“What the hell is that?!” Vesta croaked, pointing up.

We all looked upward and froze. My heart jumped in my throat.

Sonic booms erupted, thundering above. Shadows shot across the sky, beyond a layer of clouds. They had no precise trajectory. Instead, they crisscrossed and exploded into flashes of light, each burst followed by another bang.

“They’re the same phenomena we saw earlier,” I muttered. “Only much, much closer.”

The jumble of shadows and flashes began converging on the top of the ice tower, moving dangerously fast. The booms got louder, too, chilling the blood in my veins. I instinctively pressed the talk button on my earpiece.

“Lenny, get down from there, now!” I shouted.

“Oh, no—” Rose managed, but it was a split second too late for any of us to react or do anything.

One of the flashes broke from the strange aerial phenomena and shot toward the tower. It rammed into it, so hard and with such force that the top of the ice tower exploded in a blinding flash of white light.

The shockwave that followed was equally violent, smacking into us and throwing us backward. I tumbled across the white sand and landed on my belly, looking up in horror as the ice tower came down in large chunks.

That was Dhaxanian frost. It wasn’t supposed to break or melt!

“Lenny…” I croaked, horror clenching at my throat, then found the strength to scream. “Lenny!”

As the flashes and loud bangs continued overhead, the frost tower collapsed altogether. Out of it emerged a ball of bluish ice—Nevis had caught Elonora and Dmitri inside it, to protect them from the frost debris and the actual fall.

Ridan growled as he moved to get up and out of his combat suit, hell-bent on retaliating in dragon form, but Ben pulled him back.

“Don’t! Stand back! Everybody, stand down!” Ben shouted. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet, but if they’re capable of breaking Nevis’s ice, it’s safe to assume they can tear you a new one, too, Ridan!”

The ice ball rolled out of the tower’s ruins. It cracked open, revealing Nevis as he held Elonora tight in his arms, and Dmitri with his arms wrapped around the both of them. I rushed to help them, accompanied by Ridan and Vesta. All three of them were dazed by the blast, but okay.

“Nevis was able to cover us,” Dmitri managed as he got up.

Another bang, this time louder.

“How many of them are there?” Ridan scowled at the sky above us.

“Three,” Elonora replied, her eyes glimmering gold as she used her True Sight. “I can’t see what they are; they’re moving too fast.”

“They’re powerful, though,” Rose said.

The flashes got brighter. The booms were louder. I figured it was only a matter of time before my ears started to bleed if they kept it up at that rate and in such close vicinity. My throat closed up when I saw the first fiery ball hurling toward us.

“Watch out!” I shouted, then muttered one of the swamp witch defense spells that I was most comfortable with and put out a shimmering gold shield made of pure energy. It was big enough to withstand the fireball’s impact. Flames erupted outward, then vanished. The hit took a toll on my joints, as the energy shield required my arms’ physical strength to hold it up.

“They’re attacking!” Ridan hissed. “I should do something!”

“We can’t! Not yet!” Rose replied.

A second fireball came down from the sky. This time, it rushed at us in an arched trajectory. Elonora shot to the side and released one of her sentry barriers with full force. The air rippled as it struck the fireball and forced it to dissipate.

“We need to take cover,” Ben said. “We can’t risk an attack if we don’t know what we’re up against!”

The hits increased in frequency. It was impossible to catch a clear glimpse of the light flashes. All we could to was gather in a circle, back to back, and put our defenses up. My energy shield and Elonora’s barriers were sturdy enough to withstand the following round of fireballs, but the booms were starting to give me a headache, making it difficult for me to concentrate.

As a result, my shield started glitching, shooting sparks out whenever a fireball hit.

Ridan and Vesta fired back. The dragon, though in humanoid form, could still spit fire, so he released a thick column, aiming it at the incoming attacks. Having a bipedal flamethrower with us certainly came in handy. Whatever those flashing creatures were, they now knew that we weren’t easy to take down.

Vesta threw some well-targeted fireballs back. She’d observed the flashes’ movements for long enough to accurately estimate some of their angles. Two of her fireballs managed to smack into a shadow, seconds before it flashed and released another sonic boom.

Everything was happening too fast.

I looked around, desperate for a way out. Ben and Rose were right. We were in over our heads at this point, and couldn’t afford to get injured—or worse, killed—without knowing what we were fighting.

There was a small, bushy island on the other side of the atoll. It was a mile and a half away and was covered in tall palm trees with broad crowns and giant, waxy leaves. It was good enough for cover, if I got my magic right.

I hadn’t tried a teleportation with living creatures before, but it was our best shot at survival, given the dire circumstances. I took a deep breath, then looked at Nevis.

“I need you to cover for me,” I said to him. “Shield them for a few seconds and take my hand.”

He frowned but didn’t wait to be told twice. He put his hand out. His fingers glimmered blue as a massive shield made of thick ice expanded from his palm. It stretched out above and around us, but it wasn’t going to last for long. Every fireball that came down sizzled through and caused dreadful cracks, threatening its integrity.

Nevis then took my hand, but stayed focused on the ice shield, rapidly pushing out more of his Dhaxanian frost to fix the fireball damages. I grabbed Elonora’s hand, too, then looked at the rest of our crew.

“Everybody! Hold hands!” I shouted. “We’re getting out of here!”

They did as instructed, startled by every bang erupting above.

I muttered an additional spell under my breath and envisioned the little island with its thick palm tree forest. Once I finished the incantation, I felt my skin sizzle. I was suddenly weightless, as I disintegrated in a flash of light.

For only a millisecond, a microscopic slice in time, everything was black and nonexistent. Then, the entire world reappeared. I exhaled and looked around. Relief washed over me when I saw everybody alive, in one piece and right there with me, hidden behind the palm trees.