Page 87 of Of Flames and Crows

Come, my witch.Hellreaver nudged her gently, his voice quivering.We still have work to do.

The weapon sniffed.

Mae swallowed and nodded. “Thanks, Hell.”

The hellish power leaking into the Earth finally abated when the fissure closed. She retracted her magic from Nikolai and steadied the sorcerer as he swayed.

Hellreaver caught Alastair when he plummeted from Nikolai’s shoulder. The weapon lowered the limp crow to the floor of the nexus, just as Mae did his barely conscious sorcerer.

Will they be okay?Hellreaver said worriedly.Their heartbeats are really slow.

“Yeah.”

Mae slumped cross-legged on the ground and leaned her hands behind her, feeling drained all of a sudden.

“We’re in the nexus after all,” she mumbled. “We just need to give them time to recover.”

To her surprise, the white magic around her slowly replenished her depleted core too.

Well, Mom was the first white magic user, after all. Maybe the nexus can sense this.

Hellreaver squirmed next to her.

“What is it?” Mae murmured.

The weapon indicated the unconscious sorcerer with a tilt of a blade.You could always kiss him awake, like in fairytales.His lecherous tone brightened.Better still, you could do all the naughty things you’ve been fantasizing about doing to—Hellreaver stilled at her glare.I’ll…just go hover over there, shall I?

“You do that,” Mae snapped.

CHAPTER36

Heat flooded Roman’s veins. “Ignite!”

Filomena’s claws sank into his shoulder as Fire Magic detonated outside the golden barrier they stood within. It ripped through the training ground and smashed into the black-magic sorcerers and witches whose shields were too weak to hold against the attack.

The men and women screamed as flames raced up their clothes and reddened their flesh.

“Inferno!” Ludmila invoked, jaw tight and Brimstone hovering protectively over her.

Her salamander’s pupils ignited. The blaze that exploded from the tip of her cane sent cracks racing across the stone beneath them as it arrowed toward Barquiel.

The demon moved nimbly out of the path of her attack, his expression almost bored. Lines furrowed his brow when the spell zoomed around the arena and came at him once more.

Ludmila smirked.

Barquiel deflectedInfernowith his broadsword. It engulfed his blade. He snarled, corruption blossoming around him. Ludmila’s Fire Magic dissipated, the flames smothered by the vile energy.

The witch cursed.

Roman’s heart raced with trepidation as he glanced across the arena. The barrier Violet and Miles had erected was the only thing that was still holding against the Dark Council’s relentless attacks. Klara and the other Moon Magic users were feeding it with their powers where they’d retreated to their side.

Marlena, Julius, and the Vissarions’ Fire Magic users faced off against Oscar at the east end of the arena, their shields quivering as his orbs slammed into them.

The only other ones outside the barrier were Vlad and Cortes.

The two men were engaged in a deadly battle with a woman wielding amber spell bombs. Blood dripped from Cortes’s many wounds as he clasped one of Vlad’s diamond-edged swords, the blade blurring in his hands like he’d used it for years. Tarang shielded him from the witch’s blasts.

Movement in the sky captured Roman’s attention. His stomach roiled when he saw the clouds moving across it. A dark pall soon covered the training ground. The clouds started spinning ominously, sparks of black lightning crackling amidst them.

---