Magic Claims

12

The magic of the forest slithered in twisting currents, boiling at the borders of my safe zone. Thick like syrup, deep enough to drown in. We were at the center of the forest’s power. It gnawed on the edges of my narrow claiming, trying to sink its teeth in and failing. The trees had grown thick and tall, their branches reaching for each other over the road, blocking out the sun above our heads. We were moving through a green tunnel.

Conlan slipped through the column, edging dangerously close to the boundary, lingered there for a few moments, and wove his way to my side.

“Mom.” His voice was barely above a whisper.

“Yes?”

He shifted into the language of Shinar seamlessly. “You’re stronger than it, right?”

“We will soon find out.”

He looked at me wide-eyed. That wasn’t the answer he was looking for.

“Raw power is important, but there are times when training matters more. And you, although you are only eight, are better trained than whoever claimed this land.”

He looked at the woods.

“Remember what your father said about the other shapeshifters?”

He nodded.

“It’s just like that. Look at it, Conlan. Yes, that’s a lot of magic, but feel how haphazard and uneven it is. Now feel the power of my claim. When we painted our house, we didn’t hurl paint cans at the walls. We dipped a roller and covered it evenly.”

He looked at the woods again, and then at the road in front of us. His shoulders straightened. He raised his head.

“This is why we train,” I told him in English. “With magic, especially, it’s about control. A blood spike the size of a needle, thrown at the right moment, can kill the enemy before they ever get a chance to hurl a giant boulder at us.”

He smiled and fell back into his place by Jushur.

This was a hell of a lot of magic though. At first, carving off a chunk of forest territory was relatively easy. This last time it was like trying to push a giant rock across a field through the mud. When I was done, my whole body was drenched in sweat.

Whatever awaited us at the end of this road, it wouldn’t just roll over. It hadn’t run away, though a part of me had hoped. No, it was biding its time, marshaling its power, condensing its magic as it drew it in to defend itself.

My sword hand itched. I was tired of walking and waiting.

Not long now. I could see the light directly ahead of us, where the forest ended, and the road would run into the clear ground. We were drawing closer with every step.

Isaac suddenly stopped, poised on his toes. I looked past him at the nearly blinding glow of daylight.

A giant deer stood in the light, just beyond my safe zone. Bigger than a moose, seven feet tall at the shoulder, it stared at us without fear. Enormous antlers crowned its head, two massive blades of bone with points the size of swords, protruding almost five feet out. Clumps of grass dripped from the horns, as if the creature had dug them into the turf.

It was majestic and beautiful, as if the forest had sent a herald to greet us.

“An Irish elk,” Keelan whispered.

More like the stag-moose, Cervalces scotti, which was native to North America according to Conlan’s book, but I didn’t want to ruin Keelan’s moment.

“Damn, that’s a lot of meat,” Jynx breathed behind us.

And the bouda had done it for me.

Keelan glared at her. “Shut it.”

The stag looked at us for another long moment, then strode off to the side, into the light.

“Alright, people,” Keelan called out. “It’s time to do what we walked all this way for.”

“Fight, survive, go home,” Curran growled.

“Yes, Alpha.”

A change came over the shapeshifters, as if everyone had gotten shots of espresso directly into their veins. Arms stretched. Eyes shone. Gear was shifted, ready to be shed in an instant. Keelan pulled his claymore out and swung it like it was a toothpick.

“Ready,” Heather called out behind me.

I glanced over my shoulder. The archers stopped and strung their bows.

I looked at Owen. “I’m going to need that blood.”

The werebison shrugged off the tent roll and pulled the big Camelback off his shoulders. “Where do you want it?”

I detached my blood canteen from my belt, took off Sarrat’s sheath, and pulled my sweatshirt off. “Dump it right here.”

He frowned. “Just dump it out on the ground?”

“Yep.”

He unzipped the backpack, unscrewed the cap, and turned it upside down. The undead blood splashed out onto the pavement. I dumped the contents of my canteen into it.

