His aim was true, and the arrow flew up the hill with great power and speed and—broke into pieces before ever reaching the eyeless Zealot priestess.

Something protected her as something now protected Rhian.

Even worse, though, she wasn’t alone. There were other priestesses, on other hills. They began to sing the spell with her. Their beautiful voices uniting.

The twins glanced at each other and, with a nod, moved.

Talwyn crouched and placed her hands flat against the ground. A spell tumbled from her lips, too fast for Talan to understand. While his twin did that, he caught sight of two knights attempting to mount their skittish horses, the poor animals terrified by everything going on around them.

Talan ran up to the soldiers, pulled out the short sword at his side, and cut the throats of both horses.

The animals immediately dropped, one landing on his rider.

“What have you done?” one of the knights bellowed.

Talan never answered. Instead, he watched in horror as two mountains in the distance crumbled like tiny hills of dirt built by a small child.

He faced the knight. “Go!” he ordered and dropped to his knees beside the carcasses. Talan placed his hands on the neck of each animal, closed his eyes, and let the darkness that lay beneath the land flow into his body until it reached his hands. He unleashed the power into the dead horses and, in a few seconds, watched them struggle to their hooves. Their eyes were blood red now and he could see the inside of their throats from where he’d cut them open.

Talan pointed at the priestess and ordered the horses, “Kill her!”

The dead animals took off running and Talan turned in time to see the power of his sister’s spell spreading through the ground, up through the hill under the priestess’s protection, and out of the green earth.

Talan’s dead horses had also made their way up the hill and the magicks used to protect the priestess were unable to stop the living dead, as vines and limbs burst through the ground and wrapped themselves around the priestess’s legs.

Her beautiful voice was cut off abruptly as the vines began to wrap her from toe to blind face. She tried to fight and started singing again. But the vines, once they had hold of her, began to pull her down. Down into the dark. While Talan’s dead horses attacked her with their hooves, battering her around the head and shoulders.

The twins turned from her but they knew their work wasn’t done. There were now at least five blind priestesses, singing their spell. And more mountains were falling. Mountains that had been there since before the dragons.

Talwyn and her brother stared at each other. Again, no words were spoken between them. They already knew what had to be done. Their mother’s troops had to be saved. Everyone had to be moved to safer ground. Rhian had to be retrieved and healed.