Page 150 of Skyshade
It was time.
She called it forward and her chest glowed, the skyre’s starlike pattern shining through her clothes, through the sky, like a beam of light. She was engulfed in power, brimming with it, like she had swallowed the sun and moon and stars and sky and all the universe between them.
Her back bent, her arms splayed out—and she launched it all toward the sky in a beam of unyielding, otherworldly strength.
She was the lightning.
The world thundered in response.
She could feel it across the island, the seam of the portal ripping open, called forward by its power, recognizing it.
From a distance, she saw clouds gathering, forming from nowhere, as if they had been portaled here.
They were dark, heavy, worse than any storm she had seen during the season.
And when they broke open, they did not rain water.
They rained creatures.
Scaled, clawed beasts fell from the sky in endless waves.
Grim saw them first. A stampeded of twisted creatures, with far too many limbs and necks and heads, barreling right toward them.
At first, his shadows killed them all. Oro’s fire burned anything that hadn’t become ash.
But then, the rain became droplets of metal. Shademade.
And all their powers—including Isla’s—withered away.
The sky turned crimson. A wind toppled her over—she only escaped death by clinging to Wraith’s ridges. She pulled herself up, flattened against his spine, and said, “Wait. Not yet.”
The ground was overrun by snarling creatures, by boneless soldiers who worked as one, surrounding those she loved.
She watched, her skin itching to go there, to fight by their sides, to use her swords the way she had been trained.
But she stayed in the center of the storm as clouds began to circle her. It was quiet. Dark. She could barely see beyond the night-tipped clouds.
That was when a flash of lightning lit the skies for just a moment—revealing that they weren’t clouds at all but shadow-shade beasts.
The light vanished. Isla trembled against Wraith’s back.
And cries like a talon cutting across the night itself filled the sky. She gritted her teeth against the sound, and then Wraith was off—flying as fast as he could, away from the beasts that trailed them through the storm. He went higher, and higher, past the clouds. For a moment, she thought they had lost them.
Then fangs were illuminated by another flash of lightning, nearly closing upon Wraith’s wing.
“Move!” she screamed, and the dragon ducked, turning, diving headfirst back into the storm. She held on for dear life, sweat-slicked fingers fighting to keep purchase.
The creature did not slow. It chased them through the storm with spiked wings and massive fangs that curled out of its leathery lips, mouth open, ready to swallow them whole.
Until it was devoured by a creature larger than a mountain.
The dragon shot back, just before it suffered the same fate. Isla swallowed.
The storm itself seemed to still, as the beast straightened to its full height—and roared from half a dozen mouths. It had wings that wholly blocked the sky, and six heads, each bigger than Wraith.
Slowly, very slowly, each of those heads turned its sights on them.
That’s when she saw Lark sitting on the creature’s back, watching her.
