Xever smirked as he strode out of his protective circle and stopped a few paces from the demon.

“How does it feel,” he asked with quiet, vicious pleasure, “to have the open portal right there and not be able to reach it? After twenty years, you came so close.”

Nazhivēr lifted his chin a little more, condescending disdain dripping from him.

“I could kill you,” Xever mused, “but I would rather watch you suffer as my slave for another twenty years. Stand there. Do not move until I say so.”

Unable to disobey, Nazhivēr held as still as a fully contracted demon. Not even his tail twitched.

Xever pivoted, turning those glowing eyes on me. “I think I’m actually pleased that you survived long enough to see what I accomplished using your family’s grimoire.” Magic blazed up his arm, burning so brightly that it completely engulfed his hand. He lifted his palm toward me. “And it’s fitting that you’ll be the first person I kill with the power you helped me gain.”

He didn’t create a spell circle—he simply unleashed the payashē’s power in a raw, uncontrolled blast.

The writhing crimson beam roared toward me, and Zylas slammed into my side. We hit the ground, rolled, and fell into the crater the payashē had blown into the solid granite to escape her summoning circle.

As we tumbled down the rough side, Xever’s blast screamed past us, turning everything red. An ear-shattering noise erupted.

Zylas and I slid to a stop at the bottom of the crater, his arms clamped around my torso, shielding me. He raised his head, his dimly glowing eyes meeting mine.

Xever was now the most powerful demon mage to ever exist, and it was just us. Just me and Zylas against a payashē’s enormous power. Somehow, Xever had bypassed the magic of the King’s Vow and enslaved her without her consent—without any restrictions on how much of her magic he could access.

Zylas leaned down, touching his forehead to mine. “There is no vh’renith here.”

Despite his words, I didn’t feel despair or hopelessness in his thoughts. He’d only fought battles he was certain he could win—but no more. This time, he had no intention of backing down, regardless of the odds against us.

“Yes,” I agreed, pressing both hands to his cheeks. “But sometimes we have to fight even when we’re certain we’ll lose.”

He swung to his feet, pulling me with him. My heart hammered as my hand closed around his, squeezing hard.

Beyond the crater that hid us, crunching footsteps approached. Xever was coming.

I lifted my other hand. Crimson sparked across my fingers, and I used Zylas’s dwindling power to create a six-foot-wide cantrip in front of us.

The footfalls grew louder. Xever’s head appeared above the crater’s edge, his cruel smile tinged with insanity.

Zylas’s hand crushed mine.

“Igniaris!” I yelled.

The cantrip erupted into a roaring orange inferno. Zylas pulled me against his side—and leaped into the flames.

Heat blasted me for an instant before cold swept in. As he soared through the fire, Zylas drew the heat inside himself—recharging his depleted magic.

He landed on the steep crater wall and leaped again. We shot up, right past Xever, and Zylas slammed down on the flat plateau. My feet hit the rock—and I sprinted away from him.

My legs pumped as I sped past the portal. Chains jangled, my hand fumbling through the artifacts hanging around my neck.

Crimson exploded behind me, the force so strong it knocked me off my feet. I fell, hands and knees scraping across the ground. Another blast shook the earth. Xever was hurling wild bursts of raw magic, the explosions almost drowning out his ringing laughter.

Scrambling up, I wrenched a chain off my neck. Not an item I’d thought I’d use. Not an item I’d imagined might save us.

I stumbled to a stop and looked up into Nazhivēr’s glowing red eyes. He hadn’t moved, trapped by Xever’s command, blood running from his wounds and trickling from the corner of his mouth.

“Help Zylas,” I gasped. “Kill Xever. Then go home. Do you agree?”

I touched the amulet to his chest, and his eyes went wide as he felt the amulet’s power—its ability to interrupt contract magic.

“Yes,” he rasped.

Rising onto my tiptoes, I looped the chain over his head and horns. It dropped around his neck, and the Vh’alyir Amulet thumped against his bare chest.

Wings sweeping open and his arm snapping up, he grasped the amulet tightly. For the first time in twenty years, he was free from Xever’s subjugation.

He shoved me out of his way and launched forward. I fell painfully as the Dh’irath demon charged at the blaze of crimson power that was Xever. Zylas darted in front of the demon mage, his own magic pitiful in comparison.

As Nazhivēr closed in, Xever extended both hands toward Zylas. Crimson exploded from his palms into another twisting beam.

With a lightning-fast leap, Nazhivēr grabbed Zylas and shot into the air, his torn wings pumping. Xever’s blast screamed across the plateau and hit the trees at the far end. A thunderous boom, then the beam of light died away.

A ten-yard-wide and thirty-yard-deep swath of forest had been obliterated, centuries-old spruce trees reduced to splinters.

Nazhivēr dropped Zylas, who landed in a crouch, and the two demons faced Xever. They lifted their arms, and arching spell circles appeared.

Xever flung his arms out, unleashing another wild blast.

The bright flash blinded me, and as I flinched, a glint of reflected light caught my eye. Fifteen feet away, Saul’s body lay with one arm stretched out. Silver bands ran up his wrist and disappeared under his jacket sleeve, each one engraved with abjuration designed to counter demon magic.

As another explosion detonated behind me, I raced to the sorcerer’s body. Dropping to my knees, I wrenched a band over his cold hand. Then another, and another, shoving them onto my much thinner arm.

One more—one more—then a blast of magic threw me on top of the body. The earth shook.

Xever’s mad laughter echoed across the plateau.

I leaped up, pushing the fifth band onto my arm, and ran toward the demon mage.

Alight with power, Xever hurled blast after blast at the two demons desperately trying to land an attack on him. They needed an opening. They needed a chance.

I ran closer—close enough to make myself a target.

Xever’s head turned to me. He swung his arm in my direction, a sizzling ball of crimson power expanding from his palm.

It blasted toward me.

“Ori tres!” I screamed, flinging my arm up.

A wave of sparkling green light appeared in front of me. The blast hit it—and fizzled away to nothing. The negation spell.

I flung my arm sideways. “Ori quattuor!”

Indigo spikes flew everywhere, but my aim was wrong. They missed.

Xever threw his arms up—and the air crackled, sizzled, burned. Zylas and Nazhivēr, who’d been rushing in behind him, drew up short—then backpedaled away. Zylas’s dread pierced me.

Xever’s entire body blazed with glowing veins—and howling magic exploded out of him in every direction, an expanding ring of death tearing toward me, Zylas, and Nazhivēr.

“Ori duo!”

At my desperate cry, the air in front of me rippled. The brunt of the oncoming tsunami rebounded—but the rest of the wave kept coming. Crimson power hit me, and everything turned to pain. I flew backward and crashed down, rolling, tumbling.