The man stopped when a sword was thrust through his chest. He stared down at it in surprise for a moment, then looked up to Hallow, his face filled with regret even as his form dissolved into nothing.
Another arrow split the air, catching the Eidolon who had impaled the guard in the throat. He snarled and yanked it out, stalking forward, a massive sword held in one hand, obviously prepared to cleave his enemies in two.
A roar sounded behind him even as Hallow rained down arcany on the Eidolon, melting him where he stood.
“Eidolon!” Deo bellowed, jumping onto the fallen column to quickly assess the situation before leaping off it with a cry that Hallow knew full well expressed unbridled joy.
There was nothing Deo liked more than a reason to fight.
“To the left,” Allegria said, firing two more arrows before following Deo.
Kelos was originally laid out in a series of concentric rings, the center of which was the sole intact structure, the Master’s Tower, where he and Allegria resided. Normally, a hush lay over the ruins, the grey ground muffling all but the sharpest of sounds. Now, however, the entire north side was filled with bodies as the spirits who resided there, once arcanists and learned men and women, fought two dozen of the biggest men Hallow had ever seen. They weren’t huge, like the Harborym, but tall and thin, and all of them wore the armor of an age long past, their long white hair whipping around them as they spun, slashed, and stabbed.
Hallow didn’t pause to consider the irony of spirits fighting other spirits—he simply ran when Allegria slid off Buttercup, nocking another arrow. “Hallow! That’s the thane over by the armory.”
He ran, gathering up arcany from the skies above and the ground below, the power of life from all living things surrounding him.
Allegria paused long enough to yell back instructions to her apprentice. “Ella, keep to the fringes and watch Quinn’s back. Quinn?”
Quinn nodded, gripping the scimitars he favored. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”
Dexia, the being of dark origins who appeared to be nothing more than a girl child of approximately ten summers, dashed past Hallow, showing a mouthful of extremely pointed teeth, and with a shriek, flung herself on a spirit that was about to cleave Deo’s head from his body. Her hands and teeth shredded the form of the spirit before he even knew what was happening.
Reddish gold light flowed around Deo when he slammed magic into another Eidolon, causing the warrior to burst into a shower of silver rain. Hallow sighted the thane, one of the three kings who ruled the Eidolon, fighting a familiar ghostly form.
The captain of the Kelos guard was doing his best to keep up with the thane, but even as Hallow watched, the captain was cleaved in two, from his shoulder down to the opposite hip.
Anger roared to life in Hallow. Ever since Hallow had assumed his role as Master of Kelos, the captain of the guard had been nothing but a burr in his side, but the captain was his burr, and no one else had a right to smite him. He allowed the chaos magic to slip out of control just a little, sending out a wave of the sickly red energy that destroyed everything it touched. Unfortunately, the thane had seen Allegria and, obviously remembering her visit to his crypt, yelled an oath and charged toward her.
Hallow spun around to help Allegria, but another Eidolon leaped forward, slicing at his leg, cutting deep into his thigh and making him stagger to the side. “Allegria! Behind you!” he yelled, warning her of the oncoming thane. She turned from where she’d taken up a position on the fallen roof of a house, her long, narrow swords flashing silver and gold as she fought.
“Goddesses of day and night protect us all,” Hallow swore, jerking the black staff from his back, aware that it wasn’t as potent as it should be without Thorn atop it, but focusing his arcany into it even as one hand danced, drawing blood magic symbols that hung in the air before slowly forming into a chain. He flung the chain on the Eidolon who had crippled him at the same time he slammed down his staff, blasting the spirit with arcany.
“What the—” There was an answering explosion from the south that for a moment, had him turning in surprise. Had Deo suddenly mastered the magic of the Starborn? He’d been threatening as much during the entire trip from Eris, but Hallow had no time to ascertain what had happened. “Stay strong, my heart! I’m coming to help you.” He ran as fast as he could with his injured leg, his eyes on Allegria while she fought the Eidolon who had climbed onto the roof with her. Over the heads of other Eidolon, Hallow could see the crowned head of the thane, indicating the king was working his way toward Allegria.
Hallow gritted his teeth against the pain and weakness in his leg, slashing out with the staff at the same time he alternated between sending balls of pure arcany into the mass of Eidolon and drawing the blood symbols that formed into chains taking down every Eidolon within range.
Another blast sounded from the south, this one closer, strong enough to rock the buildings.
“That was not from Deo,” he growled to himself. He wanted desperately to see whether it was friend or foe who was wielding arcany, but greater still was the need to protect his love. A half dozen Eidolon stood between him and the thane, who was even now starting to climb the crumbled wall that gave access to the collapsed roof. With effort, Hallow stood still, gathered up every last morsel of arcany he could, and released it in a blast that not only sent the spirits around him flying, but knocked the thane down the wall at the same time. Rock and dust exploded around them, showering down in a painful rain. Hallow ignored the debris as he stumbled forward, slamming bolts of magic into the fallen Eidolon attempting to rise.
The thane snarled something in a language foreign to Hallow, leaping up the wall and lunging toward Allegria at the same time she sliced off the head of the Eidolon nearest her.
“Allegria!” Hallow yelled again, but she had seen the approach of the thane, and spun around to face him. He noted quickly that although she held both swords in her hands, her chest rose and fell rapidly, and her face was dirty with dust and sweat. She’d told him that she had barely escaped with her life the last time she’d met the thane, and now here she was facing him when she was clearly tired from fighting what seemed like a never-ending wave of spirit warriors.
Hallow started chanting as he climbed after the thane, his injured leg buckling under the strain, slipping out from under him and causing him to fall forward. He swore profanely, calling on Bellias to give him the strength needed to wield her magic as he tried to rise. To his surprise, strong hands grabbed him by his arms, jerking him upward.
“Master Hallow, I assume?” one of the two men grasping him asked. He was a short, stocky man with a close-trimmed beard, and the blue eyes of an arcanist. “I’m Tygo. That’s Aarav. You called for us, and here we are. Just in time, it would appear.”
“The thane,” Hallow said, struggling to get up the fallen wall. “That’s my wife up there with him. Help her!”
Aarav, a tall, thin man who was one of the arcanists Hallow had summoned upon leaving Eris, leaped forward, a blue-white ball of arcany in his hands. Allegria, with a cry that warmed Hallow’s heart, leaped to the side, her swords slashing as she turned toward the thane, positioning him so that Hallow—and the other arcanists—could blast him back to his crypt.
Hallow stood at the top of the wall, his breath ragged and rasping while he summoned the last of his strength, holding the staff as arcany rippled down his arms onto the wooden shaft, little white and blue tendrils of magic snapping in the air, making
