Page 91 of Scarlet Wars
“No. You?”
I shook my head. “Think we should start worrying?”
James exhaled, shrugging into his collar. “Stephen’s still searching for Gordon to get us some answers on Emma’s translation. Whenever he dives into a mission, he’s often off grid for months.”
My focus drifted to the subject of that last statement.
Emma stood further downslope, maybe twenty feet ahead, her posture rigid, keeping us all warm enough so we wouldn’t die of frostbite, while Sean was opposite us, right inside the tree line, scanning the perimeter.
The forest was too quiet. Too still.
I felt it first in my gut, a prickle under the skin, the warning something waited right beneath the surface.
Then…
Crack.
The sound tore through the silence like a gunshot in a cathedral. I spun, breath sharp in my chest.
Through the fractured shadows, I caught him. A figure breaking from the eastern tree line, half-shrouded in the mist. He moved like a phantom—low, fast, calculated—rifle raised, thebarrel flashing cold light as he cut through the haze, sprinting along the edge of the trees.
Every muscle in me coiled tight. The world funneled to a single point, the glint of steel, the ghost moving around us, and the next heartbeat that could decide everything.
My head snapped to the right: Emma.Exposed. The bastard had a perfect line on her.
Not her.
The thought wasn’t words so much as instinct, a raw, blinding surge that drowned everything else.
The gunshot cracked, slicing through the ringing in my ears like a scalpel through flesh. The world jolted with its precision.
Before I even knew I’d moved, I was running. Boots tearing through the snow, breath burning cold in my lungs. The world tunneled. The sting of wind, the metallic taste on my tongue, her silhouette caught in the crosshairs of fate.
I hit her full force, driving us both to the ground right as a second bullet screamed past.
It whizzed by my ear—too close—and slammed into the trunk behind us with a hollow, splintering crack that sent bark raining down like ash.
We hit the ground. Hard.
Emma grunted beneath me, pupils blown wide with adrenaline. Her breath came in quick bursts that fogged between us. I covered her, shielding her head with my arm, the cold seeping through my coat until it burned.
“Are you hurt?” My voice came out rough, raw.
She shook her head, panting. “No. I’m good.”
My pulse was still thundering, loud enough to drown the world. James was already up and moving, boots hammering across the frozen ground, shouting something I couldn’t hear through the roar in my ears.
Behind him, Sean barked orders at the rest of the team, his hand locked around the Nexus like he couldwillthe message through sheer force.
And the shooter?
Gone.
Only the mist remained, curling where he’d vanished, as if the forest itself had swallowed him whole.
EMMA
I was the mostpowerfulof all the magi in the world. Dixit Caden.
