ASHER THREW OUT another whip of fire toward the soldiers who rushed at him. The tongue of golden flame curled around their legs, yanking them off their feet.
It was then that Asher realized those men had merely been a distraction. They had deliberately drawn his attention away from Ninia, who now stood a couple of feet behind him, a wall of brambles at her back.
Asher glanced over his shoulder to see dark shapes slashing their way through the undergrowth directly behind the princess. Ninia had her back to them, her gaze flicking around the clearing between where Mira and the captain dueled to her right, and where Asher held off the other soldiers to her left.
“Behind you!” Asher shouted.
The girl whipped round, her frightened cry echoing through the trees. The men were almost upon her now. Asher, who was now forced to defend himself as two more soldiers rushed at him, couldn’t protect her.
“Gather the Light,” he ordered.
“I can’t,” she gasped. “You said—”
“Do it!”
The blade of one of the men hunting him sliced down, ripping through Asher’s cloak. He leaped back but felt a line of fire across his thigh as the blade grazed him.
Light exploded in the center of the clearing, like a second sun, turning the dark forest into daylight for one long drawn out heartbeat. Asher cried out, blinded even as he squeezed his eyes shut.
Boom.
Asher felt himself lifted high into the air, the roar of fire around him, heat blistering his skin. Men’s screams filled the night, and the smell of burning flesh seared his nostrils.
And then he was falling through ash and smoke. He hit the forest floor, the wind rushing out of him.
Shadows.
Asher rolled on his side, coughing as smoke caught in his lungs. He opened his smarting eyes and watched men burn on the perimeter of the clearing. They danced, beating at the flames, their screams flaying his nerves bare. Some of the trees had also caught alight: flaming torches against the night sky.
He watched the burning men fall. Their screams died to whimpers before they eventually lay still as the fire consumed them.
Bile rose, stinging the back of his throat. His healer’s instinct railed against this; he hated to see senseless death. Even if he’d done it to save them all, he had unleashed Ninia.
The girl stood a few feet away. Men lay around her, charred corpses on the damp forest floor. Ninia ignored them; she merely stared down at her right hand, still stretched out before her, as if it didn’t belong to her.
Asher’s gaze swiveled right, searching for Mira. She lay face down a few feet away, still clutching her sword. The Captain of Anthor lay on his side around five yards back from her, groaning as he came to.
Asher crawled over to Mira and rolled her over, relief swamping him when he saw the rise and fall of her chest. She’s breathing.
Mira’s eyelids flickered, and she opened her eyes, gazing up at him. “What happened?” she croaked.
“Ninia.”
Her attention shifted past him to where the princess still stood, as if carven from ice. “Is she hurt?”
He shook his head and helped Mira sit up. Truthfully though, he wasn’t sure how Ninia was. Gathering the Light appeared to have traumatized her.
“Who are you, girl?” The Captain of Anthor had staggered to his feet and stood staring at Ninia—although he wisely made no move toward her. For the first time since entering the clearing, the inscrutable mask the captain wore had slipped. Soot covered his face, and the fire had burned his red cloak to tattered scraps. Behind him, no more than five of his men had survived the inferno. Groaning, they roused themselves from the ground.
Ninia ignored the captain. Instead, her gaze shifted to Asher. The look in her eyes haunted him. “I warned you,” she whispered.
Asher stared back at her. “Aye,” he replied hoarsely. “You did.”
Around them, the trees smoked as the flames burned out. The odor of charred flesh filled Asher’s mouth, making him feel queasy.
“This is unexpected.” The captain spoke again, his dark gaze speculative. He hadn’t taken his attention from Ninia. “My father didn’t tell me you were an enchanter … or perhaps he doesn’t know.”
Ninia blinked, as if realizing the man was there for the first time. “No one knew,” she whispered. “Only mother.”
“Another reason to rid the world of you then. An enchanter of royal blood is a precious thing indeed.”
Asher rose to his feet, pulling Mira up against him. He swayed slightly. The explosion had knocked him off-balance. His ears were ringing, and he felt as if he stood upon the deck of a pitching ship.
“You think you can take her on?” Asher asked. “After what you’ve seen her do?”
The captain’s dark gaze swiveled to him, and they looked at each other for a long moment. In that instant Asher realized the man didn’t have a choice. Returning home with the news the princess had eluded him wasn’t an option. The captain would die here in this forest rather than face failure.
Who is he?
Once again, looking at the man, Asher was reminded of someone. Only he still couldn’t place it. The cast of the features, the arrogant bearing were both hauntingly familiar.
