[This post is from Marin’s point of view.]
My voice lodged in my throat as the first get of fire shot from one of his hands, lancing out into the rain and the wind, catching a camazotzi in the chest. The stench of burning flesh hit me like a punch to the face and I reeled, would have fallen if Phelan’s arm wasn’t still locked around my shoulders.
“Steady,” he whispered.
I grit my teeth, reaching for an arrow. Seamus ordered another volley.
Rory was building a ball of flame between his palms, his jaw set, something dark in his eyes, a grim determination that I’d seen only a few times in all the years I’d known him. He stared out over the field, his gaze roaming, as if he was searching for something.
“Archers ready,” Seamus called on the other side of Phelan.
Matt’s hand wrapped around my arm before I could draw. I looked at him and he stared back, a bleakness in his eyes. “It’s not good,” he whispered.
“Sif?”
He nodded. “If she dies, he’s going to snap.”
My stomach bottomed out and I swallowed the bile that suddenly crept upward in my throat. “I know,” I whispered, feeling ice water sluice through my veins. “But there’s nothing I can do about that right now except end this fight, so if you’ve got any bright ideas, I’m open to suggestions.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the glow building in the last second before Rory sent a massive ball of fire spinning out over the field. It sailed in an arc out over the battlefield, starting to fall after it had gone a few dozen yards.
It hit without a sound and then exploded in a bright flash.
All I could hear were the screams of the camazotzi caught in the explosion.
Then, there was nothing but the rain.
