I fell back, avoiding a large claw, and jerked another soul free as Falin ripped his daggers out of the dragon’s neck. He thrust the blades between another pair of scales, and the dragon froze. Its jaw dropped, as if shocked; then its form exploded into a cloud of fog. A copper disk the size of an end table hit the ground. Falin landed beside it, his blades in his hands, and his gaze already on the two approaching dragons.
“Look out,” Holly yelled as she emerged from the woods. My head snapped in the direction she pointed. The magic circle now had bright red cracks like blood veins snaking through the barrier, and at the point where the disruption charm touched it, the barrier bulged, the thick magic inside pressing against the weak spot. Like a crack in a dam, the magic began trickling out around the charm. The full force of the magic would be next.
I turned, intending to run for the shelter of the trees. I didn’t have time.
Arms grabbed me, dragging me down and pressing me flat. Magic roared across my back, tearing at the bit of skin exposed on my shoulders. The smell of singed hair and burned clothing met my nose as the shock of the blast faded. I struggled to push to my knees and discovered that not one but two bodies covered mine.
“Let me up, guys,” I said, sliding out from the tangle of arms. “Everyone okay?”
I received an immediate nod from Death. Falin just rolled to his feet and offered me a hand up. Well, the three of us survived. I glanced around to assess the rest of the group.
A second copper disk lay on the ground, the dragon apparently having gotten caught in the crush of the magical tide. The other dragon was missing, momentarily at least. The gray man and the raver hadn’t bothered taking cover from the blast and they looked fine. I didn’t see Holly or PC. My throat cramped. The dog had been inside the circle last I’d seen. The blast wouldn’t have caught him from the inside. The dancers all still spun and leapt, so clearly the explosion of magic had affected only those of us outside.
But where is Holly?
Then I saw her red hair as she passed a dancer who had dissolved down to his sternum. With the circle down, the spell on the enchanted panpipes had spread. All the dancers glowed the light yellow color I associated with humans. As the only other human in the clearing, Holly had been called to the dance.
Chapter 38
“Holly!”
Her head swiveled in my direction, her green eyes huge and terrified, but she didn’t stop dancing. She couldn’t. The circle was gone and the magic dispersed around the clearing, but it wasn’t like the magic vanished. The piper continued to play, the spell taking shape behind her.
I dashed forward only to be knocked back by a blast of air. Dirt and leaves swirled around me as the last remaining dragon swooped out of the sky. It landed between me and the broken circle, blocking the way. Falin grabbed my shoulders, pulling me farther from the beast. It opened its mouth and fire filled the air. A wall of heat cut across our path.
Damn it.
“We have to stop the piper.” Because regardless of who was under that cloak, she was not going to dissolve my best friend.
The dragon fanned silvery wings and released another ball of fire. I dove to the right, Death and Falin at my side, and the raver and the gray man dove in the opposite direction. The air heated, my lungs burning with each panicked breath. I glanced at the destroyed circle. Holly still danced, and she still looked whole, but . . . How long will that last?
“Distract it,” I yelled over the wall of flames now separating Death, Falin, and me from the raver and the gray man.
“Distract it how?” the gray man called back as I fought to draw my dagger. “Think it would like a sonnet?”
As if in response, the dragon slashed at the gray man, its wickedly sharp claws slicing through the air. He dove aside, and the construct caught grass.
Now or never. I dashed forward, Falin and Death on my heels.
Falin lifted his dagger as he ran. He changed his grip as if he would hurl the dagger, but as his eyes cut over the dancers, he shook his head. “I can’t get a clear shot.”
I didn’t stop running, but sent my power ahead of me. The dancers were dead. My power recognized that fact. A dead body wasn’t a natural place for a soul. I reached through the spell that kept the bodies dancing as if it weren’t there, and the souls popped free. Five bodies collapsed, the spell releasing them now that they couldn’t fuel the ritual. A clear window to the piper opened.
We’d reached the edge of the broken circle, and Falin threw his dagger without changing stride. The blade gleamed in the moonlight, the fae-wrought steel unmarred in my grave-sight. His aim was good. Perfect. The piper looked up as the blade approached, her cloak flaring with the movement.
Then everything went wrong.
The long-coated reaper appeared. He knocked the piper aside, and the fae blade passed harmlessly through his torso. He turned, a snarl-like smile curling his lips as he focused on us.
The piper hit the ground, and the music stopped. All around us, dancing bodies froze, dead muscles turning stiff. They collapsed, hitting the trampled grass with fleshy thumps. Only one dancer remained standing, her red hair wild around her face and her cheeks glistening.