Something else was familiar too—the bind to duty. In the man’s eyes, Asher saw himself reflected back. He’d once been like him, imprisoned by loyalty, a sense of duty that bordered on the self-destructive. Hadn’t he come after Ninia and Mira with the same purpose?
He was no longer that man, yet he saw how duty yoked the Captain of Anthor. Just like Asher’s unquestioning loyalty to his order, his duty defined him. He would die for his king.
The captain didn’t speak. The tightening of his hands on the hilt of his blade said it all.
“Captain.” One of his soldiers, a lean, sharp-featured man with a short beard stepped forward. “Should we—”
“Quiet,” his leader cut him off. “We stand here.”
Beside Asher, Ninia flexed her fingers. Fire still burned on the margins of the clearing around them, enough for her to wreak serious damage if she gathered the Light again. Asher took a cautious step back, drawing Mira with him. For their own safety, they needed to distance themselves.
It was then that something on the fringes of the trees caught his attention.
Mist.
It was a windless night, and there were no rivers or lakes nearby. Yet a dense, milky fog crept through the trees as if pushed by a stiff wind, as if it had rolled in from a great, dark lake.
Asher’s body went cold.
He’d seen this mist before, in the forests around The Royal City when he and the other enchanters of the Light had gone out hunting shadow creatures, during those months of darkness the year before.
Fear slithered through his gut. He felt Mira tense against him. “What’s happening?” she whispered.
Likewise, the Captain of Anthor and his remaining five men had all noticed the change. They drew close together, their gazes wary as they scanned the curling mist.
A cackle split the night, the sound confirming what Asher had realized already.
The wraiths of the dead didn’t inhabit this forest—the servants of the shadows did. And they were coming for them.
Another cry echoed through the trees, followed by a series of hoots and howls that made Ninia blanch. It seemed that she too knew what was out there.
Asher tightened his grip on Mira. She glanced up at him, and their gazes fused.
One of the men of Anthor muttered something in his own tongue, a string of words that sounded like a prayer, a plea to long-forgotten gods. It would do no good though. The trees had stopped burning on the edges of the clearing and were now smoking. Asher glanced over at Ninia.
The girl’s face had gone the color of milk. She looked down to find the mist wreathing around her. Panic flooded across her features when she tried to raise her hands and found them pinned against her sides. Likewise, Asher found himself frozen to the spot, the encircling mist hugging him tight. Across the clearing, the Anthor soldiers struggled against it, before they too were held fast. Only their captain didn’t fight the mist’s embrace. Instead, he was looking in the direction of the forest path, where ghostly figures appeared through the mist.
Asher’s breathing quickened when he too saw them. Hiriel—both terrible and beautiful—moved toward them. The ethereal figures crept through the trees, their slender forms rippling and billowing around them, blending in with the surrounding mist. Their eyes burned into Asher like two white-hot stars, and upon their heads horns resembling deer antlers rose into the fog.
Small, coal-black imps scuttled past them, chattering as they went. The Dusk Imps had long, rat-like tails, and hooked claws that could flay a man’s flesh from his bones in one swipe. They hunted in packs and were deadly. Asher remembered them well from the Battle of the Shadefells.
A third type of creature emerged from the darkness and loped into the clearing. Hunched, its naked limbs gleaming pale, the Nightgenga peered at them through a curtain of lank hair. Wolf eyes took in the figures clustered together at opposite end of the glade.
Asher’s belly cramped. They were trapped, helpless, as the tide of shadow creatures drew in, surrounding them on all sides.
A cluster of Hiriel, their milky forms bleeding and mixing together, stepped forward from the rest.
“Who dares enter our domain?” they called in unison. Their voices were hollow and high-pitched, echoing as if they stood within a great stone cavern.
Asher didn’t reply; he couldn’t find his voice. None of the others spoke either. After a lengthy silence, it was eventually Mira who answered for them.
“We’re traveling to the coast,” she croaked. “We mean no offence.”
“You shatter the silence, set fire to the trees,” the Hiriel sang back. “You’re not welcome here.”
“Sorry about disturbing your peace,” Mira replied, the tremor in her voice giving her terror away. “Let us go, and we’ll never bother you again.”
Hollow laughter reverberated around the clearing.
Shadow creatures flooded into the clearing—large and small, some ghostly, others resembling carrion. Their nearness and sheer numbers even caused the Captain of Anthor to grow tense and pale. A few feet from where Asher and Mira stood, Ninia looked on the verge of fainting.
“You’re not leaving,” the Hiriel chorused, their voices alive with mirth. “This forest will be your tomb.”