The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 6 by Bella Forrest (books for men to read .TXT) 📕

to limp again, her mouth set in a grim line, refusing to show any pain on her face as she raced along beside the other two.

Reaching the mouth of the cave, Alex peered closely at the ground in front of the entrance. The dirt and grass were churned up where boots had stomped the earth. It looked like soldiers had indeed gone into the cave, but whether or not they’d come back out again, Alex couldn’t tell. It was hard to make out which direction the boot-prints were going in, with so many overlapping.

Alex put his thumb and index finger to his lips and whistled loudly. A second later, Storm poked her head around the side of the cave, giving Alex a look of displeasure.

“Sorry, Storm, we have to go,” he explained. Her expression softened.

The trio mounted Storm’s back, the Thunderbird taking a runup before soaring into the sky. She seemed to have regained some of her vitality, her neck lifted high, her wings beating powerfully once more as she swooped low over the canopy of Falleaf’s forest. Curving upward, she climbed higher and higher, until the trees below were just one large patch of green. In the center, Alex could see the miniature shape of the pagoda, and wondered if Julius was still inside, plotting his revenge.

With the rocky turbulence Alex had come to expect from this particular trip, Storm powered through the barrier between Falleaf and Starcross, emerging a few moments later, the distorted world snapping back to normal, revealing the idyllic realm below. They flew along, passing over the field in front of the cave entrance. Looking down, Alex saw the unmistakable tracks of marching soldiers, the grass eroded away by their soles. As a rising feeling of concern coursed through him, Alex lifted his gaze and set it to the horizon, hoping Ceres had managed to cut the soldiers off before they could do any harm.

Reaching the encampment, Alex’s eyes flew wide with horror, his heart gripping in his chest. Something was going on in the camp below, something strange and wrong. A flash of magic tore through the air like a fireworks display, energies crashing together with crackling explosions, the cries of the wounded rising beneath the din. Alex’s face morphed into a mask of fury. Ceres hadn’t managed to cut the soldiers off. The camp had been ambushed by a magical army, and the Starcross survivors were fighting back with all their might.

And Alex could see that their side was losing.

Glancing around, Alex tried to find Julius among the legion of soldiers, but the king was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t even sitting at the sidelines, enjoying the spectacle. Such a notable absence worried Alex—there was no way Julius would miss out on this, especially if his army was winning. No, there was something brewing beneath the surface, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Everything felt wrong, the very air tense around him; a tiny voice in the back of his head pleaded with him to run, but he ignored it.

“Land there,” Alex instructed, gesturing toward an open patch of ground at the edge of the camp, seemingly devoid of fighters. It was far enough away from the fighting that Storm wouldn’t have to enter the fray, but it meant the three riders would have to sprint toward the battle.

With a delicate flap of her wings, she landed in the open space, hunkering down to let the trio off before taking to the skies again, circling and swooping where she could, picking off any of the soldiers she didn’t like the look of. Alex smiled, knowing Storm wouldn’t run from a fight either.

Keeping his eye on her and the battle ahead, Alex sprinted toward the battlefield, which lay just beyond the encampment, where the two sides were clashing in a head-on attack. As he tore through the throng, wanting to reach the front lines, something strange happened.

Out of nowhere, a thick yellow fog rolled across the field, stinging the eyes and nose like mustard gas, the fog so opaque that Alex could barely the see the person next to him. It was then he realized that the enemy fighters were wearing masks that covered half their faces, keeping their noses and mouths protected. At first, he’d thought they were just part of the uniform, but now he understood they were there for a purpose. It was to keep the fog out. Whatever it was, it wasn’t to be inhaled or ingested, if the soldiers’ attire was anything to go by.

“Cover your faces!” Alex yelled, but his voice got lost, the fog deadening his words.

“What?” cried Natalie, but it was too late. The fog hit her.

Immediately, her body spasmed, a yellow foam frothing from her mouth, her eyes growing wild, showing the whites. Seconds later, she turned toward Alex, lunging at him with her teeth bared like a savage animal, clearly no longer recognizing him as her friend. She tore at him with her hands, knocking him to the ground, though Virgil managed to pull her away long enough for Alex to regain his footing. Scrambling to his feet, Alex conjured a shield of anti-magic around himself, protecting against her brutal advances. Letting out a scream of indignation, she conjured her own magic between the palms of her hands, infusing it with thin streaks of pale pink—dark magic.

Virgil stepped forward to try to help, but as he raised his hands to create an orb of hybrid energy, a figure exploded from the camouflage of the fog, tackling him to the earth. Alex couldn’t make out who it was, but it looked remarkably like Billy Foer.

Natalie charged at Alex’s shield, only to be sent flying backward. She got up again, undeterred, hurling spears of pure golden energy infused with slivers of red toward his protective bubble. One pierced through—Alex managed to duck out of the way just in time, though the movement meant the collapse of his shield, his focus knocked off guard