Chapter 26
Everywhere Tal looked, she found nothing but ash.
Beside her stood a familiar figure with hypnotizing eyes and a playful smile.
He reached out a hand and she took it. A sensation like electricity traveled up her arm and filled her body.
Let go, his voice whispered. It filled her mind like a warm embrace.
She felt the tension in her chest release and his face lit up with a glow that emanated from her.
He held up her hand to show the glow on her skin and kissed it.
Tal took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
She opened them to the same wooden ceiling.
The pain crept its way back into her senses and she groaned.
She needed water. She needed healing elixir.
She needed a lot of things. Tal wondered how long she’d been tortured for.
How long had she been missing? Did her friends realize she’d been taken?
They had to have noticed her absence by now.
Did Faron know? Did she care if he knew?
She silently scoffed at herself for that last thought.
Of course she cared. She wouldn’t be so angry at him if she didn’t care.
She tried not to imagine them coming for her. She didn’t want them risking their lives for her sake. She didn’t want that even if it meant she died there on that table. No, Tal would get herself out of this mess. She needed energy.
And then, there was the paralyzing spell.
It had held for days, without needing to be recast. Would killing the mage remove it?
Did the mage have defenses she couldn’t sense?
Would she be able to gather enough energy to kill him on the first try?
Because gods knew if she missed, she’d never get another chance.
There had to be another way to release the spell. She took a deep breath and would have doubled over in pain if she’d been able to. She forgot about the raking claw marks across her chest, the dislocated shoulder, the slash to her middle, almost like he had whipped her with his magic.
Tal remembered the last time a mage had used a spell like that on her.
She had almost died from the blood loss the night she had helped rescue the servant girl.
Nola had also been restrained by magic, though they had used a magicked rope that couldn’t be cut.
Tal actually had been attacked by the slashing spell because she tested out her fury on the rope—
Her mind reeled. She forgot about the rope.
Her fury could burn through the magic on them like a flame to a string.
It might be able to burn through the spell paralyzing her too.
She closed her eyes and reached into herself, searching for her fury, and there it was, brushing against its walls like a gentle caress.
It never abandoned her. It bided its time until Tal knew what to do.
Tal focused on it and called to it, but it slipped back into her with each pull.
She was too weak. The magic was too heavy.
She exhaled a defeated breath. She needed her energy back.
A noise outside her small prison alerted her to something new. She stiffened, anticipating the mage’s return, but the door didn’t open. Instead, someone cried out and then chaos ensued.
A bright flash of green light showed through the gaps around the door and illuminated the room around her. When it dimmed, the noise outside the room erupted. All at once, it sounded as if a small army fought beyond her door.
“Check the rooms!” yelled the familiar voice of her intelligent, calculating friend.
Weakly, Tal sobbed out her relief. They’d come for her. She tried to call out to them, but she had no energy. All the fight had been tortured out of her. What hope did she have of burning through the spell if she couldn’t even call out to her friends?
A door slammed in the distance amid the fighting. They sounded so far away. Tal could only wait while they fought their way through the mage’s defenses.
“Syb! Some guidance!” Carrick yelled.
“Somewhere dark, west side!” came the seer’s response.
Tal closed her eyes and forced herself to concentrate. If they made it to her, she would still need to break through the spell. She pulled at her fury, but it was like trying to grab onto water.
Another two doors slammed, but not hers. “Come on,” she urged them, tears in her eyes. The fighting continued, and her worry over them increased with each clash of metal and every battle cry.
Her door burst open in a spray of wood and dust. The fighting accosted her ears, but it was the frantic, “In here!” that she focused on. An enormous form blocked out the light, and Tal fought back tears.
“Tal.” Carrick’s hands reached for her face.
“Carrick,” she croaked. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone out.” Her breath came in short gasps.
He shushed her and brushed the hair away from her face. He assessed her injuries, horror destroying his boyish features. He shook his head. “Shit, Tal. What did they do to you?” He placed a gentle hand on her shin, and she cried out. His hand flinched away. “Where are you hurt?”
