The wind whipped and whirled violently overhead. It tugged at Daana’s cloak and hair, loosening several dark, pleated strands from her braid. Around her, dirt and clumps of soggy leaves lifted into the churning air and joined the swirl of splintered wood and stone caught in the current. Daana pulled her arms tighter over her head, wincing each time an airborne projectile whistled past, narrowly missing her prone body.

  The dark magic festering beneath her skin sprang to life. It started as a crawling sensation in the tip of each finger before flooding up her arms, over her shoulder, and down her spine. The icy cold wriggled, writhed, and squirmed, silently screaming at her to do something other than lie on her stomach like a sacrificial lamb on the altar of death.

  The deafening wind howled louder as the magic wielder approached. The power was old, lethal, somehow foreign, and yet terrifyingly familiar at the same time. It strummed her sixth sense like a long-forgotten song. She didn’t know the words, but fragments of the discordant tune lifted from the catacombs of her memory and played in the dark space behind her eyes, teasing at her memory. The wind, the ancient feel to the magic, the way it stoked her ravenous hunger — alone, each detail could have easily been chalked up to mere coincidence, but together they signified something much, much worse.

  Cautiously, Daana lifted her head and peered out between the protective curl of her arms. Her gaze swept over the upturned street to the jailhouse’s front stoop. Bare, open, rid of its front door, Daana saw only empty darkness within. There was nothing and yet, she couldn’t look away. Her eyes were drawn to the darkness like metal to a magnetic pull. And then it moved. A shadow materialized from the gloom and slunk down the jailhouse steps and into the grim, gray light. The beast was small, with heavily scarred blue, scaled skin and long, elfin ears. The cascade of white quills that sprang from its head and spilled down its shoulders and along the length of its spine were cropped painfully close to its body.

  “Fuck me,” Rali hissed beneath her breath. “Daana, tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

  Daana gulped. “It is.”

  Daana’s first thought wasn’t of horror nor fear, but pity. The broken fae that limped down the jailhouse steps wasn’t her enemy. Their thin, mangled body spoke of a life of torment at the hands of a brutal master. Heat stung the tips of Daana’s ears as a flood of anger followed. It wasn’t fair. The fae couldn’t help that Taratheil Cray was a sadistic psychopath. And yet, against their will, driven by the unbreakable bond of fae magic, the wind shifter would be forced to fight Cray’s battle and decimate all who defied him.

  Daana included.

  The wind shifter reached the bottom step and went still. A pair of slit, silvery eyes glowed against its dark hide. Its scaled head, crowned in broken quills, lifted. The fae tested the air and then followed the scent with its eerie gaze, settling over the three warriors hiding amongst the mud. It locked eyes with Daana the same moment the wind dropped and the air fell sickeningly still.

  Rali’s muttered curse matched what Daana was feeling. “Shit.”

  Their unspoken plan to remain still and blend in with the ground in hopes of being overlooked had just flown out the metaphorical window. They’d been spotted. And while the mangled fae across from them showed no signs of advancing, the fact that it wasn’t the least bit intimidated by their presence neatly slid their already grim chances of survival from bad to worse.

  “Fuck fighting and whatever that is.” Ashwyn chanced a worried glance over her shoulder into the alley behind them. Whatever she saw didn’t appear to lend any confidence. “The evacuation team certainly lived up to its name. It’s just us, apparently.” Her wide-eyed stare darted from the closest doorway to the still fae, and then back again, calculating the distance. “We could try the lieutenant’s strategy and retreat with our tails between our legs.”

  “We wouldn’t get halfway before that thing caught us.” Cover blown, Rali saw no sense in pretending to be one with the mud any longer. The stocky dwarf staggered to her feet and drew her shortsword. “Like my dear old ma used to say, be not like the meek candle flame that cowers to the wind, but of wildfire. For even after its expiration, it is remembered by the scorched ground left behind.”

  Ashwyn reluctantly stood and readied herself with a slow shake of her head. “Your mother did not say that.”

  “Not in so many words, perhaps,” Rali admitted with a shrug. “But it was implied. Between all of the drunken rantings, of course.”

  “The only sage advice my mother imparted was to stop jumping on the furniture.” The orc reached down and assisted Daana to her feet with a strong yank. “You got any words of wisdom to add, Peaches?”

  Motionless, the fae was still staring at her. Its silvery eyes burrowed deep into Daana’s soul, rooting out every buried secret. Like her breath, Daana’s words emitted from between her chattering teeth with a tremble. “I wasn’t with my mother long enough to have a lasting impact,” she said, filling her lungs with a fast gulp of cold air. “But I seem to recall a good friend advising me not to do anything stupid.”

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  “Talk about being set up for failure,” Rali laughed. It was a harsh, nervous sound, accompanied by an unconscious shiver.

  “Yeah, I don’t think he really thought that one through.” Daana’s insatiable hunger demanded that she stop talking and rush out to meet her magical opponent head-on. A healthy mix of dread and fear, however, kept her feet firmly planted in the soft mud. The fae had yet to move and she would be damned if she was the one responsible for ending the standoff.