Holly’s hands flew to her head, her fingers digging along her scalp. “I’m all here, right? I’m not . . . ?”
“You’re good.” I didn’t stop running. The piper was already picking herself off the ground. I shot Holly a desperate glance. “Get out of earshot of that spell.”
“What about you?”
I didn’t tell her I’d be fine—that might have been a lie. My grip tightened on the dagger and a small dog yipped. PC jumped over a leg twisted unnaturally under a fallen dancer, and I almost stopped, my sprint cut short as a wave of relief washed through me. But I didn’t have time to celebrate yet.
“Take PC with you,” I yelled to Holly.
“But—”
I wasn’t listening anymore. The reaper opened his coat and pulled a looped whip from a strap in his belt. The whip rustled as it uncoiled. He flicked his wrist and a loud crack thundered through the clearing. I faltered, my hands covering my ears without conscious thought on my part. Then a new sound competed with the ringing in my ears.
Pipe music filled the night, and my body responded to the sound. No. No. I wouldn’t dance.
I couldn’t help but move, my feet leading me in a turn, a leap. And I wasn’t the only one. Falin, his teeth gritted and his hand clenched around his remaining blade, also danced. She’s playing for fae souls now. Only she wasn’t playing. The pipes played themselves, the magic coalescing in the air streaming through them.
“Rianna, why?” I cried as my legs carried me in the dance.
The piper turned, her cloak moving as she tilted her head. Then she pushed the hood back and I wasn’t staring at Rianna’s sunken green eyes and lank red hair but at the face of a stranger. Relief coursed through me, though it didn’t last.
“You should have helped me. Told me how you touched the dead. Opened realities for me,” she said, frowning at me, and I realized with a sick sense of shock that I recognized her more handsome than pretty features.
“You’re the woman from the Bloom. The one who thanked me for releasing you from the endless dance.”
“Yes.” She smiled, but it was a smile cut with sadness and darkened with hate. “Trapping me in the Eternal Dance was some fool’s idea of an ironic punishment, but you freed me and soon nothing and no one will keep me from my love.”
Her love. The reaper.
Another crack cut through the air from the reaper’s whip, but I didn’t have enough control over my body to cringe, let alone twist to see what was happening. The piper—Edana, that was what she had called herself—closed her eyes, her head tilting back as magic coursed through her and the pipes. No, not just magic. An unstable gap opened behind her, the edges wavering, flickering through planes of existence.
No. She couldn’t merge realities.
But she was.
I struggled against the spell, fought to stop dancing. To still myself. My body continued twisting and jumping.
Beyond the circle, the gray man and the raver fought the dragon, jerking souls free one after the other, but the construct didn’t shrink. A leap and swirl in the dance turned me away from Edana so I couldn’t see the spreading rift. But I could see the reaper. His whip snaked outward, wrapping around Death’s neck. Death winced, but grabbed the length of the whip, holding it immobile as the reaper tried to jerk him forward. Death held his ground, not budging.
Then magic slammed into his back.
Death toppled forward, falling to his knees. A woman’s laugh twined with the pipe music. I couldn’t see Edana, but I could see the thick black lines of the spell she’d hurled. A spell with lines not only slamming magic into Death but pulling something out of him as well.
His essence.
“You’re exactly what we need,” she said, and the dance turned me, bringing her into view again.
“Stop. Leave him alone!”
She glanced at me. “You’ll have your own time to fuel the spell. Be patient.”
I swallowed. Falin and I were both part of the spell now. I could see him in my peripheral vision, still whole and alive. The spell holding us was killing us slowly. Whatever she was doing to Death was draining him fast.
I have to stop her.
Grave essence leached off the fallen dancers’ bodies, the magic their souls had generated filled the air, and Aetheric energy shot through all of it. The gap had spread, the bodies closest to the center of the circle rotting away as the land of the dead touched them. Aetheric energy swirled in the air, dark tendrils wrapping around Edana as if she’d plugged herself into the very fabric of the magic realm.
I forced my shields wider, opening myself to everything, blocking nothing. The chill of the grave rushed into my body, but there was more magic to be had than just grave essence. I drew it in indiscriminately, pulling power until my skin felt ready to burst. Then I let it explode out of me, hurtling toward Edana.
She wasn’t a corpse, so my power couldn’t sink into her, or jerk her soul free of her body. It slid over her skin, her life and her shields protecting her. No. I had to do something. I had to.