Shion pulled her after him, but she saw a multitude of Weir bearing down on them. He could not stop such an onslaught himself, and she knew it. Hunching her shoulders, she dug her boots into the ground to stop and shoved her wrists forward, letting her own fireblood sear into the ranks of maddened creatures.

Come, child! I feel your presence. Come to me, lost daughter!

The voice in her mind was full of suffering and despair. A caged one, a victim, a being so thirsty for freedom she was desiccated. Wave after wave of emotion broke against Phae’s mind, a pleading and yearning deeper than the ocean. She looked past the charging Weir, past the other sentinels guarding it, then saw the tree.

She could sense its unfathomable age deep down into the core of herself, the part of herself that was aching and trembling and that had nearly expelled the innate magic that was a part of her since childhood. She felt her Dryad magic throbbing, causing a wave of painful wrenching that tore through her violently. Phae gasped at the swell of it, at the insurmountable agony of being so close to a tree that was already part of her very essence somehow.

The tree was thick and twisted, not majestic as she had imagined, not a towering thing but a stunted one. It seemed as if limbs had been broken off or cut down and other limbs grafted on. The trunk was full of gnarled bulges and scabs, grotesque and hunchbacked. The trunk was split in two, showing a small gap between and a shadowed crevice inside. No other tree grew directly around it, as if its leaves and mistletoe were poison to anything else living. The tree seemed to sway, the spear-like branches defying her, warning her that she’d be pierced through if she ventured near.

One of the Weir slashed through her cloak, ripping the skin on her side into grooves of blood. She turned and blasted it away along with four others charging her from that side. There was no time to think, only to act, to unleash the heat inside her and endure the pangs that tortured every breath. Shion slashed at the wall of Weir with his twin blades, bringing them down with brutal efficiency.

There was a whisper on the wind, a cry of warning from Paedrin. Phae watched Kiranrao materialize out of nothing but smoke and stab Prince Aran in the back with his malevolent blade. The Prince’s face went slack and he dropped like a stone. Phae nearly wept.

Paedrin roared with fury but the Romani vanished as quickly as he had appeared, his cold sneer fading with him.

Annon blasted where he had been standing with a stream of blue fire, spinning in an arc to cover the area. Paedrin’s grief was terrible, and Phae could not watch it. Too many beasts were coming at her, too many enemies, but suddenly the Bhikhu’s voice lifted in warning.

“The sentinels!” Paedrin shouted. “They have bows. From behind us. Do not look into their eyes. It is death to do so! They cannot be slain!”

With the warning just past his lips, an arrow hissed and struck Annon’s shoulder, spinning him around and knocking him down.

An arrow shot at Paedrin, but he twisted and it sailed past, embedding into a tree. Annon scrabbled at the ground, groaning with agony, and she saw the tip of the arrow that had struck him protruding from his chest. Half-bent, he raised one arm, fingers hooked, and sent off another blaze of fire, spraying it wildly around them, setting fire to the trees and brittle brush. Soon flames were crackling and smoke obscured everything. Another arrow pierced Annon in the middle and he sagged to his knees.

Shion yanked on Phae’s arm, drawing her with him toward their goal. Annon’s face, twisted with excruciating pain and black with soot, was etched in her mind, his mouth gaping with an unfulfilled scream. She felt every rushing beat of her own heart. She could not hear Shion’s words, though she saw his lips moving. He slashed the throat of one of the Weir hurtling at him, ducking the heavy body as it sailed past and killing the creature in a stroke. The fire was spreading. Paedrin stood in a maelstrom of Weir, his blade spinning in lethal arcs—in front, behind, in front, behind.

Suddenly Kiranrao appeared again, right next to Shion, and Phae tried to scream in warning. The blade lifted and fell just as an arrow pierced Phae’s leg, shattering the bone. The pain engulfed her and she went down, unable to breathe through the torture of it, watching Shion evade the lunge and kill another Weir after rolling to his feet. He slashed at Kiranrao with his blade, but the Romani vanished again. Shion saw she had fallen and even though she couldn’t walk, she clawed her way closer to the tree, pleading with the Dryad to aid them. Help us! Please!

Another arrow struck right by her breast, sticking into the dirt where a moment earlier she had collapsed. Shion scooped her up. She heard another arrow hit, only it struck him instead. She felt the jarring force of it stagger him, but he did not fall. Nor did the arrow stick. With a grimace of determination, he began to run toward the tree, and every movement made the pain in her leg more violent. She saw more Weir skulking by the tree, waiting for them, their eyes hungry. Where was Kiranrao? Swallowing the taste of bile in her mouth, Phae knew Shion could not carry her and fight them. There were still too many. She shot forth her hand and let loose another stream of flames, incinerating Weir.