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What Halliwell had to do with the Sandman, he didn’t know But whatever face it wore, it was a monster, and it had his mother’s blood on its hands
Moisture ran down his cheeks again, but it wasn’t sweat this ti his composure He opened his eyes and let the sun sear therief away as it dried the tears Once again he let his head loll to the side…
And the Sandst the wounded where they had been stretched out on the open ground and strode toward the enor of Euphrasia and the colors of King Hunyadi
He blinked, certain that soe of his mother’s murderer The heat, the loss of blood But no matter how many times or how firmly he squeezed his eyes closed, when he opened them, the Sandman remained Halliwell, the monster, remained
Its presence created a fresher wound than even those he had sustained on the field of battle
Ovid gritted his teeth Sloarily, he rolled onto his side and then onto his chest Breathing evenly, preparing hies of his vision, but he kept breathing and they faded Teeth still gritted against pain--which inexplicably spread to his shoulders and legs--he staggered to his feet So free, and a single track of blood spilled like a teardrop down his belly and thigh
He began to limp after the Sandman When he passed a wounded soldier--a woman who’d once been beautiful--he bent carefully and borrowed her dagger, nearly passing out in the process But he remained conscious The woman seemed near death Fluid rattled in her throat when she breathed She would not ht a war for the king, for his country, for himself, and for his s that they believed in
Fate seemed to have other ideas
Atop a small mountain peak fashioned entirely of ice, Oliver Basco the wounded, shuddering, unconscious fox in his left arm--and waited for the air shark to make its move Octopuses had tried, but Frost had destroyed theh, the winter y ice structure upon which they stood, back-to-back, had becoreat plaza at the center of Atlantis The ground still shook, aftershocks of Oliver’s power He had unraveled the very foundations upon which Atlantis stood To the south, on the far side of the island, red and black lava spewed from a volcanic fissure underwater
From what Oliver could see, s still jutted fro flood that poured in froed from the water In the distance, another island loomed but seemed untouched
Only Atlantis had been affected
Atlantis was sinking, cru into the ocean Undone Un with it They had quickly discovered that the sorcerers here--the ones who had not gone off to war--cared less about ic spread out across the island, bands of energy that see to raise it up, to so worse
Another building fell, entire stories cascading down upon one another and crashing into the water
Oliver had a feeling that soon the sorcerers would realize that their efforts were useless, and then their eance
The air shark turned lazily in the air, as though it hadn’t a care in the world Everything else alive in Atlantis seeuidly All that mattered was its prey
Out where the harbor had once been, massive sea-serpent coils undulated in the water Ocean waves rolled in through the city The Kraken--if that truly was the Kraken out there--would soon find the water deep enough to come into the plaza The ice mountain that Frost had created eroded by the moment as the warm seawater washed over it, and would not survive an attack from the sea monster
Oliver set Kitsune down at his feet and risked a quick glance over his shoulder
Frost had thinned to slivers Mist rose froone fro only white--and not even white, but a clear ice At his feet, Leicester Grindylow sat bleeding, wincing from broken bones, and cradled the corpse of Cheval Bayard close to hiart and kelpy would remain with them, no matter what, as would the dead little blue bird who had once been the most loyal friend to theiving in at last to the frenzy of panic that churned inside of hi over "Where’s Smith?"
The winter man pointed
Oliver turned just as the air shark made its move He raised the Sword of Hunyadi The shark darted at hi than the fury of any deend, Oliver raised the sword up in both hands and brought it doith all his strength The blade slit the shark’s head, punched through into the lower jaw and out through the bottoe, powerful body in the air In seconds, it would knock Oliver into the water, where other things waited
Putting all his weight on the hilt of Hunyadi’s blade--its tip now lodged in ice--he drew the other sword, which he’d carried to Atlantis, twisted it and plunged it through the shark’s right eye
It thrashed again Oliver lost his footing and slid, beginning to fall, nearly knocking the fox off of the ice ed Hunyadi’s sword out of the shark’s snout and the beast fell, twitching and slipping down the icewater, the other sword still stuck through its eye socket
Heart pounding, , Oliver clawed his way back to the top of the icethe Sword of Hunyadi out before hiht, perhaps, she smiled a bit
"Well done," Frost said, and his voice had become little h…if Prince Tzajin was left here for us, a trap, then where is Ty’Lis? Why is he not here to see our deaths? And if he’s not here killing us, then who is he killing while we fight for our lives?"
Oliver slaainst his head He looked down at the rising water, felt the ground tremble underneath the ice He had wanted to punish them, yes, and to stay alive But he had never wanted to destroy the whole city King Hunyadi would cheer--his whole arive Oliver a medal--but how many had he killed?
And where was Ty’Lis?
"Where else would he be?" Oliver snarled at him, lips pulled back, almost feral "He’s in Euphrasia"
Oliver felt the truth of it There were no choices left for them, no way to prevent whatever it was Ty’Lis really had planned Only one way out of this situation presented itself
He shook his head, threw up his hands, shaking the Sword of Hunyadi "Shit! Shit, shit, shit! We’ve got to cross the Veil, right now, noWe’ll worry about getting back to the front lines e’re out of this mess!"
He sheathed the Sword of Hunyadi and bent to heft Kitsune into the cradle of his arain
"Oliver," Frost said, that voice barely a suggestion, now "You’ll have to help me Help me open the way"