Nina's crossbow bolt took it in the eye. The creature didn't even slow down. It swiped at her position on the ridge and she dove clear just in time.
Matthías slammed into its side as a wolf, teeth sinking into its stone shoulder. The Bound grabbed him by the scruff and hurled him into a tree. He hit hard and didn't get up.
"Matthías!" I screamed.
Sunna was suddenly beside me, dagger bloody. "He's breathing. Focus!"
The creature came for me again. Gunnar met it head-on. His sword rang against its arm and snapped clean in half. The Bound backhanded him a second time. This one connected solid. Gunnar flew and crashed into a boulder ten yards away. He didn't get up.
The bond between us screamed.
For a second everything went quiet in my head except that scream. The fire inside me exploded past every leash the bond had tried to put on it. Scales raced down my other arm. My claws lengthened into black talons. The ground under my feet cracked in a perfect circle.
I ran straight at the Bound.
It swung. I ducked and drove my talons into its chest. Stone cracked under my hands. Green magic burned my palms but I didn't let go. I shoved power into the wound—roots bursting out from inside its body, tearing it apart from the inside.
The creature screamed. The sound shook the trees.
The Black Council poured more magic into it from across the field. The green veins flared brighter. It grabbed my shoulder with one massive hand and squeezed. Pain exploded down my arm. Bones creaked.
I screamed right back and pushed harder.
The Bound staggered. Its knees buckled. One final roar tore out of it and then it collapsed in a heap of broken stone and fading green light. The chains rattled once and went still.
I stood over the corpse, chest heaving, blood and dirt and scales everywhere.
The fight wasn't over.
Sveinn broke through our line with six wolves at his back. His eyes were wild when they found me. "You should've stayed in the cell, bitch!"
He shifted mid-stride and lunged.
I met him as a half-thing—claws, scales, no full wolf but something older and meaner. We crashed together. His teeth snapped at my throat. I got my talons into his side and ripped. He yelped and twisted away.
Jakob was right behind him, sword raised. "End this, Elva! Before that power kills you too!"
"Too late," I snarled.
I kicked Sveinn hard in the ribs and he rolled away. Jakob swung at my head. I caught the blade between my talons and snapped it like a twig. The broken end clattered to the ground.
For one heartbeat my father looked at me like he finally saw what he'd created.
Then green lightning cracked down again from the Council. This one wasn't aimed at me.
It hit Gunnar.
He was still on the ground by the boulder. The bolt caught him square in the chest. His body arched. A raw sound tore out of him that I felt in my own ribs.
The bond between us flared white-hot and then went terrifyingly quiet.
"Gunnar!" I screamed.
I ran for him. The world narrowed to his body lying still in the dirt. Sveinn tried to cut me off. I backhanded him so hard he flew into two of his own wolves.
I dropped to my knees beside Gunnar. His chest rose once, shallow. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. The lightning had burned a black handprint right over his heart. The bond felt like a frayed rope—still there, but barely.
I grabbed his face with both hands. My scales pressed against his skin. "Don't you fucking dare. You anchored me. Now stay with me."
His eyes cracked open. Silver, hazy. "Elva… run…"
"Like hell."
The Council was chanting louder now. More lightning gathered overhead, bigger this time, aimed right at us. Jakob stood twenty feet away, sword gone, face pale but determined. Sveinn was circling with what was left of his wolves.
Sunna and Nina were still fighting but the line was breaking. Matthías was dragging himself up, one arm hanging useless.
I pressed my forehead to Gunnar's. The bond flickered. I poured everything I had into it; every bit of fire, every ounce of the Old Blood waking up inside me.
His chest rose again. Stronger.
The lightning overhead cracked.
I looked up at the sky, at my father, at the whole fucking mess they'd made of my life.
And I smiled.
"You wanted a monster?" I whispered.
The ground under the entire battlefield started to shake.
Roots thicker than tree trunks burst up everywhere. Not just under the Bound. Under the Council. Under Jakob. Under Sveinn.
The lightning bolt started to fall.
I slammed my hands into the dirt and screamed.
The crevice that opened this time swallowed half the valley.
And everything went dark.
Everything went black for what felt like forever.
The ground under my hands was still shaking when the darkness finally lifted. Dust and dirt hung thick in the air like smoke after a fire. I coughed hard, tasting blood and earth, and pushed myself up on shaking arms. My scales burned across my chest and both arms now, silver and black and way too much. The crevice I'd ripped open stretched wide across the valley floor, a jagged scar that swallowed trees, wolves, and half the battlefield in one greedy bite.
My ears rang. Voices shouted somewhere far off. I blinked the grit out of my eyes and looked for Gunnar.
He lay ten feet away on his back, chest rising in shallow jerks. The lightning burn on his shirt was a blackened handprint right over his heart. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. The bond between us felt like a frayed rope: thin, flickering, barely holding.
"Gunnar," I rasped. My voice cracked like I'd screamed for hours.
I crawled to him on hands and knees, claws scraping dirt. My legs wouldn't work right yet. The power had taken everything. I grabbed his face with both hands, scales pressing against his stubble. "Wake up, you stubborn bastard. Don't you dare leave me here alone."
His eyelids fluttered. Silver eyes met mine for half a second, hazy and unfocused. "Elva… run…" The words came out wet and weak.
"Like hell." I looped one arm under his shoulders and hauled him up. He was heavy as fuck, dead weight, but I got him half-standing. His head lolled against my neck. The bond flickered stronger when our skin touched, like it was trying to knit itself back together. I felt a tiny pulse of his strength trickle into me and used it to drag him toward the ridge where our horses had bolted.
Around us the battlefield was a nightmare.
The crevice had taken out most of the Black Council's front line. Bodies lay half-buried in the fresh earth, some still twitching. A couple of our own riders were down too: one pinned under a fallen tree I'd uprooted without meaning to, another half-swallowed in a smaller crack I'd opened when the power got away from me. My stomach twisted hard.
*Monster.* Jakob's voice echoed in my head from every fight we'd ever had. *That power will eat you alive.* For the first time I wondered my bastard father had been right.
Sunna came running through the dust, face streaked with dirt and blood. "Elva! Thank the moon you're still standing." She grabbed Gunnar's other side and helped me haul him up the slope. "Matthías is alive but busted up bad. Nina's covering our retreat with the last crossbow bolts. The elders are pulling back... they're actually running."
I glanced over my shoulder. The surviving Council members were scrambling onto horses, green light flickering weak around them as they retreated toward the far tree line.
Jakob stood frozen at the edge of the big crevice, staring at me like I'd grown horns.
Sveinn was nowhere in sight, he probably buried or ran like the coward he was.
"Good," I muttered. "Let them run."