbled, his voice barely a whisper. He was too weak to move and, judging by his pale complexion, he’d lost a considerable amount of blood.

“They took them,” Anjani’s voice trembled as she looked away, unable to face me.

“What… What do you mean?” I whispered, breaking into a cold sweat. Somehow, I already knew what they were going to tell me. “Where are Phoenix and Aida?”

“They took them!” Jovi shouted and threw another punch into the wall, leaving blood smears behind.

“Azazel must’ve tracked the Oracles here before you put them under the concealment spell,” Hansa said, a vein jumping in her temple as she looked down at the burning bodies. “They sent Sluaghs through the front, waiting beneath the stairs for some of the Bajangs to go out hunting. They attacked in large numbers, forcing the rest of us to come out and fight. It was a ruse, meant to throw us off and had Destroyers swoop in and snatch Phoenix and Aida…”

“I tried to mind-bend them, so did my wards, but they moved fast. They knew what they were dealing with,” Jax muttered, fists balled at his sides.

“I’m sorry, we tried… We tried to get them back,” Anjani said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “We tried…”

She fell to her knees and shuddered, no longer able to hold it in.

I lost my footing altogether and nearly fell backwards, but Draven caught me and held me up. I couldn’t feel my legs anymore. I should have screamed. I should have cried. But I couldn’t.

A catatonic state swallowed me whole and put me in a deep state of shock. My blood chilled as I struggled to stay conscious.

My brother had been taken. Aida had been taken.

Azazel had captured all three Oracles now.

Grief didn’t even begin to describe what I was feeling. It was something much worse, cutting deeper than anything else. I felt torn on the inside, a throbbing pain stabbing through my temples as Draven put me down.

I simply couldn’t stand anymore.

“This can’t be,” I mumbled, mostly to myself. “I… No, this… This can’t be…”

Azazel had done it.

“Bijarki,” I gasped and pulled my satchel forward.

Draven dropped to his knees to look at me. He could feel everything I was going through and I was too numb to feel him. He watched me carefully and quietly as I took out the last of the telepathy spell ingredients and quickly drew the symbol I needed to reach out to the incubus.

“Bijarki,” I called out, but there was no answer. “Bijarki! Bijarki! Answer me, man! Bijarki!”

Rage took over so quickly, I didn’t even see it coming, I only felt my cheeks and throat heat up with every second that passed and I didn’t get a response from Bijarki. I couldn’t reach him anymore.

I looked up at Draven. Tears rushed up and rolled down my cheeks as I stared into his grey eyes, flickering black.

“I can’t reach him… Phoenix is gone… Aida is gone… I don’t know anything about Vita and Bijarki…”

“Serena,” he said cautiously.

“I… My brother… My friends…”

I looked at Jovi. He leaned his back against the wall he’d been punching, swallowing back tears that kept coming up and eventually streamed down his face as he shuddered. Anjani went up to him, her hands inches away from his arms, not sure whether she should touch him or not.

Field was drowsy but I could see the pain flickering in his eyes, while Rebel cleaned his wound and patched it up with a needle and thread. One of the Bajang cubs brought over another pitcher of water and several satchels with healing herbs.

If I’d taken Vita’s abduction hard, this time around it was much, much worse. My body caved in and went into a continual shudder.

Draven’s hands grasped my shoulders, squeezing firmly, enough to draw my focus to his face.

Jax stopped and crouched by my side.

“Azazel found a way to come in and take what he wanted,” he muttered. “We obviously don’t know what happened to Vita and Bijarki yet either. But I’ll tell you one thing I know, Serena. We’re not backing down. We’re getting them back, one way or another. We have to keep fighting.”

I listened, sobbing, while Hansa came closer.

“Our allies are out there getting ready,” she said. “We can’t slow down or pull back; we’ve come too far.”

“He has the Oracles,” Draven hissed over his shoulder. He was frustrated and in pain. On top of that, he could feel the horror rumbling through me in that precise moment.

“But we have a plan,” Jax interjected, standing. “And dammit, we can’t stop now! My people are out there, waiting for a signal. The Dearghs are ready to sacrifice their own to turn the volcanoes down and cut off some of Azazel’s power supply. We still need to get the little Daughter out of there. We have to keep going. Yes, he has the Oracles, but we all know he won’t get anything out of them over the next few days! Let’s be realistic here… At least we know where they are. We know where to find them. And we’re going there anyway.”

Several moments passed as it all sank in. We looked at one another, our minds attempting to process everything that had happened over the past few hours. In the fuzz of my lethargic state, even I knew Jax was right.

“He has a point,” Field rasped from the side.

