Book 2: Chapter 45: Aeralith Prince

  Alex tightened the straps on his armor one more time, out of habit more than necessity. The buckles were already cinched tight enough to bite into his shoulders. Still, something about the weight helped center him.

  The team was huddled at the base of a ravine outpost, a cobbled-together mix of reinforced rock, enchanted barriers, and old spell-burned banners hanging limp in the light aether fog. It wasn’t much, but it was what they had.

  Mist and dew clung to the stones like half-formed ghosts, shifting in lazy spirals. The kind of terrain that made visibility a joke and actual coordination a prayer. Narrow passageways, poor elevation, zero retreat options if the enemy pushed hard. Perfect place for an ambush or a massacre if they could lead the enemy forces into it somehow.

  Nearby, Devon adjusted the dials on his portable anchor array, watching as the aether threads flared and snapped into coherence. Garret sat perched on a rock, sharpening his sword while humming a song about potatoes and death. Nobody asked where he had heard the strange song before, nobody ever asked. He hummed it anyway.

  Allie and Cole were re-checking the triage supplies, a row of crimson-lit potion vials and bandage scrolls that felt woefully inadequate for what was coming.

  Henry was doing breathing exercises. Zach was meditating, or possibly just pretending to ignore everyone. And Kate looked down the ravine slope like she was locked in a staring contest with the rocks.

  “I don’t like this,” Alex muttered, mostly to himself.

  “Your instincts finally kicking in?” Obby replied, voice drifting through the back of his mind like smoke.

  No, Alex said, squinting out into the fog. My paranoia is kicking in. Which, statistically, is usually right.

  Obby pulsed slightly in his soulspace. “There’s something strange in the ambient aether. You feel it?”

  “Yeah,” he murmured. “Like a song being played, but out of tune… off.”

  “What?” Holly asked, causing him to realize he said the last part outloud.

  He shook his head. “Nothing, just talking to myself.” He gave her a warm smile, she smiled back at him before returning to her own meditation.

  It wasn’t the usual pre-battle tension that he felt. This wasn’t adrenaline or stress. This was something deeper. It had been three days since Prince Kailan had given Alex the warning that something was coming. He hadn’t felt anything then, but now, things were different.

  Around camp, the mood had shifted. Quiet chatter turned into murmurs, turned into silence.

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  A runner returned from the forward scout perch, pale, shaking, and wide-eyed. He spoke to Captain Drenn in a whisper, but not quietly enough.

  “Enemy reinforcements. Two banners. Crest unknown. No formations visible.”

  Everyone within earshot frowned at that. Unknown commanders didn’t show up on the front lines just because. Unknown crests didn’t march through warded zones without triggering half the continents spy networks.

  “Could be Aeralith’s own elite,” Zach offered, stepping up behind Alex. “Or mercs. Or something worse.”

  He nodded grimly. He wasn’t sure what was worse than mercs and elite mages backed by an entire country’s war machine, but he was pretty sure they were about to find out.

  “Alright,” Eric said. “We all know the terrain. Keep your angles clean, don’t get separated. We lock into skirmish groups until the signals are made and we make the retreat to spring the plan.”

  Alex turned away from the rest for a second, staring down at the rising mist. His fingers brushed over his bracer’s aether gem, feeling the low thrum of barely-contained energy vibrating against his wrist. Something was coming, something big.

  It started with the whistling. Not the casual kind, no happy tune from a drunk soldier. This whistle screamed. Arrows.

  “Down!” Alex shouted, just as the sky turned black with fletching.

  They scattered, boots pounding against loose gravel as a hundred thunks rang out across the ridge wall, there were too many, too fast, too damned accurate. A few soldiers screamed. A few didn’t get the chance to do even that.

  Then came the aether-bombs. Red flares flickered in the distance, the ground erupting in staggered blasts that painted the cliffs in firelight, blood and flying dirt. A second later came the arcane the beasts. Howls echoed from fractured terrain below. Spirit-bound war hounds making their presence known.

  “Form up!” Eric’s voice boomed over the chaos, his bracers already glowing with defensive enchantments. Kate answered with a streak of fire that seared a beast straight through the ribcage, her [Firebolt] cutting through its magical shielding like paper.

  They fell into position like a well-practiced gear clicking into place. Alex charged with Zach, Kate, and Holly, their unit rotating in a crescent around an advancing knot of enemy mages. Spells flared, wards shattered, Kate blasted a trio of front-liners back with a [Flame Blitz], her footwork dancing even as the battlefield shook. Holly cut a soldier;s leg clean off at the thigh. Zach didn’t bother with half-measures, his spearhead cleaving skulls and throats with each pass.

  Alex was in the thick of it before he had time to overthink it. His bracer flared, aether flung through sigil circuits etched into his gloves, and he dropped a [Wind Lance] spell into the chest of a charging brute. It didn’t stop him entirely, but it did knock it back a step and stagger it long enough for Cole’s warhammer to finish the job. He nodded to Cole before rushing off to target another warrior, [Earth Chain] rooting him in place before Alex’s fist caved in his helmet.

  They held the line for a while, but then the tide turned. A hum broke across the battlefield, smooth and focused. It rand in Alex’s ears as a piercing resonance, like stringed instruments tuned too tightly. Above them, in a shimmer of gilded golden light, someone descended.

  He didn’t fly, didn’t walk, he descended. As if gravity had been informed this person was too important to resist.

  White-gold glyphs spiraled around the figure’s armored boots as they landed, gently, without impact. Aether flowed over his body like a second skin, elegant, sharp-lined, dangerous. He obviously wore expensive and powerful armor, clean despite the chaos. His face was masked. Blade sheathed at the hip.

  A single white-gold crest burned on his chestplate: the Cloud-Falcon of Aeralith Kingdom.

  Obby pulsed in Alex’s head. “That’s not a typical field mage.”

  “No,” Alex murmured. “That’s not.”

  Kate froze at his side, eyes narrowing. “Who the hell is that?”

  As if answering her directly, one of the Aeralith troops cried out with awe and fervor. “The Soaring Heir! Prince Irieth has come!”

  Alex sighed heavily, and ran his hand down his face in exasperation.

  Great. Because this totally needed a boss fight.