An hour later, we were locked in the fortress, with both the front gate and the emergency hatch at the back sealed with Druid magic. We didn’t have the ingredients needed for a cloaking spell, after we’d used them all up during our stay in Kerentrith and at the farm. According to Jax and Hansa, it didn’t make much sense to use it, anyway. Everyone knew the fortress was at the top, and the enemy still had the swamp witch. Surely, they would’ve produced a spell breaker for it. It wouldn’t have bought us much time, if any.

The Imen took their guard positions on the fortress walls, evenly distributed to cover all four sides. Arrah, Dion, and Alles stood at the front. Arrah and Patrik had rigged the surrounding swath of hard ground surrounding the fortress with more explosives.

“We found all the weak spots in the limestone,” Patrik said as we gathered around a fire we’d set in the middle of the square. “I applied some of the explosives knowledge we gathered from the Lords’ mansions back in Azure Heights and set up some detonators. Some of them might not see the strings extended across every patch of climbable ground. We’ll be instantly alerted if any of them pass the threshold. I reckon the daemons will fall for it, the pit wolves are much more observant on the ground. I reckon the Adlets will be too when they make their way up here to help us…”

We raised four pillars on one side of the campfire, where we nightwalkers could sit without keeping our heads and faces covered, as Caia had connected a large piece of fabric to the pillars as a makeshift awning.

Scarlett lit up one of the Adlets’ flares and tossed it into the air. It burned a bright red and hovered high above the fortress. It could be seen by anyone, but, most importantly, it could be seen by our new allies, the Adlets of Lagerith Plains.

Avril took out her snowflake pendant, quietly sniffing the wind as we brought each other up to speed. We learned about their adventures in Adlet and Dhaxanian territory, concluding that Cason was, indeed, one of the most persistent daemons we’d ever come across. We told Scarlett and her group about our incursion into Draconis, our success in liberating the Druid delegation members, the information we’d gathered on the daemon pacifists and the shaky relationship between Shaytan and the Exiled Maras, and our knowledge of Lumi’s location.

“Called it!” Arrah muttered from above, on top of the southern wall. She kept her eyes on the ground beyond the fortress but listened in on our conversation.

Heron chuckled and proceeded to sharpen his sword. “Yeah, she did. She definitely did. So, we know for a fact that Lumi is in Azure Heights now,” he then said.

“Yes. We don’t know where, exactly, but with Arrah’s help, we’ll get into the city and find out. I think we need to get out of here first,” I replied, then looked at Avril. “Are you going to launch that snowflake or not?”

“I’m waiting for the northern wind,” she sighed. “Nevis was quite specific.”

Hansa pulled her hair up in a loose bun, tying a string around it to keep it in place, then borrowed Heron’s diamond stone and started working on her broadsword. The Exiled Mara couple and Vesta’s parents took care of the indigo horses, finding supplies around the fortress and bringing them out into the main square—dried food, haybales, and buckets for the fountain in the middle, which, to our relief, still pulled water from below.

Laughlan and Ryker toured the fortress, checking every chamber, every storage room, every nook and cranny, and returning with armfuls of herbs and powders they’d found along the way. Patrik and Scarlett helped them sort their findings into separate piles, taking note of all the spells they could create with what they had.

Vesta paced around the fire, nervously biting her nails, while the rest of us settled down for a few minutes, preparing our weapons and shields for the next round. Pheng-Pheng watched us, quietly, her scorpion tail twitching behind her.

“They’re not done with us, for sure,” Hansa muttered. “That horn sounded a load of trouble, and Cason is still out there.”

Blaze stood up, his brow furrowed. “I’ll start circling the area,” he said. “He’s likely to come back.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t put it past him,” Zane scoffed, staring at the fire. “He’s a persistent idiot, but an idiot nonetheless. I spent my entire adolescence warning him not to get in over his head, and yet here he is.”

“I can keep you company. You’ll need someone with a red lens to point out any invisible daemons, anyway,” Caia said, joining Blaze’s side and holding up her red lens. He gave her a soft smile, then nodded.

“Be careful up there,” Jax said, watching them walk over to the opposite corner of the square, where Blaze slipped out of his pants and shifted back to his full dragon form. “They might have arrows, other projectiles, and spells they might try to use.”

“We’ll keep a reasonable distance from the ground,” Caia replied, then packed Blaze’s pants in her backpack and climbed on his back. They took off, and I found myself breathing a little better, now knowing we had our dragon out there.