Normal human blood would have coagulated without refrigeration after a full day of riding in my canteen. The magic in my blood had kept it fresh longer and, as it collided with the puddle of vampire blood, my power shot through it like fire along a detonation cord. The two liquids fused into one pliable, obedient mass. It streamed to me, guided by my will, climbing up my feet, over my legs, over my waist and chest and arms to coat my entire body up to my chin. It felt warm against my skin, the arcane power within it shimmering and ready.

One final push, and it snapped into shape. Blood armor sheathed me, flexible, thin like a second skin, and yet impenetrable to claws and normal swords.

Everyone had stopped what they were doing and was staring at me.

“Okay, I’m dressed,” I announced. “Let’s get this party started!”

Curran grinned.

“You heard the Consort,” Keelan growled. “Fall in. We don’t have all day.”

Everyone decided to simultaneously look somewhere else. I swiped Sarrat off the ground, poured my leftover blood onto the blade, and hardened it to a razor-sharp edge. It wouldn’t last long once I started using it, but while it lasted, my sword would cut through bone like butter.

I walked over to Conlan and hugged him.

“Mom,” he said quietly. “I’m not a baby.”

“You will always be my baby. Deal with it. When the fight starts, stay with the archers. They’re vulnerable to melee and they’ll need your protection.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Listen to your mother,” Curran said.

“Yes, Alpha.”

We started toward the light again.

“Can you do that?” Darin murmured to Conlan.

“Not yet,” my son said.

The gap in the trees grew closer and closer. A hundred yards, fifty, twenty-five.

The safe zone ended.

Curran looked at me. I shook my head. There would be no more claiming. The forest’s magic was too deep, and I was too tired. We’d have to solve this problem the old-fashioned way. A claiming broke when its creator died.

Curran squared his shoulders. He seemed larger somehow, looming, his face predatory and fierce, almost cruel. He was a lion who had sighted a territory he wanted, and he was ready to take it.

We hugged the greenery and carefully moved to the edge of the forest.

A grassy plain stretched in front of us, still green and vibrant despite it being fall. In the middle of the plain, a low hill curved, and on top of that hill a fortress rose, ancient and massive, dominating everything around it. We were looking at the outer wall, and it was all round towers, almost a hundred feet high, packed nearly side by side, with very little actual wall in between.

Built with clay bricks and partially sheathed in slabs of granite, the towers went on and on, in two straight lines that met at a right angle almost directly in front of us. The two sides we could see were each over a mile long. If this fort was square, the entire town of Penderton would fit inside that wall.

It didn’t look like any architectural style I knew. I had never seen anything like it.

Curran closed his mouth with a click.

“Where did they get the granite? The nearest quarry is hundreds of miles inland.”

“I don’t care. I want it,” Curran growled.

“It’s a fine castle, my lord,” Keelan called out. “Let’s liberate it and all the people in collars with it.”

We had a lot of open ground to cover between the woods and the walls. The archers especially would be vulnerable. Their effective range was about two hundred yards. If the evil in the fortress opened this fight with shapeshifters, there would be no point in shooting them. The arrows wouldn’t do enough damage, and the shapeshifter charge was too fast. The archers would be better used against the hunters. For that, we’d need to walk them closer to the walls.

Something moved at the top of the corner tower. People came into view. Two dozen hunters armed with javelins, six priest-mages, and in the middle, a tall woman in white.

Rimush passed me a pair of binoculars.

She looked like one of the hunters. The same slender build with an odd shoulder line and limbs that looked too long. But unlike the hunters, she hadn’t smeared any clay on her hair. Her long locks streamed in the wind, and they weren’t black, brown, or blond. Her hair was a light, ethereal blue. The exact same shade that tinted all that clay on her followers’ hair and faces. She had marked them as hers.

Her face was unnaturally white, probably tinted with powder or some kind of paint that was a lot smoother than the blue clay. Bloodred pigment stained her eyelids and the space under her eyes. Her whole face looked like a skull with two bloody holes where the orbits should be. The priest-mages hovered around her, anxious.

Hello, evil in the forest. I’ve come to borrow a cup of sugar and to chat about Penderton. Is it a bad time?

The woman said something, baring her teeth. They were sharp and triangular like those of a shark. The skin on her exposed arms was an odd, faded ochre and patterned lightly as if someone had painted a ghostly brindle over it with bluish-green pigment. Teeth, hair, skin…

Turn your head, turn your head…

She snapped at one of the priest-mages, presenting me with a view of her ear. Pointed. Got you.

