75. Tezya
SEVENTY-FIVE
TEZYA
I couldn’t move. I was still trapped by the vines. Distantly, I could feel more tighten around me, but I didn’t care. I was numb.
Sie was face down in the rubble before me, bleeding to death. He jumped in front of the blade to… save me.
The world stilled, and all I could hear was his heartbeat. It was fading fast. From the angle and all the smoke, I couldn’t tell where the dagger pierced him, but he was rapidly losing blood, and he wasn’t moving…
Then everything came back to speed at once. The King was laughing. Brock ran toward Sie and started dragging him away, and Rumor… she was standing before me, screaming uncontrollably.
Rage consumed me.
I promised myself when I came to this mountain, my siblings would be spared from the King. Sie and I didn’t exactly get along, but he was still technically my brother, and the idea of the King taking away another family member was paralyzing. He didn’t get to do this. He didn’t get to take anyone else from me.
It had to end now .
My eyes met Scotlind’s for one moment, one moment long enough for me to open up our bond and say, I love you, before I blocked her out again. I didn’t wait for her to respond.
I turned back toward the King and burned through the rest of the vines entrapping me until there was nothing left.
Distantly, I felt Brock trying—and failing—to heal Sie. Scottie was standing in front of them, screaming and completely drained, but I couldn’t focus on her, not if I wanted her to live. So I burned everything down except for them. I kept pouring and pouring my power toward the King.
Abilities hit me like a brick before I burned through each of them too. Glimpses of agony came crashing into me as the King tried to fight off my flames. Wind would push me back a few steps, water hit my body with such force that it took my breath away, new vines and roots would appear from the rubble, attempting to hold me down. But I destroyed them all.
My fire turned from varying shades of orange to bright blue as it poured out of me.
I didn’t feel it as I pushed past the bottom of my reserves. The pounding headaches that usually left me crippling weren’t affecting me because of the ring. Pylemo was giving me this chance to use everything I had to kill him once and for all, and I didn’t plan on wasting it.
I knew the moment my flames started burning his skin. It was like acid was raining over his face before it melted everything off. The fire no longer took the shape of flames but water as I must have subconsciously mixed Rumor’s ability with my own, creating molten liquid. I didn’t hesitate as I encapsulated him in it, trapping him just like he trapped my real father on that stage.
I kept it going, kept pushing more and more into the flaming, molten circle. I could barely see him through the smoke, but I heard him screaming, and I wanted to savor the sound. I wanted to bottle it and repeat it so I would never forget him dying.
But then it stopped. His screams faded until I heard nothing but silence, but I didn’t stop. I burned through him until he was nothing but ash, but even that wasn’t enough. I needed his ashes gone. I wanted nothing left of his existence, so I kept burning and burning and burning, knowing that Scotlind would get to live in a world without this monster.
I looked into the blue, molten liquid and smiled. The color was the same sapphire as Rumor’s eyes, and I was happy with this being the last thing I ever saw—
Warm hands gripped my bicep, pulling me from my trance. My chest was heaving as I slowly let the fire sink back into my veins, not ready to fully believe he was gone. My brain kept telling me that if I didn’t stop, he’d come back and kill everyone I ever loved.
Sapphire eyes melted into me, but they were sunken in, devoid of life. Scottie was drenched in sweat, her normally light brown hair was dark and slicked back and her clothes were clinging to her skin. Blood was dripping from her nose and ears, and her breathing was staggered.
Her fingers slackened around my arm as soon as I stopped casting my fire and that’s when I noticed her trembling. She was shaking all over, almost convulsing.
I grabbed onto her, catching her in my arms as she collapsed. “Rumor, are you okay?”
Worry consumed me as I let our bond open back up again. Agony and exhaustion were seeping from her.
I… love… you, she choked on the words in my mind—outwardly she was coughing, struggling to breathe, sucking in air through sharp gasps that were too ragged to be normal.
No.
No…
NO !
This couldn’t be real…
I fell to my knees, still cradling her.
“brOCK!” I was screaming his name over and over again, tears were spilling down my face at an alarming rate that it didn’t matter if there was smoke covering the mountain or not, I couldn’t see anything.
“brOCK!”
“I’m trying to save Sie right now!” he shouted back through fits of coughing. The smoke wasn’t clearing. I could feel it slowly burning my own lungs, but I didn’t care, barely noticed.
“I NEED YOU HERE!” I screamed. Distantly, Scottie’s body went limp in my arms. Her breathing was getting softer and lighter.
Fuck.
“Stay with me, Rumor,” I cried, even though she couldn’t hear me. “Please fucking stay with me…”
“brOCK!” I screamed again, this time glancing up at my friend. He was covered in my half brother’s blood. Sie wasn’t moving in his arms, just like Scottie wasn’t in mine.
Blood spilled from Dark.
I hopelessly looked down at Scotlind, my abilities running over her and searching for any sign of injuries. She wasn’t hurt, nothing looked fatal from what I could tell. Besides blood pouring down her nose and out of her ears, she wasn’t cut…
But her heart was slowing, mixing in with the sound of Sie’s rapidly dropping beat. It was all I could hear. It felt like drums, the sound was deafening, even as it slowly grew more and more infrequent.
Our bond was still there, but it was dimming, slipping away from me, and she wasn’t responding.
“Scotlind, please…” I sent a million prayers to all thirteen goddesses, then started cursing them out when they didn’t answer. “Pylemo, don’t take her from me… DON’T YOU DARE FUCKING TAKE HER! ”
I might have been screaming.
“Stay with me, Scotlind. Stay fucking with me!” I tilted my head toward Brock. “brOCK!” I cried. “Save her! Please, fucking save her …”
Brock looked up at me now. I saw his golden eyes flicker to the girl I loved dying in my arms. The look he gave me… I wasn’t ready to decipher it—wasn’t ready to accept it.
Fuck. This couldn’t be happening.
“Please,” I begged. “Do something… Do fucking anything!”
I was lost in my own rage that I hadn’t noticed what she was doing. I hadn’t noticed her using her enhancement, harnessing onto the ring I was wearing through our bond.
She went past her reserves, while I still had mine. I wasn’t at my limit because my heightened senses were still intact. But hers—
I hadn’t noticed that the one person I loved more than anyone else—the one person I was trying so desperately to protect—was killing herself to save me.
Sacrifice from Light.