75

75
I let Elsa help me to my feet, enjoying the look on the Queen’s face. “It wasn’t easy, considering the distance, but I managed to contact a few witches. A few very strong witches. Friends of a friend, you could say.”

Marlene had been more than willing to give me the information for the few remaining witches in the North who did not belong to any coven. Contacting them had been a struggle, and convincing them to help me had been even harder.

“They were willing to act as a conduit,” I say. “You’re right. You know a lot more about magic than I do. But the Silver Wolf has a different type of magic. I can create magic out of nothing. So, I took a very big risk. The barrier that you just broke right now? I built multiple barriers of the same kind around every nursery within each pack. Even if the nannies and the soldiers die, their link to the children will not affect them. Only I can enter those barriers and break the link once I’m inside. The Alphas of the North need me alive now. I am the only one who can unlink the lives of their pups from your people. They agreed to this. The last barrier just went up now. And the signal was sent. You can’t use the children against them anymore, Karina. It’s over. You’ve lost your last bit of leverage over them.”

The only reason Karina had strength in numbers was because she had the soldiers from every pack on her side. That’s why it was so easy for her to watch them die. But now her fighting force has been cut down by more than half. While her own personal army is still large, they are nothing against the might of all three alliances combined.

The tide of the battle has changed and not in Karina’s favor.

Karina seethes. “You think you’ve won? You foolish girl! Your barrier is down. Now nothing stands in my way!”

The witches launch another attack on me but while I can no longer sustain the barrier, I’m not completely depleted. I block the attack with a massive fireball. The screams of the witches and wolves echo in my ears, and I harden my heart. “I am not as defenseless as you think.”

Karina snarls, and then screams at the witches, “Capture her and her mother. That is an order!”

The witches turn their full attention on me, but I am ready for them.

They shoot their flaming arrows at me and I keep blowing them up. Elsa looks shocked by the strength of my attacks. “When did you…?”

“You need to stop looking so surprised,” I grunt. “I am not a complete dimwit.”

With Karina’s soldiers on the losing end of the fight and her inability to get close enough to me to capture me, she should be on the verge of giving up. However, she just looks mildly annoyed now. “I didn’t want it to come to this, but I guess everything happens for a reason.”

She turns her head to face the witches. “Turn the soldiers.”

For the first time, there is a hint of hesitation from the group, but Karina doesn’t have any patience. “I said, turn them!”

Her instructions make no sense to me. Turn the soldiers? Turn them where?

Suddenly the witches are no longer looking in my direction. Instead, they are now focused on the battlefield. I don’t understand what is happening, but then the soldier closest to Karina, one of her own soldiers, begins to seize, almost as if he is having a fit. He collapses to the ground, foaming from the mouth.

Before anybody can react, the rest of the soldiers begin showing the same symptoms.

Elsa’s fingers dig into my skin and she makes a choking sound. “No.”

“What’s wrong?” I ask, taken aback by the look of horror in her eyes.

“Their mouths.” She gives me a little shake. “Look at their mouths!”

I do as he says, and for a moment, I see nothing out of the ordinary. I don’t quite see what she means, but then I see the black veins spreading from their mouths.

“I don’t understand,” I murmur. “What is that?”

I’ve never seen Elsa look so frightened. “Dark magic. A very dangerous type of dark magic which has been banned for centuries.”

She looks white as a sheet. “It was banned for a reason, Sophia. It transforms a living person into a walking corpse. She’s killing her soldiers and turning them into mindless brutal fighting machines, ones that cannot be stopped or killed.”

“She can do that?” I’m still trying to unsee the terrible dark lines that look revolting.

“Look for yourself.” Elsa points at one of the soldiers, her voice shaking.

I’ve never seen Elsa so terrified ever. It tells me that something is really wrong.

Sure enough, the shifters stumble to their feet, their gait unsteady. When I look at their eyes, they are black. They go after their opponents, and my breath catches when I hear the terrible screams coming from the throats of the wolves at our side. Whatever Karina has done to her soldiers is frightening. They’ve become something monstrous.

I see three of them surround my grandfather, and while I have no great love for the man, I’m not going to let him get torn apart like the shifters at my side.

I attack the wolves, using my magic. But nothing works on them. I can see the dark tendrils of magic surrounding them, and I realize I have to do to them what I did to the children and the wolves who had once attacked us. They have been afflicted with dark magic, and there is no other choice.

I tear away at the threads of darkness lingering around the wolves. My attack is ruthless and I don’t care if I’m hurting the wolves who have become unwitting victims of their own master’s greed.

Two of them fall. The third one is persistent, desperate to end my grandfather’s life.

Shifting into my wolf form, I run forward and sink my teeth into his neck. Dark blood spurts into my mouth and I spit it out. In my wolf form, my magic is stronger, but it’s harder to use. It doesn’t help that I’ve used up nearly every ounce of magic inside of me now.

I shred the wolf with my claws, destroying the darkness inside him at the same time. He collapses, and as he does, I hear Karina laugh. “How long do you think you can keep this up, Sophia? You’ve not even seen the full extent of what I can do. Watch.”

To my horror, one of my grandfather’s soldiers, who is badly injured, begins foaming from the mouth.