“Fae,” I said.

“What?” Curran said.

“She isn’t human. She’s fae.”

“Fae?” Keelan asked. “Here?”

“Fae legends aren’t confined to Ireland. They pop up in folklore all through Europe and Asia in various forms. The leading theory is that modern humans and fae had a common ancestor but diverged in prehistory. We had interbred at some point after that divergence, which is why human parents sometimes give birth to a fae child. Magic activates the dormant genes. Our Pale Skull Queen is a prehistoric fae.”

And Dad would just love that little tidbit. When he was building the Order of Sahanu, his assassins, he’d specifically looked for fae children because of their significant magic reserve. Father, did you know fae are capable of claiming? His head would explode.

I lowered the binoculars and turned to look at our crew.

“That explains a lot of things,” Curran said. “Like the absence of iron. Okay, the Pale Queen on that tower is our primary target. Their society is rigidly structured. She’s on top, then the priest-mages, then the hunters and shapeshifters on the bottom.”

“If you don’t have magic, you’re not shit,” Keelan said.

“Yes,” Curran confirmed. “She’s going to assess us by what she knows. She’s seen Kate do magic and claim the land, so she will view her as a queen and us as her disposable underlings.”

“We’re going to use it to our advantage,” I said. “Once the fight starts, she will key in on me because she thinks I’m the biggest threat.”

“She’ll sit in her tower and field her shapeshifters,” Curran said. “Judging by her previous actions, she thinks of her subordinates as subhuman. She’ll hurl them at us because she doesn’t care if they survive. When that happens, we’re going to pull the fight to the left to give Kate room to work. We need to get to those walls with minimal casualties.”

I nodded. “I’ll be throwing magic around so don’t be in front of me. Heather, your people, Conlan, Darin, and Jushur will need to hang back and to the right. Don’t be directly behind me but stay close enough until you get in range that I can close the distance and protect you if there are surprises. Be careful. This is her territory, and we don’t know what she’s capable of. She could collapse the ground under you or blow up her walls to crush you.”

“Questions?” Curran asked.

There were no questions.

“I need a volunteer for my left,” I said.

Owen stepped forward, brandishing a huge hammer. Where the hell had he pulled that out from?

“Stay. Close. To. Her,” Curran ordered, enunciating each word. “Don’t get distracted.”

Owen nodded. “Yes, Alpha.”

“Okay, let’s get her attention.” I stepped into the light and raised the binoculars to my face.

One of the priest-mages pointed at me. The Pale Queen stared. Dark smoke boiled around her, sliding along her arms and shoulders.

I raised my hand and waved.

The Pale Queen bared her teeth and stabbed a finger in my direction. A harsh cry echoed through the fortress. Internal shutters slid aside, and suddenly windows peppered the corner tower. Shapeshifters rained down onto the grass.

“Here we go!” Curran snarled.

I thrust the binoculars back at Rimush, scanning the bodies running toward us. Ten, twenty, thirty. Over sixty shaggy shapes, every one of them bigger than the average shapeshifter. Shit.

Curran burst into warrior form and roared.

The blast of sound tore through the plain. The attackers in the rear slowed, as if unsure, but the front line kept charging.

Curran broke into a run.

“For the Pack!” Keelan screamed.

Our shapeshifters dashed past me.

I dropped my cloak and started forward, slowly, deliberately. Rimush was on my right and Owen was on my left.

The magic in front of me thickened, the dark smoke swirling and pooling, reaching out to me like the tentacles of some nightmarish creature.

I channeled my magic into Sarrat and spoke the incantation. “Terrat sahatur.”

Power slammed into my sword. Suddenly it was impossibly heavy. Gripping it in both hands, I strained and slashed. A wave of golden light tore from Sarrat and shot above the grass, shredding the dark smoke like tissue paper.

One of my aunt’s favorite spells. Nice and short. Easy to remember.

My arms felt like I had tried to lift a car.

I kept walking. On top of the tower, the Pale Queen gripped the parapet. I wasn’t close enough to see her face, but her body language was clear enough. It was the Ice Age version of WTF.

