Her mother made a break for the door that led to the dungeon. “Shit, get her!” Lily caught her mother, wrapping her arm around her chest.

Even bony and weak she was strong as an ox. “Rosa help me!” Rosa came over and quickly chanted some words then laid her fingers on her mother's struggling forehead. Her mother instantly calmed, her body going lax.

Lily popped open the corked porting potion and held it to her mother's lips. The drink went down with some struggling and gargling noises. She broke halfway through the potion to make sure she didn't drown in the awful drink before giving her the last of it.

“How is she going to say the last of the spell?”

Rosa looked grim. “I can do it for her.” Rosa laid her hand over her mother's forehead and then her mother started speaking the spell from her own lips. Lily and Rosa let go of her and she disappeared before their eyes.

“You should go back too and help her. She won't know anyone there.”

Rosa shook her head. “I'm needed here. I can feel it.”

“Let's go then.”

Lily and Rosa walked swiftly, silently, down a long corridor, the sounds of male voices growing louder. “It's Alrik and Telal. I recognize their voices.”

Lily peered into the room, staying to the wall, and saw Alrik's black magic slithering out of his hand and wrapping around Telal. Telal dropped to the ground, screaming as the black bands squeezed around his struggling body, forcing him to the ground. Hard bounding footsteps tore her gaze away from the sight. Lily tensed as the footsteps came towards them but relaxed as she saw familiar faces.

Lyonis stopped on the other side of the doorway. Alongside him were Rayn and Henry. “What are you doing here?”

Before Lily could respond, a taller, bigger man stepped out from behind them. Kearnyn. His eyes locked so hard onto Rosa the look felt like a slap.

“What are you doing here?”

“We came to free her mother and help.”

“Get out of here now,” Lyonis said. “Most of the guards are dead but a swarm of demon assassins are headed this way. They’ve already killed the Atal Warriors and nearly took out Jackie and Thane. They are incredibly fighters.”

A blood-curling scream brought Lily's gaze back inside the dining hall. Alrik stood like a trembling evil force, his palms facing the ground summoning something from the earth. Insects. Swarms and swarms of them, making a hideous cracking sound as they crawled up from beneath the stone floor in groves and scuttled across the floor to Telal. Lily didn’t know what they were but she knew they couldn't touch him.

Running into the room, Lily chanted a quick spell and thrust her arm out. The beetle-like insects screamed as they were kicked back with a tidal force of air.

She had only a moment to hear Rosa's scream when Alrik's blackened eyes settled on her and black magic shot at her. She ran and rolled on the ground. The blast hit the wall where she'd been, the stone crumbling to the ground, sizzling and smoking like acid ate away at it.

“Get up, Telal!” she screamed.

His wide, angry eyes met her and then he spoke in demonic and white light pierced him, killing the black tendrils covering him. He stood and she saw the blood drenching his leg, pooling around him.

“Get out of here!” he roared.

So much seemed to happen at once that Lily felt struck, frozen in place. Demon assassins like she'd seen at Telal's headquarters rushed into the room followed by Telal's own team. Lyonis roared a sound so piercing she had to cover her ears as he shifted into a great hulking beast like a wolverine full of thick fur, vicious talons, and a muzzle of razor-sharp teeth. He jumped into a crowd of demons, throwing his arms around, knocking them away, snapping at heads and biting them off.

Henry, Rayn, Draven, and Kearnyn followed bearing an assortment of weapons from double-bladed axes to two sharp swords. They whipped their weapons in a fast circle, so fast the motion blurred together and ran against the demons, slicing off arms and legs in great bloody sweeps.

Lily found herself backing up. Rosa ran up to her and she knew she spoke but all she could do was watching the chaos happen around her. She should be moving, she should be helping, acting but fear, shock, and her own inadequacies overwhelmed her. She couldn't do any of the great things she was seeing.

Animalistic growls sounded in the room bouncing off the walls and then Thane and Jackie were there. Jackie shapeshifted into a ginger-haired cat so much larger than any she'd ever seen. And in a startling move, she sprinted across the hall, bounding up against the walls then pounced on a group of three demons at once, all snarls, growls, and claws cutting out throats and faces.

Thane shapeshifted into a beast like Lyonis' only smaller, without so much hair to where she could see the grisly muscles of the beast. He ran, diving into the fray and knocking demons off their feet, biting off limbs while sustaining his own blows.

Blood sprayed, people screamed, shouted.

Lily turned at last and saw Telal and Alrik in the midst of their own personal battle as if separated from everyone else. Maybe he'd arranged it so that only he would fight his brother or maybe that was just how it'd played out. They shot bolts of black power at each other and with each one Lily saw Telal's face turn paler.

“I need to help him.”

“No!” said Rosa. “Just stay here.”

Lily jerked her arm out of Rosa's grasp and veered right to stay clear of the battle going down. Still, she flinched and stumbled at the sound of breaking silverware, crashing tables, and walls being torn down. Lily palmed her dagger as Telal staggered backwards under the force of Alrik's spell. Whatever Alrik was casting at him he was trying hard to keep it off him.

Lily took the dagger by the blade, steadied herself, then let it fly. The blade speared through the air turning end over end before landing in Alrik's stomach. The demon king stopped casting as electrical surges jolted through his body. He jerked the blade from his gut and threw it away.

Lily had only a moment before the force of his lethal gaze landed on her, making her the soul focus of his attention. Then he yelled something in demonic and several things happened all at once.

Something black and ugly struck her in the gut, lifting her off her feet, then slamming her to the ground. The pain was instant and engulfing, pushing its way inside of her and eating at her. Her lungs struggled to breathe air and blood burst from her nose and mouth. She tried to move but pain only intensified. From the corner of her eyes she watched Telal's shocked expression as he turned on Alrik with the most vicious face she'd ever seen him make.

The pain was too much and Lily let it pull her into unconsciousness.

CHAPTER 44

Telal watched Lily fall to the ground and knew she'd die. He knew the spell that Alrik had just cast upon her would bring so much pain she'd wish she were dead until finally the spell worked its magic and strangled the life from her, cutting off her airways and clotting her arteries.

Telal shook with rage. He advanced on Alrik and casted his own magic, using the bit of darkness that resided deep inside him to tear him down to the ground and choke the life from him. Alrik fell to his knees, clutching his neck, the veins on his forehead sticking out thick and hard from the blood pumping in his body.

“It didn't have to be like this.” He stood over his brother's body sword in one hand and picked up the dagger Alrik had tossed away. He came back to his brother and stabbed him in the chest, yanking the blade from him before the electrical currents could ravage his body. He wanted this to be slow, as painful as his bleeding heart.

Telal surveyed the room and found his team winning. Bleeding and hurt, but winning. Rosa was kneeling over Lily and he forced himself away from the sight. It hurt so much to look at her that it staggered him. It took every ounce of strength inside him not to fall to his knees and crawl to her, hold her one last time. Vengeance first. He needed blood.