Our plan maintains simplicity. Silas expressed it to us enough on our way to the destination we've reached for—his home. His father's castle. We aren't expecting to end this with brute force. The castle will not fall under any circumstance. If there's even the smallest chance we can get Avalie out alive, we'll take it.

To welcome that optimism is what takes us to the gates of Mailan. We blast through them—Citlali, Bren, and I leading the charge while we're flanked by Renit and three kings, including others with substantial power. I let my power of ground breathe and mix with Bren's as molten ground, burning and breaking our enemies and charring them to dust.

Mailan has seen better days. The blood of the weak stains the streets, empty nooses sway in the breeze of our force, and the king's men crowd us from the start. Our forces are not stocked with witches of deflection, but from what we do have, the four or five lucky enough to hold such a power, they create a shield around the front and leave the back to deal with the remainder.

I don't care what I take with me. Buildings crumble to my advantage and I throw them into our enemy. Glass, dust, and age included. We'll rebuild when this is over. For now, we must wreak havoc. Wake the king from his long slumber.

Screams of terror break out against Tesha's archers from one street over, and the clash of weapons rings out over the my power altering the surface of the world we stand on. As if bombs were placed underneath the cobblestone and dirt, it explodes into the air and takes the legs of the victims standing atop it. Craters the size of small houses fill the once secure street and our army runs over them like they're nothing.

I look to the red-stained sky of evening's fall and spot the five towers of the castle looming in the distance. So close. My heart pounds through my ribcage and I raise my arms above my head, channeling the strength I have deep within my soul. Renit's power flicks with my confidence. The entire street turns into a spiraling tornado of hell. Citlali's power, stronger than my own, feeds off that insanity.

When the street is clear and we prepare ourselves to move on to another, Renit's hand presses onto my shoulder. "Don't reach a Drainage," he shouts over the oncoming chaos of the king's men. "We still have plenty to achieve and we need you there."

"Roux!" Bren summons from the other direction. I pivots towards him, already aiming my power towards whatever is standing on the other side of the street, and a boulder that matches a similar size and shape to the monsters of world my mother used to lift with her inanimate abilities hurtles in the direction of the king's men. Lightning sputters from their fingers, reaching for Bren standing in the open, but the boulder colliding with their bodies ends the effort.

Turning back to Renit, I arch a brow. "I won't Drain, and neither will you. This ends tonight."

Appearing out of nowhere, covered in blood and his hair disheveled, Silas says with a grin all too wide, "Agreed. Let's do this, shall we?" He scratches at his chin. "I believe I'm done playing games."

Renit and I exchange a wary glance. Silas turns on his heel and heads towards the openness of the street, his brother choosing to follow behind to protect the future of this land. And it's then that I realize what Silas has in mind. Not a power we possess, but that of his father's.

The men and women die without hesitation after a brief battle of screaming and protest. Their bodies burn from the inside out with an unseen struggle. With so many powers, it's easy for Silas to reach the inevitable point of losing all strength in his abilities, but that doesn't hold a candle in his mind.

He cleaves a path through Mailan, and the rest of our forces complete the task of stopping anyone from attempting the predictable. Taking Silas's life is not in the cards tonight.

I catch flashes of familiar faces on both sides of the crowd. Some belonging to those I converted into the king's lifeless men, others on our side and fighting for their lives. The few I pass that are already dead gave their lives in hopes of getting us to the castle. And we've made it this far.

Bren's fire singes into the streets but their armor doesn't absorb flame the way cloth does. They stand proud and untouched against it, a feat measured by my power and that of Citlali's. They don't last long after that.

Halfway through.

We're almost to the castle.

But I have a strong churning in my gut that tells me we haven't seen the bulk of it yet. One enemy at a time. That's exactly how we'll play it. A few of Mailan's residents, the few alive, join our army and become the pushing force, the first line of defense against the oncoming attacks of all powers. That of the few and the many.

