A gust of snow brings me back. The only thing I need to be concerned with is what happens now. Survive. Win.
Blue-tinged energy bursts through the splintering wall, pulsing across the foot-wide expanse of emptiness. Davidson holds the shield in place with an outstretched hand. A drop of blood drips off his chin, steaming in the cold.
A silhouette on the other side pummels the shield, fists raining knuckled hell down on the rippling field. Another strongarm joins the shadow and works to widen the gap, attacking stone instead. The shield grows with their efforts.
“Be ready,” Davidson says. “When I split the shield, fire with everything.”
We obey, preparing to strike.
“Three.”
Purple sparks web between my fingers and weave into a pulsing ball of destructive light.
“Two.”
The bombers kneel in formation, like snipers. Instead of guns, they just have their fingers and eyes.
“One.”
With a twitch, the blue shield cuts in two and slams the pair of strongarms into the walls with sickening cracks of bone. We fire through the opening, my lightning a blaze. It illuminates the darkness beyond, showing a dozen berserker soldiers ready to rush the breach. Many drop to their knees, spitting fire and blood as the bombers explode their insides. Before any can recover, Davidson seals the shield again, catching a returning volley of bullets.
He looks surprised by our success.
On the wall above us, a fireball churns in the black storm, a torch against the false night. Cal’s fire spreads and strikes in a snake of flame. The red heat turns the sky to scarlet hell.
I just clench a fist and gesture at Davidson.
“Again,” I tell him.
It’s impossible to mark the passage of time. Without the sun, I have no idea how long we spend battling the breach. Even though we push back the assault again and again, every attempt widens the gap bit by bit. Inches for miles, I tell myself. On the wall, the wave of soldiers has not won the ramparts. The ice bridges keep coming back, and we keep fighting them. A few corpses land in the street, beyond even a healer’s touch. Between strikes, we drag the bodies into the alleyways, out of sight. I search each dead face, holding my breath every time. Not Cal, not Farley. The only one I recognize is Townsend, his neck snapped clean. I expect a wash of guilt or pity, but I feel nothing. Just the knowledge that strongarms are up on the walls as well, tearing our soldiers apart.
Davidson’s shield stretches across the gap in the wall, now at least ten feet wide, yawning open like stone jaws. Bodies lie in the open mouth. Smoking corpses felled by lightning, or brutally ripped open by a bomber’s merciless stare. Through the quivering field of blue, shadows gather in the darkness, waiting to try our wall again. Hammers of water and ice batter against Davidson’s ability. A banshee scream reverberates off its expanse, and even the echo is painful to our ears. Davidson winces. Now the blood on his face streaks with sweat dripping down his forehead, nose, and cheeks. He sprints toward his limit, and we are running out of time.
“Someone get me Rafe!” I shout. “And Tyton.”
A runner sprints off as soon as the words are out of my mouth, vaulting up the steps to find them. I watch the wall above, searching for a familiar silhouette.
Cal works a manic rhythm, perfect as a machine. Step, turn, strike. Step, turn, strike. Like me, he finds an empty place where survival is the only thought. At every break in the oncoming rush of enemies, he re-forms his soldiers, directing the Reds in their fire, or working with Akkadi and Lory to eliminate another target in the darkness. How many are dead, I can’t say.
Another corpse tumbles from the ramparts, end over end. I grab his arms to drag him off before I realize his armor is not armor at all, but scaled pieces of stony flesh, smoldering with the heat of a fire prince’s anger. I draw back surprised, as if burned myself. A stoneskin. The few clothes on his dead body are blue and gray. House Macanthos. Norta. One of Maven’s.
I swallow hard against the implication. Maven’s forces have reached the walls. We aren’t just fighting Lakelanders anymore. A roar of fury rises in my chest and I almost wish I could storm through the breach myself. Tear through everything on the other side. Hunt him down. Kill him between his army and mine.
Then the corpse grabs me.
He twists, and my wrist breaks with a snap. I shriek against the sudden bleeding pain racing up my arm.
Lightning ripples from my flesh, escaping me like a scream. It covers his body in purple sparks and lethal, dancing light. But either his stony flesh is too thick or his resolve is too strong. The stoneskin does not let go, his pincerlike fingers now clawing at my neck. Explosions blossom along his back, the work of bombers. Bits of stone slough off him like dead skin and he howls. His grip only tightens with the pain. I make the mistake of trying to pry off his hands, now locked around my throat. His rocky flesh cuts my skin, and blood wells up between my fingers, red and hot in the frozen air.