Chapter Thirty-Six

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

SHADOW FLAMES

I never thought I would be grateful for Fayzien’s presence.

Over the past few months, my feelings for him had oscillated between pure hatred, pity, and apathy. But, in that moment, I was thankful for the Water Witch.

The Convallis had become a ring of fire, a storm of ash. A halo of embers rained down around us, lighting up what had been a night sky the moment before. It happened quickly; I comforted Cobal one minute, and the next, smoke stung my eyes and burned my lungs.

I counted heads—two half-breeds, two Fae, and one Talpa. The air grew so thick and suffocating that Leiya couldn’t fly through the smoke and ash. And even if Fayzien and I could portal everyone out of there, which we couldn’t without leaving someone behind, we had no idea what awaited us on the surface.

Fayzien ran away from the group, and for a brief moment, I thought he would leave us there. But he did not. He let out a small cry of victory and yelled at us to follow.

We ran blindly towards him, and his position came into focus by a small pond at the edge of the clearing we’d stood in. My eyes burned, and we began to choke, but seconds later, a bubble of Fayzien’s making shrouded us, the curved edges of it a thick lining of pond water. The smoke dissipated, and we blinked our eyes open, surveying our surroundings.

The scene we opened our eyes to was unlike anything I’d ever seen. The moon had been strong before, but now the fire illuminated the meadow like it was high noon. Burning trees cracked in half and thudded onto the charred Earth. Body parts flung through the air—maybe the Sk?l watchers who’d failed to evacuate, their remnants soaring down and splattering on the arena floor. The air was opaque from the fire, and an orange hue coated everything I could see. A rip of pain tore through my chest and I held in a cry at the sensation of life leaving the plants and trees and turning over in the soil.

“I’ve never seen fire spread so fast,” I choked. The smell of smoking flesh, even in Fayzien’s bubble, threatened to turn my stomach over.

“Thes esna any fire ye’ve ever seen, Lassie,” Leiya responded, dread and awe churning through her words. “Et’s magic, te be sure.”

“What do we do?” I wheezed.

“There is nothing we can do,” Xinlan whispered. “Not against spelled flames. No one survives them.”

Cobal let out a harumph . “Unless you’re the one who cast the spell.”

“And you let ‘em walk right ento our kingdom,” Leiya growled at Fayzien. “We should send ye to them flames ferst, see how the Water Wetch wilts.”

“Oh, that’s a brilliant idea. Send away one of two here who can portal. And don’t forget, the protective mist around you would dissolve in an instant.” He scoffed. “Good fucking luck. You wouldn’t last a?—”

“We don’t have time for this,” I croaked, my voice rough from the inhaled smoke. “We need to find a way to stop the flames. Fayzien could portal far from here, farther than I can. He could find safety, double back, and double back again—but I’m not sure we could survive the smoke long enough without his shield. And we don’t know how the fire will spread.”

Cobal nodded in agreement. “It would ravage the kingdom worse than the soldiers. If it hasn’t already.”

Silence held us at our throats for a few moments as the implications of my and Cobal’s words settled on the group.

We had no good options.

“Terra could control it,” Fayzien said, his voice so low it almost held regret.

We all looked at him, and I was unsure if I heard him correctly.

He winced and faced me reluctantly. “What is the Earth, if not the product of fire and water and air? The Earth is the intersection of the elements. Air, water, those might be trickier. But fire? Fire cannot burn—cannot spread—if there is nothing to ignite. You have been welling your power now, unintentionally, as you have not called the Earth properly in some time… you’d have to dig deep, but it could work. They say the first Earth Daughter could control fire with only a thought.”

“Why would you tell us this? In fact, why help at all?” I rasped, uneasy about his willingness to collaborate. “You’ve only tried to wreak death and destruction on my life and the lives around me. Why not just portal yourself out of here?”

Fayzien’s sculpted face contorted into a sneer, his blonde locks falling over blue eyes as he stared me down. “Don’t mistake my current actions for some weakening of heart, Princess,” he spat. “I’m simply following orders. I was sent here to keep you safe.”