Ahead of me, the ragged line of our shapeshifters broke into pairs and collided with the enemy. Blood flew. Howls and snarls rent the air.

The Pale Queen waved her arms. Her magic shifted in response and I focused on it, trying to gauge the direction of the flow.

The first shapeshifter to slip through our line sprinted toward me. Huge, gray-furred, he charged me at full speed, counting on his bulk and power to knock me down.

Owen let him get within ten feet of us, stepped into his path, and swung his war hammer. Bone crunched, and the enemy shapeshifter flew to the left and landed hard on his back. Owen jabbed the hammer at him. “Stay down!”

We kept moving. The currents of magic built around the tower, roiling above it like storm clouds.

That’s a lot of magic you pulled from the land. What are you doing with it?

The second shapeshifter lunged at me. Rimush disemboweled her with a single swing, stabbed her right lung, and slashed across her spine as she collapsed.

On the tower, small magic explosions popped like firecrackers. Boulders shot up into the air, spinning and expanding. The priest-mages had launched their first salvo.

Were they aiming for me or the archers? I glanced over my shoulder. Conlan and Heather’s people were twenty-five yards away. Too vulnerable.

“To me!”

The archers sprinted toward me, Conlan in the lead and Darin right behind him.

Where the hell was Isaac? He wasn’t in the shapeshifter charge. He wasn’t with the archers either.

Magic crested at the tower. I looked back.

The Pale Queen thrust her arms up, toward the mass of magic gathered above her head and brought them down in a sharp motion. The storm cloud of her power plunged down and sank into the soil.

Got it.

“Gis Addir, ar arryt…”

Understanding flared in Rimush’s eyes.

The ground quaked.

“…leru skar…”

The archers reached us.

“Bunch up!” Rimush ordered. “Lock your arms together!”

“…us gytam…”

The first boulder hurtled at us like a pebble launched from a giant’s slingshot. It whistled over our heads and crashed into the dirt with a boom. The ground shook.

Ahead, the hill swelled and rolled forward, as if a giant ball sped at us just underneath the turf.

Rimush grabbed Owen and locked his hand around my left arm.

“… sar udurum!”

The grassy field under my feet burst open. My magic snapped in place, and we landed on a glowing bridge fifty yards long. A thirty-foot-deep pit gaped under us, magic swirling at its bottom. The bridge barely spanned it. If I had miscalculated by a few feet, we’d be buried alive right now. Someone behind me screamed.

“You’re fine. Don’t panic!” Heather called out. Her voice shook.

The bridge was only seven feet wide. I hadn’t made any rails. There wasn’t time for anything fancy or complicated. I had made a giant magical board that rested on the edges of the pit, and we were right in the middle of it.

“Two by two,” I ordered. “Don’t run.”

We started across the bridge toward the fortress and the fight raging by its walls. The magic gave a little under my feet but held.

The second boulder smashed to our left and rolled into the pit. If one of these hit dead center, we’d have a problem.

“Conlan! The Shield of Mush Azebtu!” I glanced over my shoulder.

He looked at me, his eyes wide and freaked out.

“Show me what Grandfather taught you!”

Conlan thrust his hands in front of him as if trying to block an invisible attacker with his palms. The language of Shinar spilled out of him, words moving and twisting his magic.

A shaggy brown shapeshifter broke away from the fight and sprinted toward us. I was in front, with Rimush and Owen behind me.

“Don’t do it!” I warned.

The shapeshifter leaped onto the bridge, her shoulders hunched, her ursine muzzle gaping open, her eyes locked on me.

I ran at her, light on my feet.

We met in a split second, her claws against my sword. Her talons found empty air. Sarrat found her throat. Her body fell to the left, and her head flew to the right, into the pit.

A few more feet and I landed on solid ground. Rimush and Owen were a step behind me. Conlan and Darin were next, my son still chanting.

A boulder smashed into the ground directly in front of us and rolled down, bouncing, crushing two enemy shapeshifters in its path.

Conlan’s chant faltered. The magic was there, prepped and ready. I could feel it. It just needed that final push, and he must have forgotten that crucial last word.

