Page 69 of Sun Elves of Ardani

The creature lunged and bit down on Neiryn’s arm, quelling his fire. Neiryn shouted in pain, staggered, and stabbed his sword into the magic-eater’s eye socket. It released him with a start and backed away, trying to shake off the blade that was buried in its skull.

Kadaki jerked her hand sideways, and the air sparkled as her spell took form. The magic-eater flew into the far wall. She jerked her arm again and it sailed across the cavern into the opposite wall, then up into the ceiling, before finally smashing to the floor. Bones splintered and scattered. It was little more than a pile of shattered bits and swirling magic energy.

And yet, it was already starting to move again. Blue light swirled and bones quivered and righted themselves, sealing breaks and patching cracks. It was healing itself. Rapidly.

Kadaki ran to Neiryn’s side. His arm was covered in blood and he was grimacing in pain. She put her arm around him and raised a hand, drawing magic into a spell. She was tempted to just leave with Neiryn, now that she had him.

But she spun, looking around the room for all the other elves. Fourteen of them, including herself and Neiryn. Fourteen that were still alive. The more people were in a group, the more difficult it was to shift them. The most she’d done before was four. And normally, she had to be touching them.

But as she wove the spell together, she realized none of that mattered. Power radiated from her skin, from her very breath. She located all the elves and extended the spell to them. She whispered spell-words.

And then they were all in the grass beside the dig site with the sun shining cheerfully down on them.

Chapter 19

Kadaki and Neiryn were the only ones still on their feet after they shifted. Everyone else had fallen to the soft grass as the spell shifted them.

Kadaki was still overflowing with strength. The spells had hardly drained her at all. She bit back a smile. It was probably not the time for smiles.

“Gods…” Neiryn groaned softly, squeezing his hand over his elbow. His forearm looked mangled. It hung limply, dripping blood.

Kadaki’s urge to smile vanished. “Sit down.”

“Check Eliyr, first.”

“You’re in pain.”

“I don’t know how bad his injuries are. It might be urgent. I can wait.”

Reluctantly, she went to Eliyr. He was crumpled on the ground, his hands over his eyes.

He shouldn’t have been there. He was too young, too inexperienced. He’d been assigned to this mission when they’d thought it was just an archaeological dig. Before they’d known they were up against a magic-eater.

“Everything is going to be all right,” she said, because although she was not very good at being a nice person, it seemed like the type of thing a nice person would say at that moment. Maybe she was wrong about that, because Eliyr just glared at her. Furious tears shone in his eyes.

She took no offense at the warning look, because he was afraid and hurt. “You did nothing wrong. More would have died if you hadn’t been there.”

It didn’t seem to help. He looked away as the tears spilled over and fell down his cheeks. Kadaki pressed her lips together and raised her hand over him, casting a healing spell.

Roshan appeared beside her, touching her arm as if in concern for her, but his eyes were on Eliyr. “What happened? Are you all right?”

Her spell revealed some disturbances in the bones and muscle on his left side, where the magic-eater must have hit him. But she saw nothing deadly among his injuries. Some bleeding, which she could fix easily. “We’re fine. Don’t worry, Roshan.”

“It didn’t go well, I take it?”

“Not very well, no.”

He watched over her shoulder as she finished with Eliyr, then remained by his side when she moved on to Neiryn.

Rhian was checking on the rest of the soldiers. All of them were covered in blood and soot. She was speaking to someone else in Ysuran as Kadaki passed, but her eyes were following Kadaki.

Neiryn was sitting on the ground, holding his arm. He looked up as Kadaki approached and gave her a wobbly grin. It was the sort of half-hysterical expression someone wore when they’d just narrowly avoided certain death and didn’t know how to feel about it. “What a disaster,” he muttered.

“Doesn’t get much worse than this,” she agreed.

“It could be worse. We’re alive.”

“When did you become so annoyingly optimistic? I don’t remember you being this way before.”

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