I did not have time to wage an internal debate on Fayzien’s morality or motivations. “What do you think, Leiya?” I asked, keeping my eyes on Fayzien.

“I don’t trust hem as far as I can throw hem. But I dinna see how et’s not worth a try. We’re setten’ ducks en here, weth no way out.”

I contemplated for a moment. “Okay. I’ll try. Do you have an idea of how?” I asked Fayzien.

He pursed his lips. “I do not. But I do know how my element feels. Like it is my domain, stronger than how I command my own limbs. As if I have power over… its experience. The Earth is yours—it’s your choice if the brush around us burns or not.”

I looked at the group, and they gave me terse nods back. The Talpa whimpered from behind me, but there was no other protest. So I walked through the wall of moisture and into the inferno.

My bitten and already-blistered skin singed at the temperature in the air. I clamped down on my bottom lip to keep from screaming at the pain.

I had to work fast.

I ran a few paces back to the clearing, to keep some distance from the bubble, and fell to my knees. I balled my fists in the dirt, feeling the call back to me. The Earth responded in an instant, and inside me spread an immense gratitude that whatever spell had prevented me from summoning the element in the final Sk?l challenge had dissipated. Cool Earth pooled to the top, snaking up my body, clothing me in a relieving layer of mud. The sting on my skin from flames and bites soothed. My lips—blistered and cracked—reformed. My hair and smoking brows smoothed. I knew I would only stay protected if my Earth armor remained—and that was not permanent. The heat threatened to dry out my cool shroud in moments.

The flames burned so unnaturally, as if under direction. Leiya was right—they must have been spelled. I reached out to the fire, my hands extended, searching for a familiar vibration. It didn’t have the same tingle that came to me from the ground. So, I latched onto the call of the Earth, to the feeling of it being scorched, wilting under an unnatural heat. But instead of continuing to draw the life towards me, I sent my magic towards it—deeper, probing for the root of the fire spell. After a moment, a sharp zinging sensation hit me, an unfamiliar frequency. It was foreign, yes, but it also felt wrong . I pushed my magic harder, a dominating force, attempting to crush that seed of power, the strange spell from which the fire breathed.

If the spell was a stone wall, my magic was a battering ram. I stumbled back upon contact as if I’d collided with it physically. But I held my ground, digging my feet deeper into the mud, and closed my eyes. The Earth is my domain. Nothing burns here, lest I allow it. I sent my magic out once more, in a thousand tendrils, rather than the battering ram I’d tried the first time. They snaked around the spell’s lifeblood until a web of me covered it. And then I squeezed, visualizing my magic as the living, breathing thing it was.

My threads of power tightened and tightened, though the spell resisted, almost squirming beneath my grip. I gritted my teeth, pushing harder until I felt a single crack.

My magic jumped, and my beautiful, strong threads of power surged through that crack.

The spell shattered.

Air whooshed through me—my power filling the sudden gap, a space of nothing where that writhing spell had been. I dropped my arms, panting from exertion, blinking the sweat from my eyes. I had subdued the fire, which lingered even though I’d destroyed the spell feeding it. By the way the burning swayed, by the way the tips of the fire licked, I suspected I would not be harmed.

I walked amongst the flames, testing my theory. They burned, but curled around me in deference, and I detected a strange residual magic… it wasn’t a spell—no, I’d broken that. The flames were no longer under another’s control, they burned without direction. But an unfamiliar power lingered in that fire—a sorrowful, tortured magic made of pain. I sensed cries of suffering amongst them.

My eyes still stung from the smoke and I looked back at the bubble. Fayzien did what he could from his cocoon, sending the rest of the pond water around them to form a moat. He spelled too, but his water magic could not match the fire that still raged. I did not have such constraints.

I extended my arms outward, flowing my power gently at first, little vibrations leaving my fingertips, exploring the curves of the flames. The fire itself resisted, fighting my control, as if it wished to return to the twisted magic that had created it. But I let my magic continue on its path, coercing the masterless power to follow. Without realizing, it was no longer a gentle vibration that left my palms. I felt every bend and snake of the fire, and I knew I could make it mine.