“There it is,” Avril murmured, looking up, then whispered something to the pendant and tossed it in the air.

A sudden, cool gust of wind blew over us. It carried the snowflake pendant away. I followed it with my True Sight for a few seconds, before it disappeared into the sky. “It’s going unbelievably fast,” I breathed.

“Some weird kind of Dhaxanian magic, I guess,” Avril replied, shrugging. “I still don’t understand how it functions, but I think the Dhaxanians will hear from us very soon.”

“Okay, so what is the plan, exactly?” Scarlett asked, taking the diamond stone from Hansa and working on her own sword from the hilt to the tip of the blade, in a repetitive, yet graceful motion.

“We hold out in here, until the allies get here,” Jax said. “We know there will be daemons coming our way. We don’t know when or how many. They might be here before our new friends reach us, or after. Either way, we need to be ready.”

“Okay, then what?” Scarlett replied.

Jax and Hansa briefly looked at each other. Then he pulled a map from his backpack and laid it out on the stone pavement at our feet. It was a rough rendition of Azure Heights, the surrounding Valley of Screams, and the outlying territories. He pointed at the north edge of the gorges, then trailed his finger farther back, where a village had been marked.

“This is Meredrin,” he said. “It’s an abandoned town on one of the three rivers flowing from the north and into the gorges. And this,” he added, pointing a little farther to the northwest, “is the abandoned red garnet mine that Arrah mentioned. It’s two miles from Meredrin. I don’t know much about the town, but I think we can use it as a small base of operations, to extract the swamp witch. The key is getting out of here without a daemon tail.”

“That’s where our allies will come in,” Hansa continued for him. “A massive diversion at the front of the fortress, while we slip, nice and invisible, through the hatch at the back.”

“And until then, we pray to whatever we believe in most, and keep any hostiles at bay,” Patrik chimed in, bitterly amused. “It’s just another regular day on the job for us in GASP, huh?”

“Pretty much,” Fiona replied. “I mean, we’ve had worse, right? I specifically remember having worse to deal with here.”

“I think our definitions of worse are about to be downgraded very soon,” I muttered, picking up strange sounds beyond the walls. Avril’s nostrils flared, and, when our wide eyes met, we both knew there was something coming.

“What is it?” Hansa asked, frowning at the both of us.

Avril and I shot to our feet, then quickly looked around. “Scarlett, where’s Jack? I mean, Hundurr?” I asked, still adjusting to the pit wolf’s true identity, not to mention his heartbreaking story.

Scarlett lifted her head, then whistled once, but we couldn’t see the pit wolf anywhere. It hit me then that what Avril and I had heard and smelled outside the fortress walls was about to meet our giant, black-skinned, ferocious friend.

“Girls, what is it?” Hansa repeated her question, slowly standing up and clutching her broadsword.

“Pit wolves,” Avril said.

We rushed up the wall, joining Arrah on the south side. Hansa, Jax, and Scarlett followed, while the others took their respective positions below. There were several hatches mounted at eye level on the wall, through which they could peek outside.

I put on my red lens, just in case, and scanned the area below.

“Look what I found!” Rush said, startling us as he and Amina came back to the square with a small wooden cart, which they’d loaded with bows and quivers filled with arrows. Amina spotted us up on the wall and quickly shushed him. They both stilled, waiting for us to update them on what was going on outside.

I shifted my focus back to the thick shrubbery below. “There,” I whispered, pointing to the left. Avril followed my gaze and bit her lower lip. “Pit wolf.”

“Not Hundurr,” Scarlett replied, then pointed to the right. “Three more over there.”

“Ugh,” I muttered, then put a hand out and released a barrier at the three pit wolves that Scarlett had just spotted. It threw them back down, startling them. They yelped and rolled down the stony ridge.

Scarlett motioned for Rush and Amina to bring over some bows and arrows. “We need to get the collars off them,” she murmured. The Maras handed us each a bow and a loaded quiver, and we prepared to aim for the charmed collars around the pit wolves’ necks once they came back up.

A growl emerged from beneath a shrub. Hundurr shot out and snapped his jaws into the remaining pit wolf’s throat. I could hear the metal clanging as Hundurr tore the collar off the hostile pit wolf. The creature whimpered, shaking its head in confusion.

“Yes,” Scarlett whispered. “Bring him back here, Hundurr!”