A second boulder dropped behind the first. There was no place to go. The archers were still on the bridge, and the rocks would smash directly into them.

“The words are yours,” Jushur intoned, his voice calm and reassuring. “They will obey.”

Rimush sprinted into the path of the first boulder. His twin swords leaped into his hands almost on their own. He jumped. Magic rippled from his weapons, stretching into glowing blades of light. They scissored the giant rock, cleaving it in two. The two halves fell apart, spinning away from each other, driven by the sudden release of magic. The surface of the cut was smooth as glass.

The impact tossed Rimush into the air. He flipped head over feet and landed gracefully on his toes. The second boulder rolled by him, straight at us.

“Eibur uru atamet!” Conlan screamed.

Golden light shot out of his hands, forming two big translucent shields, each fifty feet across and twenty-five feet wide. They hung twenty feet in front of us, in midair, mirroring the angle of his hands.

Conlan lowered his palms, thrusting the slanted shields in the path of the boulder.

The stone missile smashed into his magic and bounced off, over our heads, into the hole.

He had done it!

“Good job!”

He grinned back at me.

The others gaped at my son. Too bad Curran had missed it.

A third boulder flew overhead and crashed into the far end of the bridge. Shit.

The translucent plank cracked.

Hold. Hold, damn you.

The end of the bridge fractured and shattered, the cracks running toward us.

“Run!” I screamed.

The archers scrambled to safety, the cracks on their heels as the bridge melted into nothing. Rimush and Owen grabbed them and shoved them out of the way, flinging them to the sides and the safety of solid ground.

The cracks accelerated.

Heather was the last one on the bridge. I caught a glimpse of her face, her eyes opened wide, her mouth ready to scream. The bridge fractured under her feet. She leaped, a desperate jump that would fall short, and then Rimush caught her, hanging off the edge, one hand holding Heather’s shoulder and the other gripped by Owen. The werebison grunted and heaved them both out of the pit.

Conlan exhaled, his shields dipping a little, following his hands.

“You did so well. Can you walk with the shields?”

He nodded. “I’m good.”

“You’re doing great. Everyone, stay behind me, four people per line.” I started toward the fortress. Rimush and Owen flanked me again.

The boulders crashed around us, some aimed to land on us and others dropped in the middle of the battlefield to roll into us. No other direction. We were the only target.

I could see the Pale Queen now without binoculars. She’d slumped against the parapet, watching me advance, hatred plain on her face. That pit had cost a lot of magic. She was trying to recover.

“In range!” Heather announced.

We halted. The archers aimed as one. The arrowheads glowed green. Explosion bolts. Nice. Penderton had dug deep into its budget.

“Turn the shields!” I ordered.

Conlan raised his hands and turned his palms toward each other. The shields in the air above us turned sideways.

“Fire!” Heather barked.

The arrows whistled through the air and bit into the hunters atop the tower. Magic splashed with bright green sparks.

A man screamed, and a body toppled and plummeted to the ground. A priest-mage. Good hit.

Darin smiled.

“Stay here and fire just like that.”

I resumed my trek forward. I was close enough, but I wanted to put a little distance between me and the archers.

The ranks of enemy shapeshifters ahead and to my left had thinned. Bodies littered the ground, most still alive and groaning, others still and silent.

Owen made a strange noise, half bellow, half roar.

“What?”

“They’re elderly,” he snarled. “And children! Look at them.”

What?

Oh. He was right. At least a third of the enemy shapeshifters had gray fur, and not the darker healthy gray of adult wolves or jackals. No, it was the silver gray that came with age. Their bodies were thin, without the heavy bulk of shapeshifters in their prime. Of those who weren’t gray, some were clearly too young. Their bodies were clumsy, their attacks unsure. She must have emptied her citadel and sent anyone with a heartbeat against us.

This had to end now. I was close to my limit, but I still had some magic left.

I sent my power into Sarrat, spoke the incantation, and let it rip. A slash of light tore from my blade and carved its way up the hill, plowing through the dirt. The bitch on top of the tower jerked her arms up, screaming. A wall of smoke blanketed the wall. My sword strike bit into it and sliced through, gouging the tower.

