Page 325 of A Flame of the Phoenix

“I’m going back,” Zaiana informed them. “They need all the healing help they can get in there.”

Nerida and Tarly nodded firmly, and she shot to the sky.

She examined the field, noticing how they’d been pushed back too much, and though Tarly had wounded their magick wielder ranks, it was the bloodthirsty dark fae who attacked brutally that had the fae on her side retreating.

There were barely any dark fae left to help stop those on the enemy side from flying and dropping into the thick of their lines. Zaiana gritted her teeth, disappointed in her kin. They were trying to change the perception of the dark fae, yet the numbers who fought with her were negligible.

Zaiana decided to stay airborne. Instead of two sides of the field, it had turned to four. With Nik and Tauria leading a force in from the south, it helped to trap a large portion of the enemy on two sides. It would be an incredible advantage, were it not for the enemy that kept arriving from the skies and the land, also trapping Nik and Tauria’s force on two sides.

The enemy numbers felt endless.

Her heart nearly stopped when she spied the threat racing in from the south.

Skalies.

Zaiana had faced the wretched, mindless creatures in the Fire Mountains before, but why had they come down from there?

She was about to swoop down and warn Nik and Tauria, but to her shock, the skalies started slashing through the enemy side. Did they have no allegiance and simply craved blood? Zaiana didn’t have time to deliberate over it. Right now, they were making great impact against the enemy, which would help Nik and Tauria’s force.

Zaiana focused on the skies, using her lightning only to strike as many dark fae as she could before they descended into their lines.

It didn’t matter how tired she grew. How exhausted her magick was. How overwhelming the numbers were. Zaiana would not falter.

A dark fae approached from behind, and she spun, throwing out a spear of lightning, but they cleared the path of it. She charged again, her two metal-guarded fingers pointing toward the female dark fae.

“Wait, Zaiana!” she yelled, holding her hands up in surrender.

Zaiana held her lightning. She recognized the dark faze as one who had been a year behind her training grade. Giselle, Zaiana recalled.

A blade glinted, and Zaiana thought herself a fool for falling for her distraction, but the small dagger flew by her head, and Zaiana heard a choke before she pivoted, watching a dark fae tumble from the sky with the blade in his neck.

“We’ve come from the mountain. We’ve come to help you…Zaiana Vesaria.”

Right in front of her, more dark fae flew in from the north where the Mortus Mountains that had once chained them all were destroyed. In their freedom, they’d chosen to join her.Their wings beat fierce and triumphant as they merged into the enemy line and began fighting.

The numbers in the sky started to even out, and Zaiana’s body felt the relief that she was no longer at perilous odds in the sky.

“Thank you,” Zaiana whispered though they couldn’t hear her.

She watched with pride beating in her chest. They’d come at her call. They’d come because they believed in her.

Zaiana noticed the front line faltering and headed back to reform and strengthen where she could. She glamoured her wings, and as a riderless horse charged past, Zaiana ran with it, grabbing hold of the reins and leaping onto its back.

“We can’t fall back any farther—hold your lines!” she yelled to the commanders as she rode past.

Just as they were beginning to form a new formation, a loudboomtrembled the ground. The horse reared back, throwing Zaiana out of the saddle, but she caught herself with her wings, spinning in her lunge toward the source of the impact.

Darkness spilled over the ground, touching them all with chilling welcome of death. Standing in the center of the smoke that began to clear…

Dakodas had finally come.

The fighting eased off with the arrival of Dakodas. The enemy welcomed their leader; the opposition balked at her.

Zaiana would never yield.

She headed toward where Dakodas stood while the warriors behind her braced anew for when the battle would collide viciously again.

“Took you long enough,” Zaiana goaded. Her voice cut through the eerie, tension-filled pause of battle.

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