A Shield of Faith (BOOK 4)

Chapter 12

ADARA

"Addie! Addie! Adara!"

Her name bounced across her temples on the flaming trails of her silver magick, blocked by the glimmer of magick which wrapped around her ears. Evyriaz's chains dragged against the peak of the spire when he stretched out his wings. His mouth opened wider into a soundless scream as Neven barked out orders behind her. Some of the Storm Wardens slumped to their hind-quarters, lost in the song lost to her. Others reached out to their fellows, trying desperately to block out the silent sounds. It rumbled the air whenever Evyriaz took a breath to continue. Each time the air rippled, Neven gasped and writhed, causing Yuven to hold out his arms with a harried frown until the rippling stopped.

"This is bad," Yuven hissed as they reached the steps, with Fenrer taking long strides to the doors. "I can't fly up there on Tix'snuv, I need him rested until the final moment."

Evyriaz smashed his tail into the side of the spire. Debris clattered when he tore his spiked tail through the white brick. Dust waterfalls flowed, and tendrils made of black crimson dug through and turned into spears of teeth. In another moment, Fenrer brought his hands together. Jade rivers flowed through his runic shield. Against the cascade of crimson teeth, he threw his arms out to give a golden barrier the momentum it needed. It roared against the clash. It seared and hissed, before bursting into tiny particles of red snow.

"Molvisaliz!" Yuven snapped as he wrapped an arm around Neven, who held the side of his head. "Are you alright?"

Fenrer shook out both his forearms when the runic expanders released a burst of green smoke through the exit points. "I'm fine." One more shake, and the smoke turned into a hiss of steam before it locked back against his forearm for a new intake of his power. "We need to get to the top. If it takes down the spire—" Adara frowned when his gaze shifted to Neven, and from the way Yuven's lips pursed, he noticed the same thing. "It will crush the streets and we need every avenue of opening," Fenrer gave his logical answer, but she doubted Yuven accepted it from the way his feathers thinned, but Fenrer twisted back to the tower with his own rumble of Hanekan, bringing a hand up to his brow to rest against it, a faithful stanza leaving his mouth as he squinted in dismay. "If this is truly Evyriaz, we have bigger problems than we guessed. If he lays waste here, there is too much of a chance he will move on and we may have another Great Crimson Dusk to contend with."

A wyvern who is also a man... who was never a god. Her truth weighed down the music begging for a taste of her silver lilybells. Evyriaz's tail whipped back and forth as his lower jaw split further, screeching into the firmament without taking wing into it. Adara checked on Yuven, who clung onto Neven with a return of the uncharacteristic worry.

Neven's sharp, white fangs revealed themselves and he nodded. "Let us not waste time that we do not have!" he snapped. "We must ascend the spire and stop the doomsong he's echoing!" He let go of Yuven, and rushed past her to keep pace with Fenrer, who opened the large doors with ease and into the crystalline foyer. Yuven's own fangs slid out with a nasal hiss, and he burst into a run, shoving her to the side with ease. Adara groaned and checked on the Storm Wardens they left behind before breaking into her own sprint to catch up with the three ahead. Up above, the chandeliers full of gemstones rumbled. It clinked against the hanging crystals as shadows grew in the deepest corners, tangling and bursting with rot. One of the largest tumors exploded, and Adara choked at the massive cloud of decay and mold.

"This is bad," Yuven hissed beside her. "It's going to start summoning Derelicts if it continues."

Adara tugged her feet away from the growing puddle of rotting veins when they unfurled through the white cracks. Her frown deepened when crimson burrs wrapped around the strange lift, as if the corrupted creature up above sensed their intent. "And exactly how safe are the stairs?" she questioned at another rumble of the spire, which groaned on its own rafters.