Chapter Two Black Witch Rising

Chapter Two Black Witch Rising

Elloren Guryev

Shadow wasteland

Silence descends in the cramped cavern, only Fallon’s occasional feral snarl breaking through the silver torchlight guttering

over our bound forms.

My heart thuds, the sound of my pulse whooshing through my ears as I strain against my bindings.

I sense Yvan drawing nearer with what must be portal-speed, the painful stretch of our bond relaxing, his fire increasingly

roaring through me along with that of my entire horde, assuring me that they are on their way.

But sweat breaks out over my skin. The Shadowed twinning spell striving to fully connect my rootlines with Fallon’s has taken

on a parasitical life of its own, my gut clenching against the feel of my magic being siphoned out of me and into Fallon,

the Shadow mist slithering around our lines winding tighter and tighter...

... then pulling excruciatingly tight.

I scream against my Shadow gag at the same moment Fallon lets out a throaty growl, every one of my muscles tensed bowstring

tight as Yvan and my horde’s Wyvernfire is punched back, cold invades my rootlines, and my power starts to funnel more intensely

toward Fallon.

I tense every rootline, struggling to hold my magic back from the evil linkage. I manage to tenuously slow its flow, but the

effort is torturous, like knives being dragged along my rootlines.

Another surge of Yvan’s fire hits me, searing through our mating mark and bond before streaking through my arms to my hands and concentrating there as if Yvan is trying to send his might into my palms.

Wood , I agonize. If I had one single sliver of living wood .

I’m trembling now, my power like a roaring tide battering against a dam that’s about to break and send every last ounce of

my magic straight into Fallon, my mating mark and palms burning hotter and hotter...

A memory of something Yvan said suddenly connects—

The bite opens up a full sharing of fire power.

The revelation of what Yvan is trying to convey strikes home with the force of stars colliding, my heart striking into a rib-battering

rhythm.

I don’t need living wood to get free , I breathlessly consider, a brutal ruthlessness descending. I have access to Icaral fire.

I draw in a harsh breath, pull on Yvan’s power... and draw his Icaral inferno toward my palms.

The scene around me tints to flickering violet, a hotter scald overtaking my palms.

Snarling against my gag, I splay my fingers open, tense every line and roar out the inferno of Icaral fire.

Heat blasts from my palms in an explosion of violet flame, every Shadow vine restraining me igniting.

Fallon shrieks as my gag and other bindings sizzle away, freeing me.

My gaze jerks to her as I sit up, a new jolt of panic spearing through me as I realize her bindings are burning to ash as

well, the guards outside shouting and pounding on the rune-sealed iron door.

The split-second realization hits. They can’t get in. Only Vogel can...

I spring to my feet at the same moment that Fallon does, her movements unnaturally quick, her whole being seeming transformed

into an animalistic state by the Shadow coursing through her lines. Her glowing gray eyes lock with mine, her lips pulling

back in a bloodcurdling hiss.

Before I can attack, she lunges and knocks me to the ground.

My back collides with stone, the breath knocked from my lungs as Fallon’s hands close around my throat. I’m unable to breathe, Fallon’s grip clenching so tight that I fear her fingers will puncture my skin, her ice spearing into my lines. My eyes bulge as I struggle to both pull in air and draw more of Yvan’s fire into my palms. Thrashing against Fallon’s hold, I punch her to no avail and she hisses and bears down. Dark stars explode through my vision, and I begin to black out, Yvan’s fire power taking on a feral, lashing force as it burns through wave upon wave of ice.

Seizing on my final shred of consciousness, I reach up, grasp Fallon’s shoulder, and blast Wyvernfire straight into her.

Fallon screams, her hands flying off my throat as she erupts into violet flames.

Breath floods back into my lungs, and I force myself up, wheezing. Wasting no time, I whip my palms forward with a snarl and

blast more fire at Fallon. She screams, writhing and burning, her Shadow-destroyed form soon stilling inside the inferno.

Her power’s hold on me fully releases, the twinned spell fading to steam and ash.

Shock grips hold, devastation riding in close on its heels.

I killed her.

My stomach heaves, a jolt of remorse lancing through me over having killed someone. But there’s no time to dwell on it. There’s

no time for anything but taking down this entire Shadow world before it’s too late.

Swallowing back the urge to retch, I raise my palms to the iron door and blast Wyvernfire into it.

The door heats to a glowing purple and liquefies to the ground in a molten puddle, a hot, metallic tang on the air. Before

the guards outside can respond, I snarl a battle cry and thrust my palms forward, then blast out a wall of fire and hurl myself

through the door, my vision briefly overtaken by my violet firestorm.

I spin in a semicircle, whipping out fire, soldiers screaming as they burn, my flames clearing as they grow silent.

Panting, I take in six charred bodies littering the ground before I set off at a sprint down one stone tunnel then another

and another, soon reaching another locked iron door.

Raising my palms, I blast out twin shots of fire and incinerate the door’s bolt, lock, and hinges, then kick it open.

It falls to the stone ground with a deafening clang , revealing the outside world.

Two Level Five Mage soldiers wheel around to face me. Their green eyes are grayed only at the edges, their free will not yet overtaken. They’re standing on an elevated ledge, a gigantic military base spread out behind them, the view panoramic from this vantage point. Broken multi-eyed and multilimbed Shadow dragons screech through the air, Mages astride them. There’s a vast encampment of dark tents, a sea of Mage troops astride Shadow dragons aligned in neat formation to the south of them. A chill races down my spine. I recognize the central stone buildings from pictures in the history texts Jules Kristian gave me.

Issyl.

The capital of Issaan.

But completely stripped of color. Shadow clouds roil overhead, a poisonous tang on the air. Shadow storm bands line every

horizon, leagues of charred land before them.

The Natural World decimated.

Rage sparks within me and heats into a vengeful inferno.

“State your name!” one of the soldiers demands as they both level wands at me.

“The Black Witch,” I snarl, and blast bolts of violet fire straight at their chests. The soldiers burst into flame and crumple

to the ground just as alarm horns begin to sound.

Pulse skyrocketing, I look up and see a legion of Mage soldiers on dragonback wheeling around in the sky and soaring directly

toward me.

I focus on drawing power to my hands, quickly realizing that the Shadowed landscape is siphoning away Yvan’s Wyvernfire as

fast as he’s feeding it into me—I don’t have enough to take down an army.

Spitting out a curse, I turn and set off at a sprint up the stony hillock behind me, climbing toward its rounded pinnacle

as I draw in more of Yvan’s Wyvernfire.

I leap over the hillock’s apex, and my heart plummets as I come face-to-face with the colossally long and high storm band

rising a short distance from the hillock’s base. Thunder crashes through it with emphatic force, curved, dark lightning flashing

through its expanse.

A crack sounds, and I flinch as the storm band expands, its front rising higher and higher into the sky.

Vogel knows , I realize. He knows I’m free, and he’s attempting to trap me here.

Rebellion fires through every nerve as I spare a glance over my shoulder to find Vogel’s forces soaring over the hillock,

straight toward me.

I lurch toward the hillock’s base, my feet skidding as I slide and sprint down it, then launch into a sprint toward the storm

band. Dragons shriek as they traverse the hillock, and I raise both palms and blast out as much of Yvan’s violet fire as I

can summon, conjuring a flaming shield around myself before I run straight into Vogel’s wall of storm.