Page 97 of The Iron Hex

She wasn’t going to lose them.

Eira closed her eyes, feeling for an element... for anything. Willing the power she knew she had to flow through her, tosave them all, to destroy the soldiers fighting them. To harm her father... but maybe not kill him.

The Flow called back to her with an answer. Stone. Eira latched onto it, feeling for the pull she had felt when she had summoned the vines and snow and water. A tug in the Flow as she willed the element to come to her, to come to her and then go somewhere else. The mine behind her was full of stone, stone and iron. She felt it come to her in multitudes, and she willed it to hit the soldiers.

Eira opened her eyes as she cast, finally understanding how to feel the Flow without needing to deprive herself of sight, her hands twisted as the stones flew out of the cavern mouth at the soldiers. She watched as a stone pummeled into the Soulless Knight that had been swinging at Hugo, its arm flying off into the forest as a second stone knocked its legs out from under it, dark blood spraying across the crisp white snow underfoot.

Eira screamed as she summoned more, dozens of mined pieces of iron-filled stone flying out of the cavern and hitting the soldiers, their shouts drowned out as the barrage snuffed out their lives.

An archer was hit with one of the rocks, carrying their entire body across the clearing before pinning them against a tree, a scream leaving them as they realized their fate. The second and third Soulless Knights were hit more than the others, stones flying through them and taking chunks of their lifeless flesh with them. One rock slammed into the head of one of the knights attacking Evangeline, detaching it from his shoulders and sending it skidding across the ground. Eira couldn’t control it, not really, but the stones knew to fly and Eira stood with her arms out until she watched the final Soulless Knight fall.

The scene in front of her was gory and bloody, but her eyes were on Hugo, fallen to his knees, breathing heavily. Eira started looking across the bloody and stone-littered ground for Lord General Kerrigan and Evangeline.

She spotted Lord General Kerrigan... no, herfather, in the distance. He’d started running as soon as Eira’s rocks had started flying, and she locked eyes with him from across the clearing as she lowered her hands. He was bleeding, a deep gash on his cheek trickling blood onto his iron armor, dented by the very stone they’d refined to make it. Eira watched him limp away before taking a horse and riding out of her line of vision. She stayed silent, letting him go.

Hugo scrambled to his feet as Eira noticed Evangeline, still on the ground, screaming and writhing in pain.

Eira sprinted to her, the princess surrounded by half a dozen soldier’s bodies, each of them lying unmoving. Evangeline’s legs were pinned under one of the Soulless Knights and Hugo pushed them off of her as Eira ran to Evangeline’s head.

“Where does it hurt?” Eira asked, panicking.

Evangeline coughed up blood. “Everywhere,” she choked out, tears rolling down her cheek.

“Urgh,” Hugo grunted as he cleared the body off Evangeline, allowing Eira to see the full damage. Evangeline bled from a wound on her waist, heavy, thick, and bright red.

“Hugo.” Eira pointed at the gaping hole in Evangeline’s torso. “Put direct pressure on that.”

He moved quickly, the princess screaming in agony as he pressed on the wound, her voice cracking from the power behind it.

Eira scanned her body quickly: legs, then pelvis, then... arms. She paled when she noticed one of the rocks she’d used to take out the soldiers that had been attacking Evangeline. They’d all been so close to each other, and in her frantic state, Eira hadn’t even thought of what the rocks could do to her friends.

Evangeline’s left arm had been severed at the elbow, crushed under one of the massive stones. Eira could see the mangled severed hand stuck under the rock, mixed with the brain and bone of the head it had taken off.

“Eira,” Evangeline’s teeth chattered. “I am so cold.”

No,no. That was bad. Eira used her dagger to cut a strip off of her cloak and tie a tourniquet on Evangeline’s arm.

“We need to get her back to the tavern so I can fix her,” Eira stated, unsure of what else she could do in this wasteland of bodies and ice.

“That’s a fifteen-minute walk atleast, Eira... I don’t think she’s going to make it that long,” Hugo said, concern in his eyes. He was right.

“I need to be able to make a poultice. I need to save her!” Eira shouted, searching for a way to get to her the tavern faster... except... that damned tavern owner had betrayed them. Evangeline was going to die here and Eira couldn’t do anything about it... This was all her fault.

“Eira,” Hugo said as he grabbed her face in his bloody hands. “I don’t know a thing about magic, but I know it wasn’t the poultice that healed me after the first Soulless Knight attacked us.”

Eira looked at him, a bruise already forming under his puffy eye as blood trickled down his neck from a head wound. Eira had learned her magic could do so, so much harm. She looked at the carnage around her, the clearing littered with bodies and rocks filled with iron ore. What scared her more was that this hadn’t even exhausted her, as if using the Flow was a muscle she was finally using again. Witches were supposed to have limits. What she did should havebeena limit, but she feltsogood—better than she had in so long.

But for all the damage she’d done, she had somehow forgotten the good she’d done all these years, how she had healed people. The Flow wasn’t just for harm, no matter what the Iron Empire said... no matter what her father said.

Eira looked at Hugo, determination in her eyes. She laid her hands on Evangeline’s side as the princess coughed up more blood.

“Eira,” she said, grabbing Eira’s arm with her remainingblood-covered hand, her bloodied stump moving as well, as if she was trying to use the other hand too. “I missed you, and I’m so glad we got to be friends again... even if only for... so little time.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Eira stated before looking back to the wound and feeling for the Flow once more.

“Keep her safe,” Evangeline coughed, turning her head to Hugo.

“You’ll be here to make sure I do,” he responded, watching Eira.