And then a voice entered my mind, female and unwavering.

Fire cannot be controlled, little one, only starved. Adding magic to a spelled flame is like treating an oil fire with water. You must starve it of its air. Seek to make it yours, and you will lose control—you will only set fire to flame. Deprive it of magic and set it free.

I whipped around, attempting to identify where the voice came from. But I saw nothing amongst the golden surroundings, no movement, nor did I hear a sound. If I was being tricked, I didn’t know, but my gut told me to trust the words.

I raised my arms once more and my power flowed out. But instead of forcing control on the flame, I sought out the magic there, the power that lingered aimlessly in the burn. I pulled on it with swift force, sucking the life from the fire.

And then it came to me. And I saw what had made the fire feel so wrong . The embers of the fire’s magic were shadows of the dead, and their suffering the fuel. I cried out, a guttural noise, for I was absorbing their pain. The fire waned, so I forged on, the bearer of the shadows’ grief. My arms ached as the magic fire galloped toward me in blazing rings of agony. I stood, a beacon to the flames. My flesh remained intact, but I scorched within, an inferno of pain shredding me from the inside out.

I screamed once more, a scream with no sound. I could not stop the tidal wave of residual magic pouring into me, a steady stream that continued to run after the flames wilted. I collapsed, hearing voices, seeing images. Swirling tattoos and shaved heads and contortions of grief on their faces. An infinite weight pressed on my chest, and my vision went blurry.

The flames reduced to embers one ring at a time, rippling away from me at the center. I choked on nothing as I lay there, my hair spread out from me, decorated with white specs of fresh ash. The world grew blurry and the ground shifted at the gentle vibration of footsteps approaching me. What could anyone do to stop the magic I’d willingly absorbed? The strange power was devouring me from the inside out, and I had welcomed it—to starve the fire of its breath.

But when I looked up, it was not someone I recognized. I guessed she was a Fae female by the point of her ears, but she was faceless; only wisps of hair and body shape. She placed her hands on the dirt next to me, whispering unintelligible incantations to it. A moment later, I slowly sank as if in quicksand.

I submitted to the mud coating me, filling each orifice one by one. My ears, my nostrils, my mouth. I should have thrashed at the slow reminder of the spiders I’d faced less than an hour before, but I did not, for the Earth was my lifeblood, my haven. Soon, I was choking on the silky liquid, sputtering on my hands and knees in the clearing I had saved.

I blinked my eyes open, attempting to wipe some of the mud away. The others ran towards me, shocked faces watching me reappear painted in mud from eyelash to toenail. And the flames flickered in a swirling pattern that began with me in the center and extended out. Doing no harm. But my eyes didn’t focus on the Fae that neared me, nor the curious shape in which the fire smoldered. They set on the dark hooded figures that emerged from the shadows of the surrounding wood, descending on the smoldering clearing, scims gleaming in the moonlight.

As if we trained together, the four of us turned our backs inwards to touch, Cobal at the center, peering out from between our legs.

Leiya, Xinlan, and I drew our blades, battle stances ready. Fayzien whispered under his breath, no doubt preparing to form a lethal and complex spell.

“Terra, ye need te spell, now,” Leiya said.

I couldn’t move.

“She has never taken life from a living being, warrior,” Cobal said. “At least not willingly. It will not be easy for her.”

The image of Xinlan’s blade sinking into Jana’s chest flickered in my mind at Cobal’s comment. I said nothing, squeezing my eyes shut, trying to block out that thought and the pictures of suffering I saw in the fire. I swallowed my nausea.

“Drakkarians!” Fayzien bellowed with a voice that was older, more robust and commanding than his typical sneering tone. “You have been told you fight for freedom, for a justice you and your people deserve. But you have been lied to! The magic you have is being wasted on frivolous pursuits. You feel the wells of your power run dry. Those that command you will see you starve. Stand down. Do not attack. Defy the regime and dismantle your true oppressor!”

The cloaked soldiers would have been invisible in the darkness if it weren’t for the strong moon and flickers of a fire that had raged minutes before. Many halted their approach, startled by his commanding address, and exchanged glances. A few did not, but Fayzien’s move found success.