She threw herself against the rampart, her face shocked. I pointed my sword at her. She blocked that one, but she wouldn’t block the next one, and we both knew it. She was almost out of juice.

The Pale Queen screeched. It sounded like a command.

Nothing happened.

I shrugged my shoulders. I would have to make this next one count. She was close to her limit, but so was I.

A shutter slid open in the tower, and a dim figure, half hidden in shadow, appeared in the new opening.

The Pale Queen thrust her hand at me and yelled, her words as jagged as shards of glass.

The figure stepped into the light and dropped to the ground behind the line of shapeshifter defenders.

A roar rocked the battlefield, a wall of sound that burst through the air like a shockwave.

I knew that roar. Oh no.

Bodies flew out of the way. Something was coming, bulldozing its way through the lines of fortress defenders, knocking them aside like they were bowling pins.

The front line of enemy shapeshifters parted as they scrambled out of the way, tripping over themselves. A lion burst into the open. Enormous, gray, striped with black, a mane crowning his huge head.

I knew Curran’s maximum size. I knew exactly how far he could push his body. This lion outweighed him by at least two hundred pounds.

The lion’s golden eyes sighted me. The alpha stare burned me, heavy, commanding, difficult to hold. Not just any lion. A First.

Oh my God.

The lion charged.

Owen jumped in front of me, bellowing a challenge. I lunged around him, and saw the lion coming as if in slow motion, the massive paws striking the ground, the eyes glowing with deep, furious amber. He was unstoppable. It was as if the Ice Age itself, brutal and savage, was bearing down on me.

The burning eyes locked me in place. I knew I had to move, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t…

Curran smashed into him from the side, knocking him off course. The impact staggered the hulking beast. He whirled around, shocked, and roared in outrage.

Curran roared back.

The two male lions, one a beast, the other in warrior form, glared at each other and collided. The enemy First reared up on his hind legs and slapped at Curran’s neck and head, his knife-long claws slicing through the air. I’d seen Curran kill a feral bull with a single slap. A hit like that would crush a shapeshifter’s skull like a walnut. Instant kill.

Curran leaned back, let one giant paw slide by him, stepped in, and drove a straight right hand into his opponent’s face. The enemy lion’s head snapped back.

I was halfway to them.

Curran turned to me. “No!”

I stopped. It nearly killed me, but I stopped.

The enemy First snarled and charged again, lifting up, swinging his left forepaw, trying to knock Curran to the ground. If he managed to pin him down with all that weight, it would be over.

Curran danced out of the way. The claws rent the air in front of him. The momentum of the strike pulled the lion to the right, exposing his flank. Curran turned his body and drove a short, vicious hook into the lion’s ribs. Bone crunched. Before the other lion could react, Curran thrust his hand into the same spot and dug a bloody chunk of flesh and bone out. Blood poured from the wound, the yellow shards of ribs stark against it.

The other lion whirled, lunging.

Four clumps of dark smoke appeared in a ring around the lions and coalesced into priest-mages.

Oh no, you don’t. If I don’t get to help, you don’t either.

The Ice Age First roared in outrage. The Pale Queen screamed at him from the tower. The priest-mages dashed around the two shapeshifters, fading in and out of existence.

Jushur and Rimush shot from behind me, like two dancers perfectly in sync.

Curran hammered another punch into his adversary’s ribs. The other lion snapped, so fast I almost didn’t see it. His jaws locked around Curran’s left arm. He reared, throwing his colossal front legs over Curran and dropped his entire bulk on top of him.

Curran went down.

The two Blades of Shinar sped through the smoke, their twin swords slicing in precise, brutal movements. Four bodies fell onto the grass.

The Ice Age First bit down, snarling, his hind legs digging into the dirt on both sides of Curran, giving him leverage. I couldn’t even see Curran under the lion’s mass. I grit my teeth.

Come on, honey. Come on.

The Ice Age lion raised his head, and his mouth was bloody. I caught a glimpse of Curran under him, his shoulder drenched in crimson. The lion bit down again.

“Dad!” Conlan screamed. He tried to run past me, and I caught him and gripped him against me.

All fighting had stopped except for the two Firsts. Both sides watched in silence.