The pit wolf gave her a quick sideways glance, then nuzzled the other one. They then vanished beneath the shrubs, while the other three came back, growling and eager to tear into us. Unfortunately for them, we were too high up.

Blaze was circling the north side of the peak. I could hear his wings flapping behind the fortress. Avril, Scarlett, and I loaded our bows and pulled the arrows back. “I’ll take the middle one,” I said. “Scarlett, left, Avril, right, okay?”

“Ready when you are,” Avril replied.

Jax and Hansa stood next to us, watching in silence as we took our aim. Then Jax frowned, and I could hear him groan and mutter a curse.

“What is it?” I asked, not letting my target out of my sight. A couple more feet and I would have a clear shot, as the pit wolf was about to leave the cover of trees.

“Air ripples,” Jax said. “Daemons.”

“Where?” I replied.

Jax put on his red lens. “I can’t see him anymore. About thirty yards down,” he said.

My pit wolf came out. Clear shot for me. I released my arrow and—snap! The collar came off, leaving the creature confused. Scarlett and Avril aimed and got theirs, too. One after the other, the charmed collars were broken clean off, and the pit wolves were suddenly free.

All three sniffed each other, then the air, and looked up at us, their red eyes glimmering with confusion and curiosity. Another arrow was shot, but it didn’t come from us.

It swished through the air and pierced one of the freed pit wolves’ throats. My heart stopped as the beast whimpered, then howled from the excruciating pain.

“No!” I cried out, then froze, as a dozen more arrows came out from below and killed all three pit wolves. My stomach sank and churned, rage rushing through my veins.

I used my True Sight and spotted them. Ten daemons, led by Cason. They’d managed to sneak up the mountain after all. I caught a glimpse of Cason’s satisfied grin as he watched the pit wolves collapse from beneath the cover of a portly pine tree.

“No, you don’t get to sneer like that, you piece of—” I hissed, then pushed out a barrier, targeting Cason, specifically.

I heard him grunt, then fall backward and tumble down the ridge, while the others aimed their arrows at us. Jax whistled, and we heard the hatches open below. While Avril, Scarlett, and I had been trying to rescue the pit wolves that Cason had most likely sent after us, Jax and Hansa had already had the rest of the bows and arrows distributed to our ground-level fighters.

Arrows whistled from our side, piercing through six of the ten daemons. The second round of projectiles followed quickly, not giving the fiends time to do much. By the third, they were down, while the other four scrambled and managed to hide behind trees.

Cason growled from farther down, shielded by a thick pine tree. “You’re all done for!” he shouted. “You won’t last the night in there! Spare yourselves the trouble and just surrender!”

“To whom, you and the four daemons you’ve got left?” I shot back sarcastically, then loaded my bow. I located him as soon as I heard him chuckle, but I didn’t have a clear shot just yet.

“I’m never out of options, little mouse!” he replied.

A bloodcurdling screech pierced through the patch of clouds above.

“Oh, no,” I breathed, briefly looking up.

A swarm of Death Claws came in from the east, their clawed wings flapping frenetically as they plummeted toward the fortress.

“Everybody, take cover!” Jax shouted at our fighters below.

Avril and Scarlett aimed their bows upward but stilled when the Death Claws broke their formation and squealed, moving around chaotically. One spine-tingling growl echoing from the north side was enough to remind us that we had a dragon.

Blaze shot out from behind the fortress and released a column of deadly fire. The Death Claws screeched and tried to get away, but the flames swallowed them whole and charred them within seconds. They dropped, dead and smoking, into the middle of the square.

I shifted my focus back to Cason, just as Caspian joined me up on the wall with another bow and more arrows, followed by Zane, who looked down and narrowed his eyes at his brother.

“Hey, pipsqueak!” Zane growled, prompting Cason to poke his eye out from behind the tree, utterly confused.

“What in the blazes are you doing here?” Cason spat. “Get out of there now, and maybe our father will spare your life!”

“You still don’t get it, do you?” I replied. “We’re not going anywhere. You, on the other hand—” I didn’t hesitate and released an arrow. Cason squeaked and drew his head back behind the tree. I missed him by an inch, but it was enough to strike the fear of all gods in him. “I wouldn’t rely on reinforcements too much if I were you. We brought down Draconis, and last time I checked, Infernis was still recovering from our visit!”

A couple of seconds went by as Cason probably digested the news about Draconis.