I stilled, looking at the Hawk with wide eyes, thankful he was still conscious.

The Bajangs started bringing out more cloths, water, and healing herbs to treat all those wounded in our group, as well as their own garrison. The cubs came into the courtyard, watching quietly.

“We need to keep moving,” Field continued. “We can’t stop now. We need to get them back, but we can’t do it on our own.”

“We’ll bring the war to his doorstep.” Jovi took a deep breath, willing himself under control as he wiped his tears and came to my side. He then frowned at the mutated shifters. “There are only four of them…”

We all glanced at the creatures below, busy licking their wounds and growling at the flames. Two of them were missing.

“Maybe they died in the attack?” I asked, my voice barely audible.

“Nah.” He shook his head. “They were chomping Sluaghs’ heads left and right, and we would’ve found their corpses before we burned them all. They’re not here.”

“You said they’re wired to protect you,” Jax mused. “Chances are they went after Aida and Phoenix…”

We all nodded slowly, still adjusting to the new situation. The young Druids had quickly gotten themselves busy, tending to the wounded Bajangs. Hansa watched them for a while before she turned to me and gave me a reassuring smile.

“At least you brought the Druids back with you,” she said.

“We need to rehash the plan.” Draven sighed and stood up, looking around.

“Yeah, we do,” Jovi replied. “We don’t know what happened to Vita and Bijarki. Which means it’ll be plan B on the Daughter’s extraction. I’ll take two of the shifters with me for this.”

“I’ll do my part with the signal.” Field coughed and winced from the pain.

It hit me then that we had the alliance connection—the spell that had bound us together, to be precise. I closed my eyes and decided to try it, to reach out to Aida or Phoenix.

“Telluris Aida!” I called out. “Telluris Phoenix! Can you hear me?”

I was met with silence. Jovi’s shoulders sagged as he swallowed back a new round of tears.

“I tried that already. I can’t reach them.” He exhaled sharply.

“They’re probably knocked out,” Jax replied. “You know they wouldn’t have gone down without a fight.”

Once again, the Lord of Maras had a point. For a moment, I felt grateful to have earned his allegiance. He’d only been with us for a few days, yet he’d proven himself to be invaluable, and a solid voice of reason.

We were extremely fortunate to have some experienced warriors like Hansa and Jax in our group. They had the composure, the patience, and the years of battle required to look at every situation with a clinical eye, while we were still struggling to see clearly through our emotions.

“So what now?” asked Malachy from the side of a collapsed Bajang he’d been treating with cold water and clean bandages.

“Aida told me about the last visions she had,” Jovi said. “Kyana’s with Jasmine and the White Tribe succubi. They know we’re launching the campaign against Azazel. They’ll send troops in to help us, even though we’ve obviously never spoken to them. Chances are we’ll see Jasmine on the battlefield.”

Ori scoffed as he moved on to another wounded Bajang, whose shoulder cuts needed stitching.

“Don’t rely on her much,” he muttered. “She was great at leaving us stranded without so much as a goodbye…”

“Nevertheless, it’s nice to have the extra bodies fighting with us,” Draven replied, then crouched in front of me, cupping my cheek and sending me all his emotions and bright energy. He could feel my misery, and he focused on channeling everything he could give me in order to lift me up.

Much to my surprise, it was working. My body buzzed as he pulled me back to my feet, and I took several breaths to recover my composure. Anger still boiled beneath it, but I grew determined to put it to good use this time.

“We also know where he’s keeping the little Daughter, thanks to Aida and Vita,” Jovi added. “So I know exactly where to go.”

I straightened my back, my resolve finally kicking in, hitting me like a cold shower.

“That’s it, I’m done,” I said firmly. “I am done letting this asshole get away, and I am done letting him take the people I love away from me. I am itching for a fight, and I hope you’re all with me.”

Jovi put his hand on my shoulder, his fingers digging into my skin. His eyes flickered with the same anger broiling inside me.

“You’re damn right we are,” he replied, his voice low.

“We’re taking this fight to him, now.” Draven took my hand in his and held it firmly. “He’ll pay for everything he’s done. It’s time we take Eritopia back.”

I looked at Jax, Hansa, Anjani, Rebel, and Field. The wards. The Bajangs. The shifters below, their eyes glowing violet, eager to rip into the Destroyers who threatened our lives and our freedom.

They all burned with the same fire. They all wanted a piece of Azazel.

Which was good, because I was going to slice him up and serve him to everyone who had a bone to pick with his evil, perverted, maniacal ass.

* * *

Dear Shaddict,

Thank you for reading A Shield of Glass!

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