Bram shoved me against the wall, Ore tossing Farah to it beside me, they stood in front of us as True and Mars turned a gruesome scene grisly.

I sensed it was done at the same time as Farah, and thus we both dashed around our protectors.

Straight to Ry.

“We must go,” Mars grunted.

We both hunkered down beside him.

He was on his side, blinking, his neck covered in blood where it wasn’t opened flesh.

“Ry,” Farah whispered.

“I…” he pushed out.

“Darling,” True said to his wife between gritted teeth.

“Believe,” Ry whispered.

We did not stay with him in order to be with him as he met his end.

For we were taken hold of and hauled from the room.

Nick Walsh

Outside Nautilus

MAR-EL

They reined in as one.

“Bloody hell,” Rory whispered.

Nick clenched his teeth.

Before them, over the rock of Mar-el, the army of the Beasts was obliterating the fighting charmed folk.

Gods, he had seen many ugly things in his life.

But he’d never seen anything as ugly as a dead pixie.

“We must stop this. They’re going to decimate them,” Rory bit out.

They couldn’t stop this.

But they could try to ride through it and assist what was left of them in beating their retreat.

Both men drew their blades and hunched over their steeds in preparation to launch forth when both men sensed it and wheeled their horses to face a new threat.

Immediately, Nick had to drop his reins to catch the thing flying at him.

He also had to snap his head back so the edge of it didn’t hit him and render him unconscious.

When he’d adjusted the long, curved, rectangular, wooden shield and held it by the leather strap attached at the back, he looked at the sea of Zees on horseback before him.

“You’ll need that,” a man he did not know was named Silvanus advised. And then that man shouted, “Heeyah.”

And Nick, nor Rory, had any choice but to join them as a sea of Zees charged a battlefield.

Princess Serena

On the Road to Keel Castle

MAR-EL

They were going to be overcome.

She hacked at one, screeching, “Goddess damn it!”

He fell away only for another to take his place.

The enemy was so thick, their horses couldn’t get through.

They’d never make the castle.

Goddess, she was going to die on a road in bloody Mar-el with the man she loved at her side and the two best friends she’d ever had riding point.

She hacked at another one.

“Gal!” Brix yelled from his place astride his horse in front of them.

She hastened a glance forward just in time to see Gal pulled from his mount.

“No!” she shrieked, rage boiling through her, using her blade at random, slashing and hacking and…

A fierce wind blew her hair back at the same time she felt the impossible.