“You’re getting out of that fortress, one way or another, little mouse!” he retorted furiously, despite the tremor in his voice. “I give you a day, tops, before I drag you out of there myself! In chains!”

“Cason, who are you trying to impress?” Zane shot back. “Father doesn’t give a damn about you, no matter how hard you try to kiss his ass.”

“Well, then, if you’ve decided to betray the king, I will have no trouble killing you, Brother, and taking your place on the Council!” Cason replied.

Zane chuckled, then pulled an arrow onto his bow and aimed it down at the tree behind which his brother was hidden. “I would love to see you try that, pipsqueak. Or have you already forgotten what happened the last time you did?”

When Cason didn’t answer, Zane took a deep breath and further pulled on the bow, narrowing his eyes.

“What happened?” I whispered.

“He flaked out, like the little worm that he really is,” Zane replied, loud enough for Cason to hear him. “He tried to have me killed by paying off some low-level assassins. I caught him red-handed and challenged him to a fight before our father. He was given the opportunity to kill me right then and there and take my place on the Council. And he flaked! Begged for our father’s forgiveness and ended up cleaning the pit wolf kennels in Draconis for months!”

“I simply evaluated my options!” Cason hissed.

“Yeah, sure you did,” Zane muttered, squinting, then released his arrow.

Swish.

Cason cried out in pain. Using my True Sight, I saw him holding the side of his head. The arrow had nipped his ear, splitting it wide open. Blood poured out, glazing his hand and soaking into his leather tunic.

Zane chuckled again. “And I’m just getting started.”

“So am I, Brother, so am I! Look to the south!” Cason replied.

We all did. Then, at the sight of what was coming, we held our collective breath.

Far away on the southern horizon, a mass of trembling black dots emerged. They were two hundred miles away, still, but I knew—we all knew—what they were. An army of daemons, probably hundreds, if not well past a thousand, judging by how they were spread.

The faint echoes of war drums rippled across the darkening afternoon sky.

“Oh, damn,” I muttered.

Cason’s mocking cackle made my blood boil. “You thought the Kingdom of Shaytan would fall so quickly! I called on soldiers from the south and the far west, little mice and treacherous brother! I was hoping I’d solve the problem faster with some smart pit wolves, but you decided to get sneaky and free them. I tried to end this quicker with Death Claws, but hey, what’s the use of having a dragon if you can’t use him, huh? Well, let’s see what you smart kids come up with now, because there are about a thousand daemon generals and soldiers headed for Ragnar Peak. Not even your dragon will be able to hold them back. Their Death Claws are better trained, and their pit wolves are much stronger than the two mutts you rescued. You’re all done for, you hear me? All done for!” he bellowed, scaring the nearby birds out of their trees.

Just then, we all noticed the large shadow passing over us.

“Yeah, speaking of dragon and done for,” I murmured, watching as Blaze glided over our side of the fortress and snapped open his jaws.

I shifted my True Sight to Cason, who was still hidden behind his tree. He heard the wings flapping. He heard the hiss preceding the curtain of fire that rained down on him and the last of his daemon guards.

Cason didn’t even get a chance to scream when the flames consumed and obliterated him.

Blaze then flew back and settled on top of a watch tower, gazing out into the distance, with Caia on his back, looking just as worried as the rest of us. Dragon fire burned below, and black smoke billowed from the charred carcasses of the daemons that had tried to get us.

“Boy, we are in a heap of trouble, aren’t we?” I murmured, staring at the army of daemon generals and soldiers in the distance.

A few seconds passed in absolute silence, as we all acknowledged the depth of danger we were in. Trained killers were coming for us. By morning, we were going to have our hands full. That distance between us and Lumi suddenly got bigger, making my heart ache.

“Just until we get some backup,” Caspian said, taking my hand in his.

“Then we’re out of here,” Hansa added, coming closer to my side.

“But we are essentially screwed,” I replied, eerily calm.

“Pretty much, yes,” Scarlett scoffed.

“But we’re all together here,” Avril chimed in, keeping her chin up. “They didn’t take us down before. We certainly can’t let them win now.”

“Nope. We can’t. And we won’t,” I muttered.

War was coming.

But we had to deal with it, like we dealt with everything else. A hundred daemons? A thousand? An entire planet of these horned monsters?

Bring it on.

I had a swamp witch to find, a daemon king to kill, and a Mara Lord to be with, freely. No one was going to stop me.