The lion raised his head again. His forepaws pinned Curran’s shoulders, the huge claws gouging into his flesh. The Ice Age First roared, announcing his imminent victory.

Curran was a grappler.

His arms slid between the lion’s front legs and knocked them up and out. The lion’s paws landed on the ground above Curran’s shoulders. Curran slipped his right arm under the lion’s left front leg and caught it in the crook of his elbow. He thrust his left arm up against the lion’s throat, barring him from biting, and twisted his body to the right, wrapping his legs around the lion’s flanks.

An armlock. He’d done it to me more times than I could remember. But human bones were a lot weaker than a lion’s.

The Ice Age First still hadn’t realized what was happening.

Curran crunched, bringing his body up. The muscles on his arms and back bulged, shifting as he built more bulk in a split second.

The lion’s left foreleg snapped like a twig. He howled in surprise and pain. His hind legs clawed the ground as he tried to free himself.

Curran wrenched the broken limb off and hurled it aside. Long claws sprouted from his toes, and he kicked the lion’s gut, tearing through flesh and organs.

The lion flailed, frantic, and rolled to the side in a last-ditch effort to get away. Curran rolled with him, and as he ended up on top, he thrust his monstrous hand into the lion’s chest.

I had beheaded people. I had stabbed creatures in the heart. But I would never forget Curran ripping another First’s heart out of his chest. It sat in his huge, clawed hand, a bloody clump, and contracted one last time, sending a mist of blood into the air.

The First’s body collapsed into a humanoid shape. He was large, almost six feet tall, and sheathed with bluish hair. Two large antlers crowned his head.

Curran stood up. He raised the heart up, showing it to everyone, walked over to me, and dropped it at my feet.

Umm. What was I supposed to do with it?

His eyes were pure gold, still mad with bloodlust.

I stabbed the heart with Sarrat. It seemed like the thing to do.

Curran turned away from me and roared.

Every shapeshifter knelt as one. Heather’s archers, the Blades, Darin, Conlan, and I were the only ones standing on the entire field. On the tower, the Pale Queen stood frozen.

Curran had taken the Pack. It was his. The fight was over. We had won.

The magic permeating the field vanished, sucked toward the tower in an instant.

Magic crackled like lightning above the Pale Queen. The few remaining hunters who had survived Heather’s arrows ran from her. Some of them leaped off the tower and slid down its side, crashing into the grass.

The dark smoke boiled and expanded in slow motion, rolling over the tower, out and down. It caught the shapeshifters kneeling by the wall. Their gold collars flashed. Their heads exploded.

She was out of magic. Her best fighter and her priest-mages were dead. She was sacrificing her own people for a last boost of power. There were at least forty of them still alive on the field, most too injured to fight or run. She would kill them all, the elderly, the children, everyone with a collar. All of them would die.

“No, Sharratum, no!” Jushur screamed.

The magic shot out of me almost on its own. The very last of my reserves. All I could give. It rolled from me, pitifully weak. The world went gray. I fell but didn’t land.

There was a noise. It came from far away, as if I were deep underwater and someone was screaming for me on the shore. I floated in the desaturated mist, disconnected and scared. So scared.

I wanted to hug Conlan again. I wanted to kiss Curran and see him grin at me.

I still had too many things to do. I wouldn’t let it end here. No, not happening. I needed to get back to my family.

A faint tint of green began to spread along the edges of the colorless mist. The land. It was exhausted, its magic depleted and drained by the Pale Queen, and still, it was reaching out to me as it reached out to everyone.

I stretched my hand. A thin green shoot wove its way through the mist toward me.

Just a little more. A little bit.

The green touched my fingertips.

Reality rushed at me in a swirl of color and warmth, the sounds too loud, and I heard Conlan screaming into my ear, “Mom! Don’t die, don’t die!”

I made my lips move. “It’s fine,” I lied. “You’re fine. Everyone is fine.”

Conlan sobbed.

“Where is your father?”

“I’m here,” Curran said. “I’ve got you.”

Oh. He was holding me. That’s why it felt so nice.

“Love you,” I told him.

“Don’t do that again,” he snarled.

“Is everyone dead?”

He shifted me in his arms so I could see the fortress.