Thunder booms across the sky, lightning crackling like bone to match. I can't count how many powers I see in one eyeline, but there's too many to recognize, anyway. All I focus on is mine and those around me, protecting themselves and their fellow soldiers.

They come from the rooftops, from the sewers, crawling like monsters on their hands and feet until they stand and attempt to wipe us away from this world. We won't go down so easily. The king's men have shifted their attack to t he back and I rush through with Renit tailing, Silas continuing to use his father's power on what comes at our heads.

Beams of lightning like spools of ribbon drop from the sky and I lurch back, away from the threat. Whirling to Renit, I find that he's not the source. In fact, my confusion is mirrored on his face. He follows those beams down from the sky and lands on a witch at the end of the crowd, one in black and red armor—smiling at the sight of bodies convulsing.

Renit's power whispers to mine, they share a moment of locking together as one, and I register the warmth of his hand slipping into mine to intertwine our fingers together. Without looking at him, I watch out of the corner of my eye as his entire body glows with the lightning coursing through his veins, and a new lightning, more powerful and thicker, breaks from the skyline.

Our army, me, Renit—we're the only bodies protected. As for everyone else, including the witch of storm himself, finds themselves caught in the ball of electricity that Renit shapes around them. They scream, attempting to get away, but their knees buckle and smoke raises from their skin.

Tugging me away, Renit forces us through the crowd of weapons and shields and bodies until we're on the other side again. Silas is gone, but I spot him close to the end of the street, shoving his sword into the abdomen of an innocent soldier.

"We can do this!"

I turn, finding the source of that energetic and promising voice. Binx stands there, sweat streaming down his forehead, those dull eyes filled with a light that I haven't seen since we met. To be fair, he hasn't seen the best of days in what the kingdom considered our friendship. But he's here now. Part of this and a fighter like the rest, opposing the king's dark reign.

Binx and Renit flake me, the former using his advantage to block out our appearance against some of the enemy soldiers. We're invisible to their eyes, and they don't know what's coming until they're hit with the power of ground or its rival—a blood-seeking storm.

As we turn on to the street that heads towards the castle, nothing but the iron gates as a blockade, I sense my power twinging, curdling in warning. Diving deep, it reveals to me that I'm not close to a Drainage but if I'm not careful, if I do what I did on the battlefield, I'll run out of vigor.

My thoughts are thrown out by a shouted warning echoing through the street. Renit turns, wrapping his arm around my abdomen, and tugs me back. Some of the army towards the front isn't so lucky. A building to the side of the street, tall and towered with stone, collapses before us and takes out too many of our valuable men. Their bodies buried underneath the ruins, we squint past the dust and debris to see a single man standing with his arms cocked, his shoulders tight, his stare focused.

I know what he is before anyone else can shout a warning. But someone does. A witch of the inanimate.

Citlali is one step ahead of me. She takes down a building of her own after shouting something to that effect, and the witch of the inanimate can do nothing. Though he attempts to move the stone away with his power, shooting it in our direction, his arm is knocked back and the rest piles onto his body like water onto the shore.

As we get closer, the king's men swarm. Arrows rain down and Arjun shouts one command. "Shields!" Whether magic or steel, we raise our protection as the arrows arch into the sky. The king knows we're here. I won't be surprised if he's standing in front of the window watching our advance, and wondering how the hell we have such an army at our backs.

Grunts and groans mix in with the clink of snapping arrows against shields. Few get through, but none fall underneath the stone shield I concoct over our heads. Renit and Binx crouch next to me, their heads down, their breathing heavy and their bodies tense. It'll be over soon. Once the arrows stop flying, we'll advance. As fast as we can.

"Charge!" Silas's muffled voice rings in my ears.

I drop the shield, and before we're trampled by the army behind us, I grab Renit's hand and hoist him up with me. Sprinting for the gates as fast as we can, the front of the army faces a hit from the enemy's powers. Some fall, others return attacks of their own and a path cleaves.

