Page 178 of The Trials of Ophelia

“Malakai!” Mila said, running up to me and taking over for the boy, sending him to help the next soldier. Her hands fluttered over my armor, checking the buckles. As I watched, a bit of that haunting from the Labyrinth fought to enter her eyes.

I gripped her hands, holding them to my chest. She wouldn’t be able to feel my racing heart through the metal, but her eyes locked to mine, wide and concerned.

“Are you with us?” she asked, and I knew what she truly meant. Was I here? Was I prepared for what we were about to face?

“I’m with you,” I swore to her. “I’m not going anywhere.” Relief washed away her ghosts, and though we were about to face brutality, I sighed in agreement. She and I had overcome so much since we met. Tonight wouldn’t be any different. “Now tell me what’s happened? How are they already here?”

Mila swallowed. “Lyria’s spies—someone betrayed us. We don’t know who, but the information they fed us was false.”

My blood chilled. “Let’s go.”

Kakias’s army was thrice what we had been told to prepare for, and apparently there were more coming. I hoped Ophelia’s group would not be in their way.

Their force marched toward where the border dipped across a low valley, wrapping further north than we had expected. They stretched well beyond our archers’ range, providing a dangerous opportunity for them to surround us. And they’d been testing our weakest spots for weeks; they knew where their best chances were—where we’d likely reinforced our line, stretching ourselves thin.

A blood-chilling howl rang out through the night. They came mounted on wolves.

Giant beasts in a range of browns and grays and blacks, snarling and howling up to the moon. Their jaws snapped—not the docile creature Barrett had tamed these past months. No, these were creatures under Kakias’s control.

The paws and boots created a haunting rhythm across the snow, ice crunching.

At the edge of our border, at the rim looking into the valley, they froze. Their presence instilled the night with a gentle, eerie hum.

Night breathed darkness into the land, the only light aside from the moon and stars was from the torches lining our outposts. Shadows seemed deeper around their force, like that dark rolling power of their queen.

Lyria sat atop Calista at the head of our legion, staring across the valley. Quilian and Mila were on either side of our commander, with me on Mila’s other side. Cyren was sheltered behind us all, communing with the stars, but even they would join the charge when the time came.

“Why did they stop?” Mila whispered. “If they mean to cross the border anyway…”

“So we break first,” Lyria answered. Her eyes flicked over the enemy, looking for weaknesses.

This was not how I envisioned an attack would strike. I thought it would be quick collisions and brutal charges. Not this silence stretching across the valley, crawling across my skin. I fidgeted in the saddle.

“Why are we waiting?” I asked.

“There will be a lot of death tonight,” Quilian foretold, his eyes slightly glazed as his Soulguider magic spiked and relayed the ends of lives. “The Spirits are hungry.”

“The Fates are singing,” Cyren began, coming back to themself, “but I cannot tell of victory or destruction.”

The prophetic words deepened the dragging sensation across my skin until my bones vibrated with it.

“Our war cries will sing with them,” Lyria said. Raising a hand, she snapped, and an orb of mystlight shot to life above her palm. I jumped in the saddle, watching the swirling white glow.

With an inhale and a face set in grim destruction, the Master of Weapons and Warfare pulled her arm down.

And arrows rained across the sky.

More than I could count. They sank into the depths of the Engrossian army, met by distant shuffles as soldiers fell. But there were few cries at the impact.

Lyria flicked her hand up again, a second mystlight popping into existence.

But right as she was about to give the signal, a soldier stepped forward from their line. His movements were too graceful for a man of his size to be natural, even for a warrior.

And despite the distance, it was clear he had his eyes locked on one target: our commander.

A quiet gasp escaped Lyria as the man raised his fist, mimicking her motion. Her jaw ticked as she waited, braid whipping in the icy wind.

“That’s Hughsten,” Mila whispered to me, voice trembling. “It has to be. I’d heard he worked his way up the ranks.”

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