“Everywhere.”
Without a word, he stomped to the door and called out, “Faron! Elixirs!”
At the mention of his name, Tal sobbed. She had hoped, but didn’t expect him to have come.
Carrick ran out into the fray when another figure filled the doorway.
In a moment that took less than a breath and entirely too long at the same time, he was there, touching her face, kissing her forehead, hands hovering over her broken body.
She could think of no words to say to him about her recent behavior.
She could only cry and pray they survived long enough for her to apologize.
The pop! of a cork being removed from a small glass bottle filled the space.
“Drink.” He held the elixir up to her lips, and she swallowed the honey-sweet liquid greedily.
In mere moments, she could feel sweet relief from the pain.
And with it, her fury began to build within her chest. The renewed energy calmed her agony and gave her a renewed purpose. The mage would burn.
“Gods, Tal. What happened?”
“Aren’t you going to say how tired you are of rescuing me?”
He smiled gently. “Exhausted.”
“Faron, I’m sorry. I—”
A shadow filled the doorway. “I’d love for you to enjoy your sweet little reunion, but we have to go, NOW!” Sybil demanded and then jumped back into the fighting.
“Faron,” she began. “Faron, it’s Ed. He—”
He brushed hair out of her face. “It’s alright.” He met her gaze with tears in his eyes. “I know.” He offered a second vial of elixir, and her knee started to reform.
Tal’s face crumpled in a broken and bloodied mess. Tears burned on the cuts along her temples. Every gasping breath felt like her ribs had been ripped open and her heart was laid bare on the table. But tension grew in her sternum accompanied by a warmth she knew so well.
Faron caressed her hair. “Can you walk?”
She shook her head. “It’s a spell. I’m paralyzed.” A tear escaped and dropped down the side of her face into her hairline. Her fury battered its cage. She was ready.
Faron swore and began rummaging in his knapsack.
Tal could hear the tinkling of several glass bottles being jostled around.
“I don’t have anything for that. Can I carry you out?
” He tried to get his arms underneath her, but some invisible barrier connected her to the thick wooden table. “What in the hells?”
“I might be able to burn through it. I need you to step back. I don’t know if I can control the fury right now.” Her voice shook. Her strength had not yet returned. Once she released her magic, she would likely lose consciousness again. She needed to stay awake long enough to get her friends out.
Her magic clawed at her throat like a wild beast. She barely held onto it by the time Faron had stepped into the corner of the room, eyes glued to her.
Rather than open the gate containing the magic, Tal instead inhaled and eliminated the gate altogether.
She embraced her fury with a sigh as if it had been gone for eons.
Suddenly, a new sensation filled her—one she’d never felt before.
Usually, when she used her fury, a tightness remained within her that helped keep some of her power at bay.
This time, she didn’t have the energy to hold back.
Instead of feeling like a foreign thing warred within her, vying for control, Tal felt at peace, as if she and the fury were one and the same.
It started in her chest and built like flood waters being released.
A soothing warmth spread to the ends of each of her limbs and grew in intensity.
It was a heat unlike any other she’d experienced, like sunbathing on a summer’s day.
It clawed its way to the surface and warmed the skin there while healing the body underneath.
It grew hotter and hotter until it turned cold.
“Tal?” said a voice in the corner.
She sat up. The spell melted away, leaving a rotten odor in its wake. Her fury still burned, but she didn’t try to control it. For once, she felt comfortable in her own skin, like she finally knew herself. She swung her legs over the side of the table, and that’s when she noticed the flames.
Her entire body was covered in them. No, her entire body was flame. The broken bones and bleeding, bruised skin was gone, and in its place burned a brilliant, golden fire that flicked this way and that. There was no distinct line between where Tal ended and her fury began.
She set her feet on the ground and stood, expecting to find the table turned to ash.
The wood was nearly unrecognizable under all the blood staining it, but not a single burn marred the surface.
She held a hand up in front of her face.
Five distinct digits wiggled. She turned her hand over and could just barely see the bones and tendons working.