It's weak, but with Citlali maintaining the pressure, I run as fast as my legs will allow. My lungs burn in my chest but we're close. I ready my power for the strongest I've allowed it and Citlali is already there, giving me an extra hand. An elevated stretch of ground climbs into the air—smooth stairs—over the castle gates in a sharp curve.

Renit runs after me without a care for his own safety, but my power is one step ahead of me. I leap off the other side of that elevated pathway and find the air in the castle courtyard to reek of death. My power wraps around both of us in a bind, lifting us down slowly but giving me enough force to slam into the ground to combine that strength in connection with the world.

Behind me, when my hand slams against the surface, the gates burst open. Pushing power pulses through the stone. They moan and crack against the hinges, stone popping, and our army screams its victory. I throw a shield over our head at the same time the arrows fly once more, but we made it. We're in the courtyard.

Arrows slam against the outer portion of my shield and snap in half, but their tips lodge. Not far enough. Voices mix together and I try to point out one against the next, but it's no use. We're in the dark here, but cries of terror are what we're forced to listen to.

Renit's lightning aims for the castle without him controlling it. As we wait, our distance too far to take down all the arches, the extensive power kills what it can.

Raising above the rest, Tesha's hoarse voice screams out for her archers. Arrows pull back and with her shout to release, they do. It's chaos. From the fire spanning the skies, the rumbling of the ground underneath our boots, the screaming and pleading of dying fighters.

Renit's lightning flickers to life in his palm. "Hey," he pants. "It's all right. We'll get through this."

I've never been to war, I've never seen it. But I'm coming to the cruel reality that this is what I'm facing now—a war. What I saw on the battlefield is nothing compared to years of fighting and loss. This is what we're doing. It can't be more than a battle, but to consider it a war...I meet Renit's eye and he places his hand on the back of my head, pulling my forehead to rest against his.

"Consider this over soon," he whispers. "Once we're done, we can be happy. All right?"

I nod against his slick skin. Damp with sweat. "I'll give it everything I have."

"This isn't on your shoulders. Not all of it. Let someone else have some fun, too." I notice the sarcasm in his voice, but I ignore it. His attempt at bringing a light to the situation.

"Is this what you consider fun?" I pull away to admire his grin.

He shrugs. "For a while, yes. Now, as an old bastard, I just want it to be over with."

Despite the tightening in my chest, I laugh. At the same moment, Arjun's voice booms through the shield. Advance. "Then let's finish what we came for."

The shield falls around us in crumbling stone but no one is moving. In fact, they seem stuck in their spot. And it's not at the hand of the army receding towards the castle, it's towards what appears within the doors to the courtyard.

Not one shadow, or two. Three. Silas squints into the dark and raises his hand slowly to stop our forces. Our enemies drop back towards the castle to protect who is heading in this direction. A shaken gasp releases from his throat as it comes to light who is walking towards us, out onto the bloody courtyard of fallen bodies and waiting soldiers.

Brow strings groan in preparation for the order to release, but all stands still. Time itself stops.

Wearing a set of black and red armor, as cold and lifeless as the soldiers but still with her heart intact, is Hallie. She walks with her back completely straight, her hands folded together in front of her abdomen. As far as I'm concerned, she's a killer. Not a princess.

I catch a glance at her father, his face red with anger and his eyes catching a flame.

But it's not his daughter that Silas is paying attention to. Or the majority of our fighters. The king using another body as a shield, a dagger to her throat, takes our attention.

In rags, her hair a mess, cuts and bruises covering her skin, is Avalie. Alive and breathing, but scared and injured. A rupture of gasps, growls, and muttered threats cleave through the crowd at the sight of her condition. I've never seen the color drain from Silas's face so quickly.

His hand falls slowly to his side, but no one moves. Here are the stakes. Avalie's life. Or ours.