I waver for a second, however a look on the carnage on the battlefield has me scrambling down the ladder.

I grasp Alek’s arm. “I believe there’s one other scourge sorcerer boosting their companions’ energy from the farmlands to the west. I’m going to comply with the path of their magic. It is likely to be nothing. I’ll sign you all with my locket if I would like backup. If I don’t, deal with the battle right here.”

“Ivy—” Alek begins, his eyes wild.

With a pang of remorse, I squeeze his arm and let go. “I’ve to rush. I’ll see you when that is over.”

Then I take off at a run within the route the crow flew, hoping I didn’t simply inform the scholar my final lie.

Forty-Two

Ivy

As exhausting as our weeks touring throughout the nation have been, they’ve hardened my muscle tissue past any of my earlier conditioning. I used to be by no means a weakling, however loping throughout the grassy terrain now comes a lot simpler than it will have after I’d solely simply left Florian.

As I jog to the southwest, I hold my strides lengthy and swift with out pushing myself so laborious that I’ll get too winded to keep up the tempo.

The tingle of magic step by step thickens. There’s an entire torrent of it flowing towards the skirmish relatively than seeping off the battlefield.

Somebody’s positively bolstering the scourge sorcerers’ power.

If I can cease them earlier than the Darium troops are fully overpowered, the 2 sides would possibly nonetheless wipe one another out. Hopefully earlier than any of the boys I’ve given my coronary heart to cost into the fray.

I catch another flicker of darkish wings towards the celebs up forward, however I don’t want the crow to information me. I merely transfer towards the deeper thrum of the magic, shifting course barely after I sense it diminishing.

“Kosmel,” I murmur, tapping my hand down my entrance like I noticed Stavros don’t way back. The gesture of the divinities feels awkward.

I’ve not often used it, not often trusted on the gods to have my greatest pursuits at coronary heart. However I would like each little bit of help I would get.

I elevate my voice simply barely. “Should you can hear me, please watch over me now. Assist me see the best way to defeat this foe with out dropping myself.”

I don’t anticipate to listen to the overwhelming divine voice resonating by my head. The godlen of trickery instructed me himself that he needed to keep extra distant. However I believe I really feel a delicate tug on my hair as if affectionately teasing.

Possibly it’s solely my thoughts taking part in tips and never Kosmel, however he got here by for me earlier than. Whereas I don’t know what guidelines the gods must play by, I truly consider he’ll information me if he can.

The difficulty is, I don’t know but whether or not his steering can be sufficient.

We’ve gotten by loads of tight spots with out his help, Julita remarks. You got here up with this complete plan with none divine intervention. No matter’s up forward, we will deal with it ourselves.

She speaks within the archly assured tone I’m most used to from her, however I do know her effectively sufficient by now to understand that it’s often a entrance. She’s received to be nervous too.

“I’ve two knives,” I say, taking inventory for her profit in addition to my very own. The third I used to be nonetheless carrying I needed to depart on the opposite aspect of the channel. “Whoever’s over there gained’t anticipate anybody to hint their magic, so I’ll have the component of shock. I simply must be good about it.”

And I’ve little question you’ll be able to handle that.

The nook of my mouth crooks upward in half a smile at my ghostly passenger’s validation, however I lapse into silence—each for the sake of stealth and to keep away from dropping any extra of my breath.

As I hint the reverberating power by the chilly night time breeze, the bottom beneath my ft slants upward. I sluggish, peering up the slope.

A darkish form looms on the high. The faintest glow hazes one of many second-floor home windows dealing with the battlefield, so slight I couldn’t have made it out from even fifty paces additional away.

Our enemy is up there.

I prowl by the overgrown grass to the plateau across the constructing.

Nearer up, I can inform it’s a farmhouse, however one which will need to have been deserted. The weeds develop excessive alongside its partitions, and the entrance steps have caved in. The glass within the home windows is cracked.

In one of many first-story home windows, the pane is lacking fully.

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