I had claimed a chunk of land, about a hundred yards wide and maybe three hundred yards long. All of our people were safe. A handful of Ice Age shapeshifters stood and sprawled inside my claim, bewildered but alive. Their collars lay at their feet. A couple of hunters, somehow on their feet, staggered toward me. Everyone else, all of her people, the hunters and the shapeshifters, were dead. The grass outside my territory was littered with headless corpses.

In front of us on top of the tower, an enormous phantom gripped the tower with five-foot-long bony fingers armed with huge claws. Her face belonged to the Pale Queen, but her mouth was full of fangs. A crown of bony horns and antlers rode on her head. Dark smoke swirled around her like a robe.

I had seen the smaller version of it before. That was the phantom the priest-mage had threatened me with in front of Penderton.

That was it? You killed all of your people for this? To turn yourself real big?

“Will she be okay?” Curran asked.

“Yes,” Jushur said. “She survived through no fault of her own. She will need food and rest.”

I need that bitch to die. Did she transform or was she projecting this phantom?

“I will get you that rest, baby. Wait for me.”

Okay, I’ll just wait right here.

A shape dashed across the rampart toward the giant phantom, a sword in his hand.

“Isaac,” I said.

“Where?” Curran squinted and saw him. “What the hell.”

The ranger leaped and scrambled up the phantom’s arm.

“She’s solid,” Jushur said.

Isaac reached the phantom’s shoulder, climbed up, and jumped. His body flew through the air, his back arched, both hands on his sword, and he plunged the blade into the phantom’s cheek. His dead weight hit it, and the sword ripped through the magic flesh, carving a gash in her face all the way to her lower jaw. Smoke and blood poured out of the wound.

The Pale Queen screamed and batted him aside like a fly. Isaac hurtled through the air out of view.

“She’s solid and she bleeds.” Curran lowered me to the ground. “Wait with Kate. Guard her.”

“Always,” Jushur told him.

“Conlan, protect your mother.”

“Yes, Alpha,” Conlan managed.

“I’ll be right back, baby.”

“Come back alive,” I told him.

“I promise.”

My husband roared. The shapeshifters pivoted toward him. He pointed at the monstrosity on the tower.

“Kill her!”

The Ice Age shapeshifters stared. Their eyes lit up.

Curran sprinted to the tower.

“For the Pack!” Keelan howled.

The Wilmington Pack charged the tower, and the Ice Age shapeshifters who could still move followed, joining in with deep guttural howls. Those too injured to run stared at the tower, their eyes on fire.

Rimush looked at me.

“Go,” I told him. “They will need help.”

He ran after the shapeshifters.

The creature reached down with her colossal hands, trying to crush the attackers, but they were too fast. A couple of breaths and they were scaling the walls, propelled by superhuman strength.

“I’m an old man,” Jushur told me. “Please don’t do this to me again, Sharratum. I don’t know how much of that kind of anxiety my weary heart can take.”

I smiled at him.

On the tower, the shapeshifters swarmed the phantom and ripped into her.

A lone shapeshifter, left behind a few yards away from us, shifted into a human shape. She was young, maybe fifteen or sixteen, and thin. Her ribs stood out under her pale skin. Her long brown hair was matted with blood. Her little horns protruded from her forehead.

She twisted her body into a sitting position, dragging an injured leg, and cried out a little.

Shapeshifters had enhanced regeneration, but it needed calories to work. All of the calories the Pale Queen had to spare for the shapeshifters must’ve gone to the fighters, those in their prime, not to the young and the elderly.

Conlan pulled something out of his clothes, walked over, and crouched in front of the girl.

She eyed him as if expecting a punch.

My son unwrapped the thing he was holding, broke off a small piece of the chocolate bar, put it in his mouth, and chewed.

She watched him.

He held the rest of the bar out to her. “Chocolate. It’s good.”

The girl reached out, hesitant.

Conlan held perfectly still.

I thought she would snatch the chocolate out of his hand, but she took it very slowly, watching him the whole time, brought it to her mouth, and bit into it.

Her eyes went wide.

Conlan smiled.

I sighed and watched as my husband and our people tore the Pale Queen to pieces.