60. Zai
Zai
Horror clawed through me as Lora pushed into the shrieking vortex of fire and ice. Flames lashed her skin and frost bit into her flesh, but she kept going, refusing to retreat.
My fingers twitched against the metal binding my hands, shoving every thread of my bolster into her body.
Ice shards sliced through her red dress, carving gashes wherever they struck. A chunk of metal slammed into her head, but she pressed forward. Her voice rose above the chaos, calling his name.
Did she even realize how much damage she’d taken? If I stopped bolstering her, she’d collapse in an instant.
The vortex crept closer, swallowing earth and air with each rotation. Kestrel dragged himself away from the expanding tornado, his bound body scraping across roots and stones.
Gritting my teeth, I pushed to my feet and staggered backward before the storm reached me.
My metal bindings had cooled to dull gray. Small fractures etched across the surface where stress had weakened the structure.
Tera had wielded the metal around us, but she was nowhere in sight. She’d likely fled into the safety of the trees, no longer bothering to reinforce our bindings.
My fingers flexed with new determination. I kept bolstering Lora in steady waves but redirected a thread of power into heating the metal.
I gritted my teeth against the burn as the bindings warmed and softened.
As purple light blazed from Erion’s frame, quiet terror mounted in my chest. Cracks spread across his skin and indigo tears spilled from his eyes like blood from a wound.
Lora’s pleading voice drifted through the chaos, but Erion remained trapped within that storm of power.
My chest heaved as I shoved another wave of heat into my bindings, and the metal finally split apart. I wrenched my arms free, spreading them wide to catch the broken pieces before they hit the ground. Glowing steel hovered around me, obeying my command.
Erion’s body trembled as blue and red light burst from his cracking skin in frenzied pulses. Violet consumed his eyes, swallowing every trace of their irises. Any moment now, his unraveling magic would strike Lora somewhere fatal. Or he’d simply detonate and take her with him.
I couldn’t let that happen.
He was the only one who could stop the monsters from devouring every village, town, and city across our domains. But I couldn’t bring myself to care about the fate of the world.
All that mattered was her.
Lora. The name brushed against my thoughts like a feather-light caress.
Bleeding. Burning. Still refusing to retreat. Her bravery stole my breath away.
A world without her wasn’t a world worth saving.
My hands moved before the thought had fully formed. Metal merged around me, reshaping into a burning spear. The tip blazed white-hot as I hurled it in an arc over Lora’s shoulder, straight into Erion’s chest.