(Lysara POV)

  The air cracked before the line did.

  Mana surged so hard it prickled across Lysara’s skin, static crawling up her arms as overlapping spells tore into being at once. Fire flared too hot, too close, sucking oxygen from the space between shields. Ice followed an instant later—compressed, blindingly bright, slamming down in jagged sheets that shattered under impact and reformed again before the fragments finished falling.

  She ducked instinctively as a shockwave rolled through the formation, boots skidding on ground already slick with blood and churned earth.

  Someone went down screaming.

  She was there before the sound finished tearing out of him.

  “Hold still.”

  The words barely mattered. Her hands did.

  Magic snapped again—white-blue this time, tight and brutal, forcing bodies back into alignment as wolves slammed against an invisible barrier and rebounded hard enough to snap bone. Steel rang. A spell went wide and scorched bark instead of fur, sending burning splinters into the press.

  Lysara dragged the injured man backward by his collar, away from the line before the next surge hit.

  Leg fracture. Bad angle.

  She set it without ceremony, breath locked, fingers steady despite the shaking ground. Mana flowed thin but clean this time—fast, sharp, sealing what it could.

  “Up,” she said, already turning.

  Another body collided with her shoulder, armor ringing as someone stumbled into her space.

  Lightning split the air to her left—Tessa. Tight arcs, clean strikes, snapping down anything that broke too close to the flank. The light burned white behind Lysara’s eyes even when she wasn’t looking directly at it.

  She tracked positions as she worked.

  Xyrion was still forward-center, ice layered and re-layered so fast it looked solid until it exploded again. Kayden moved through gaps like they weren’t there, blade flashing, pulling people back into line by force if he had to.

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  They were holding.

  Barely.

  A wolf hit the barrier hard enough to rupture it. Ice fractured outward in a storm of shards, bodies thrown back by the release. Lysara dropped low as the wave passed over her, cloak snapping, ears ringing.

  Someone didn’t get back up.

  She slid to him on her knees.

  Chest trauma. Breath wet. Too much blood already.

  She pressed in, forcing air, binding fast, pouring mana hard enough to make her vision blur.

  It didn’t take.

  She tried again, teeth clenched, hands shaking now.

  Nothing.

  Her throat burned.

  She reached for a potion without thinking—popped the seal, poured, forced the swallow. The liquid went down, but the rhythm didn’t return.

  Binding. Fast. Ugly.

  Not a fix.

  A hold.

  She flagged him and moved on before the next surge hit.

  Fire roared again, close enough to blister skin through armor. Ice followed, not hers, not anyone she could track, compressing the space until wolves slammed together and fell in a tangle of limbs and fur.

  Another wave replaced them before the bodies cooled.

  Magic was everywhere now.

  Too much.

  Spells overlapped and collided—fire eating ice, lightning grounding through frozen ground and exploding outward in uncontrolled arcs. Someone screamed when a backlash snapped through their casting arm.

  Lysara shifted back three steps, then five, keeping herself where the wounded flowed instead of where the line collapsed.

  She worked faster.

  Hands. Pressure. Seal. Move.

  She stopped counting.

  A man staggered toward her clutching his side, blood spilling through his fingers faster than she could stop it. She caught him, assessed in a glance, and kept moving.

  Too deep.

  No potion left that would matter.

  She didn’t stop.

  The guilt tried to catch, and she kicked it aside just as hard.

  Focus.

  The line bent again.

  Ice detonated outward, the force knocking Lysara flat as a shield shattered and bodies went with it. She rolled, came up coughing, vision swimming, ears ringing.

  She saw Kayden drag someone upright by the back of their armor and shove them into place just before lightning struck where they’d fallen.

  She saw Tessa’s casting tighten, jaw locked, sparks crawling up her arms as she forced another spell through sheer will.

  She saw Xyrion hold the line together by violence of intent alone.

  Lysara crawled, then stood, then ran—backward, sideways, anywhere there was space to work.

  Another injured.

  Then another.

  Her satchel went light.

  Empty.

  No more potions.

  Only bindings.

  That changed everything.

  She tied one last seal and stood, breath coming too fast now, chest tight with more than exertion.

  The ground was wrong under her feet—too slick, too warm, too dense with bodies.

  She adjusted without thinking, stepping where the soil still held, where magic hadn’t burned it glassy yet.

  A wolf burst through the line where ice failed for half a heartbeat.

  Someone died screaming.

  The sound cut off abruptly.

  Lysara didn’t look.

  She moved.

  Back again. Further now.

  She needed space. She needed sightlines.

  She needed to know where Xyrion and Kayden and Tessa still were in the chaos, because if she lost them—

  The thought didn’t finish.

  Her hand brushed the dagger at her hip as she slipped through the brush at the rear edge, not drawing it, just anchoring herself in something solid.

  The fight wasn’t ending.

  It was multiplying.

  And she was still on her feet.