Through Smoke and Ashes

Thirty Nine||Whispering Shadows

It was like my voice was the command for the Kellso to start their attack. Before, they were silent and unmoving. Now, I could feel the swarm of them pushing through the darkness, becoming louder with each passing second. Their pounding feet against the roof and their loud battle cries sounded like an unpleasant song that no one would pay to go and see.

"There's... many," Naxan said. I peered through his eyes at what he was seeing, and my chest clenched harshly. The roof of the Academy was rippling in waves with the Kellso on top of it. One thing I noticed about this was they were not leaving the roof. They had no way to get into the Academy unless they jumped down onto the balcony my group stood in front of. What were they doing up there?

"We should get off of this level," Ronan said as he pulled on my arm. I silently nodded my head as I followed after him with the others trailing behind me. It wasn't even moments later when I heard the sounds of dragons screeching above. I stopped when I heard this, my mind racing a million miles a minute. My group stopped to stare at me, but I paid them no mind. My skin prickled like bugs were crawling along my skin, and I knew whose stare it was coming from. I wasn't sure why Kayne's father had such a negative effect on me, but he did. He made my skin prickle, and when he was near me, my shadows hissed out venomously. It reminded me of what I felt when the Kellso were near. But maybe my imagination was acting up because the Kellso were quite literally knocking at my door.

"Twoleg!" Naxan's voice boomed in my head. "Get out!"

I regained control over my footing at Naxan's urgency. Pushing myself forward, I grabbed onto Aelric's arm and raced down the stairs with Ronan and Danazzo following behind. We only took a few steps before the Academy tremored with the outside assaults. I had to grab ahold of the wall beside me to steady my feet. The walls around us shook and crumbled as another blast struck the Academy. Dust and lose rocks fell from above and settled onto my skin. The Academy was slowly breaking apart.

That's when it hit me, why I was so confused about the Kellso being on the roof, why the army wasn't fighting back. They weren't fighting because their battle hadn't begun. It was their intention; to wait and let us kickstart their plan of action into motion. We were helping the enemy.

"Aelric, call off your dragon. We're helping the Kellso get inside!" I shouted as I looked to the roof of the Academy. Aelric's face went slack with realization, which turned into a blank stare as he communicated with his Ceosil dragon, Tezzy.

Nax, already hearing about my findings, rushed to deter the other dragons from their warpath, but he was too late by this time. I watched from Naxan's eyes as the surrounding dragons of all different colours sent out multiple blasts onto the Academy's rooftop.

"Run!" I shouted out to my group as the roof caved in around us. Large pieces of debris fell from the sky and crashed harshly at our feet as we dodged out of the way. I feared the falling stone would smash in the heads of my team members, but I hoped it didn't happen. As the noise settled down and we were a safe distance away from the top of the Academy, I looked up. There was a large hole in the Academy's roof.

All went still as the dragons realized after the fact of what they've done. The air was plumming with a cloud of thick smoke that choked out the brightness of the moon. Nothing could be seen from the aerial view. I wondered if the Kellso had been killed and we won the battle. But I was ignorant to think such things.

I could sense them even before they started to pile in through the exposed rooftop. Swarming black shadows fell through the weak point of the roof. The Kellso had infiltrated the Academy. The black sky was lit with orange and red as dragons of fire tried to eliminate any more Kellso from reaching inside.