He unleashed a spell. Magic burst out from Fayzien’s fingertips and swept towards our attackers. About a third of the hooded beings paused in their footsteps and dropped their weapons. Their hands clutched their throats, gurgling in pain, choking on an unseen liquid. Still, dozens charged on, Fayzien sagging with exhaustion. “I’m tapped,” he breathed. “At least for the next few minutes.”

“Terra, ef ye dinna spell, now, we well die,” Leiya barked out, eyeing Fayzien as he panted. “Me fighten es damn good, but fifteen te one odds are a wee bet much, even fer me.”

I labored to breathe; a wall of gleaming steel barreled towards us. Think, think, think.

“You are an Earth Daughter,” Xinlan’s words sliced through the midnight air. “If you cannot survive, what hope do the rest of us have?”

“Think of your warrior,” Cobal added softly.

Something inside me broke, and the cool separation of instinct washed over me. I walked out of the circle, letting my sword drag in the dirt while I twirled Ezren’s knife in the other hand. The contact of my sword with the Earth sent a tingle through my body and left goosebumps on my still mud-shrouded skin.

One man parted from his group, matching my pace, signaling the running warriors to pause. They obeyed. “Daughter of the Earth! We have come for you,” he called out, his hood still shading his face. “Your existence represents a grave wrong and has disrupted the balance. Come willingly and we will not hurt your friends or your loved ones. Fight us, and you will regret it.”

I tuned out the confusion his words caused. “This is not your land,” I called back. “Leave this place, and leave it unharmed, or you will be the one to regret it.”

The only thing I could see from beneath his hood was a toothy smile. He raised his fist. Then he opened his fingers, and the warriors behind him rushed on.

I waited, unmoving, as they charged toward us. The Talpa cried out behind me, and Leiya shouted at me to spell. But I let them draw nearer and nearer, allowing my anger to build. I was sick of being threatened, manipulated, lied to, subjugated.

When close to fifty of them neared, I raised Ezren’s knife, letting the Dragon egg gleam in the moonlight. The image of the blade raising itself in defense against Tey flashed in my mind. The Dragon egg had responded to me with pulses of power a few times before. Instinct took over, and I whispered a quick prayer to the gods before plunging the dagger into the Earth, sinking to one knee, and sending my magic through it. The Dragon egg illuminated, glowing even more brightly than it had ever before, and the ground broke in front of me. Dirt erupted in a wave, undulating towards the running warriors. It was too fast for them to react. They were either flung into the air or crushed in the undertow of Earth that ran their way.

The remaining soldiers, furious at the immediate loss of nearly two-thirds of their men, charged on, the toothy-smiled man at the front. He smiled no longer. He portaled and landed in front of me, just as I drew my knife from the Earth. The others had run to join me, and they protected my flanks as I locked my broadsword with the Witch leader.

His hood was back now, revealing thick eyebrows over dark eyes set in deeply tanned skin. I let myself get lost in the coldness of the combat that ensued. He was a good fighter, not as quick as Tey, but fast for a male, with strength to pack behind it. When I had fought last, against Tey, I had been spelling simultaneously. Not to mention I’d been fighting my nature, denying the call of the Earth. But now, I’d just unleashed a wave of magic, and it reverberated off me like an aura, powering each turn and blow I made.

To my left, Leiya cut through Drakkarians like they were butter to her spreading knife. Blood pooled in my opponent’s eyes, and I sent a feather of my magic down the dagger. Enough to slice through his metal, like I had broken Fayzien’s whip in the Nameless Valley. My broadsword slashed across his chest, and he stumbled. I sent the heel of my foot straight into his abdomen, and he fell back. And then I was atop him, raising my knife, the Dragon egg still glowing at its hilt. The Witch’s eyes jumped between fear and wonder, and I faltered for a moment.

Cobal shrieked my name. My head snapped left to where the creature stood, unharmed, but pointing to the trees. And by the time I understood his warning, the arrow had pierced my skin, sinking into the base of my neck.