  Unlike her feet, her mouth ran freely. “Admittedly, I miss him.”

  Naturally, her grief simply couldn’t wait a few minutes more for her to be dead. Daana’s emotions had to go and betray her, allowing a few fat tears to slip down her face unhindered. Barely a week had passed since Daana had sworn to Snag that she wouldn’t do anything stupid. Barely a week and, already, she was breaking her promise. Having fought alongside a wind shifter once before, Daana knew the destruction the species was capable of. What’s more, she knew their only hope of stopping the fae depended on her ability to drain its magic before it took them out first. That required moving closer, however, a feat she was less than thrilled about.

  Daana blinked the hot moisture from her eyes as she tightened her grip on her sword. “But I’m glad he’s not here. As far as stupid goes, this definitely takes the cake.”

  “I wish Ellie was here.” The words slipped free of Ashwyn’s mouth as if she’d spoken without realizing it. “She loved cake.”

  Rali muttered her agreement, along with the addition of breakfast being the obviously superior food of choice.

  Having grown bored of waiting, the wind shifter broke from its hypnotic trance. The fae tilted their short-spined head to the side as their glowing gaze swept from Daana to the others, taking silent stock of what threat the trio posed. The assessment concluded insultingly fast. And then, as if to rub salt into the proverbial wound, its face contorted into a sickly smile. It was a thin, needle-toothed smirk that assured the others that whatever happened next wouldn’t be a fight, but a game.

  “And it’s taunting us,” Ashwyn said. “Lovely.”

  Rali, suffering from an uncharacteristic lack of words, repeated the same one she’d used before. “Shit.”

  The breeze picked up again. Gently, at first. A calm wind that merely teased the air. Little by little, each idle churn gained momentum until the breeze transformed into a gust. The whipping current was nearing a gale by the time Daana started to lose her footing. She bent her knees and hunched lower, glancing at the others for direction. The fae’s magic grew thick in the air around them. It rippled across Daana’s skin until her mouth watered with hunger.

  Her feet slipped, followed almost immediately by her dwindling control. Danna stumbled several steps forward as ice flooded down her hands and pooled in each fingertip. Sparks of dark energy erupted from her hands. It crackled and popped in the air like the static from rubbing two blankets together. Daana dropped her sword with a startled yelp and lifted her dominant hand higher, watching, mystified, as translucent coils of magic rose from her skin. The translucent plumes of smoke-like magic were swept away, picked up by the pull of the fae’s wind spell.

  Her fingertips pulsed as the dark entity started to pull, snatching loose magic from the air and siphoning it back into its mortal host. The wind lessened. Its howling gale started to fizzle out as the force behind its power drained. The stolen magic slammed into Daana like a boot to the chest. She staggered backwards, coughing as gasping as the fae’s ancient power coursed through her ice-cold veins.

  “Shit, girl, are you draining it from here?” Ashwyn’s voice was all but swallowed by the howling wind.

  “It’s not me!” Daana screamed. At least she didn’t think so. It was the dark entity, surely, using her abilities as a convenient means to feed.

  A blood-curdling shriek lit the air. Confused, the wind shifter lurched forward, throwing one clawed hand overhead, summoning a gust mighty enough to splatter its obnoxious playthings into the nearest cottage.

  Daana dropped her shield and threw both hands in front of her. Dark magic poured from her fingertips, draining the spell’s raw power a split second before it came crashing down over their heads. The gust swept past no stronger than a summer breeze.

  The wind dropped, cut off by its wielder. An amalgamation of fury and bewilderment furrowed across the fae’s gnarled face. The weight of its stare rested solely on Daana. One by one, the fae’s broken quills flattened against the back of its head as its eyes narrowed to silver slits. Hands clenched, it prepared to summon its worst spell yet when it froze, its entire body rigid.

  Rali glanced at Daana out of the corner of her eye. “Is that not-not-you, too?”

  “Not me,” Daana gasped as the freezing chill eased. The dark entity writhed eagerly beneath her skin, poised and waiting for its next opportunity to feed.

  The wind shifter snapped from its trance with a rattle of its broken quills. Its eerie silver gaze lifted from Daana and settled on the rooftop overhead. Snarling, the fae shook free of its solid body and shot into the air as a roiling cloud of blue-black smoke and disappeared on the wind.

  “We won?” Rali sounded rightfully skeptical.

  “Why do you sound so disappointed by it?” Ashwyn demanded.

  “No, she’s right.” Again. Ugh, Daana didn’t like admitting it a second time any more than she did the first. “That was too easy.”

  Confused, Daana closed her eyes and drew in, channeling her sixth sense. A silver thread of magic pinged in the distance. It was faint but powerful. She could feel it summoning the wind shifter, demanding it heed the call. She followed the thread to its source and her eyes shot open. “It’s Cray.” Daana snatched her sword and shield from the ground. “He’s calling the wind shifter to him. We have to follow it.”