Chapter 20 #2
Nova drew closer to my side, Phantom gliding after her. She glanced my way for only an instant, and I saw the uncertainty in her gaze shifting into fierce determination. Whatever was happening with me and my magic didn’t matter just then; we had to survive this ordeal first.
The five of us moved as one.
Thalia’s whips cracked through the air, wrapping around limbs and throats with brutal efficiency.
Zayn became a blur of lethal precision, his blade finding gaps in armor with practiced ease.
Phantom tore through the ranks like a living shadow, his form shifting and multiplying into a dozen identical silhouettes. Not solid, but still creating chaos that left the Order members slashing at ghosts.
I parried, struck, dodged. My sword sang through the air, light and steel both flashing in a violent dance.
I kept trying to slice my way toward Severin.
To get rid of that unnerving feeling he gave me by simply cutting him down.
But he evaded every attempt I made, continuing to watch me with interest and amusement—as if this was all part of some grander game he was playing—and that only made me angrier. More reckless.
My strikes became wilder, less controlled.
My magic started to surge in strange ways. To twist into something that didn’t light the forest with its usual warm glow. Something that instead pulled at the darkness itself, absorbing stray shadows and ultimately leaving me surrounded by an odd twilight haze.
I slowed for a heartbeat, circling among this strange haze, trying to get my bearings.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw an Order member lunging at Nova from behind. He caught her off-guard, swiping her arm with a small, jagged knife. As she grabbed her bleeding skin, he pressed his advantage and lunged for her throat.
I intercepted him, my blade striking him through the chest.
His blood splattered across both Nova and me, warm and copper-scented. She wiped the bulk of it from her face with the back of her hand, grimacing. Shadows lashed out from her body in automatic defense, the greatest concentration pouring out from around the slash wound on her arm.
I tried to guide my own Light magic into the wound. To heal her the way I’d done a dozen times or more.
But something went horribly wrong.
Instead of soothing her, my magic ended up latching onto her shadows like hooks, pulling them toward me. I felt her power flowing into mine, being absorbed, consumed. My vision briefly flared with a sickening violet hue. The moment was intoxicating and nauseating in equal measure.
I jerked back, severing our connection, but the damage was already done.
“…What was that?” Nova took a shaky step back, a flash of fear crossing her face. The look in her eyes was like a dagger to my chest.
There was no time to explain, no time to apologize. Movement caught the corner of my eye—another attacker closing in.
We went back to the battle at hand, fighting side by side despite the tension and uncertainty crackling between us.
After several minutes of brutal combat, the Order members began to retreat, melting back into the shadows as suddenly as they’d appeared.
“Retreating already?” Zayn called out, breathing hard. “Maybe they aren’t as confident as they—”
“They aren’t retreating.” Orin’s voice cut through the clearing. He’d appeared at some point during the fight, moving with surprising stealth for a relatively fragile old man. “This is a trap.”
His hand shot out, pointing at Thalia.
His eyes went wide.
At first, I didn’t know what he was looking at. Then I noticed the ground where Thalia was standing—the strange symbols glowing faintly in the dirt, arranged in a perfect circle around her.
“Run!” Orin’s voice cracked with panic. “RUN!”
But she couldn’t move fast enough. Something seemed to be holding her feet in place. Maybe the same something that made the symbols in the dirt flare bright and violent a moment later.
“THALIA!”
Orin made his choice in the space between heartbeats.
He ran toward his daughter at full speed, throwing himself forward, shoving her out of the circle’s perimeter. He grabbed something from the ground—whatever was anchoring the magic—and attempted to fling it into the trees.
He was too slow.
The spell detonated with a flash of blinding power that sent shockwaves through the trees. His body was thrown no less than fifteen feet through the air before he struck a massive oak tree and tumbled down to the base of it.
He let out a painful groan and then went limp, his chest barely rising and falling.
“NO!” Thalia’s scream tore through the night.
Two Order members materialized from nowhere, blocking her path to her father. Nova raced toward her and cut one down immediately, but more were already appearing.
They were calm.
Organized.
As though this had been their plan all along.
Severin emerged from the trees as well, moving toward Orin’s fallen form with unhurried grace, each step measured and purposeful.
He held a dagger that gleamed with strange light.
A dozen others fell into step behind him, forming a protective barrier, their movements synchronized as though they’d rehearsed this moment countless times.
“A traitor’s death,” Severin said, stopping and looming over Orin. “As planned.”
Thalia remained frozen, staring in horror at her father’s crumpled form.
Nova broke into a sprint, shadows gathering around her—
I didn’t think. Couldn’t afford to think.
I just ran.
My arms closed around Nova from behind, dragging her back even as she screamed and fought against me.
Even as her shadows lashed at me and I felt that terrible new side of my magic stirring in response.
I managed to resist its pull, but the contact between us was agony—my power wanting to devour her every shadow, every cell in my body screaming for me to just let go and let it take what it wanted.
But I held on. Held on and held back with everything I had.
“Let me go!” She thrashed in my grip, tears streaming down her face. “Orin—I can save him—let me GO!”
“You can’t.” My voice was strangled from the effort of trying to restrain both her and my own power. “Nova, there are too many, and if you—”
“I don’t care!” She was nearly sobbing now, still struggling with a strength born of desperation. “I have to try, I have to—”
She broke free for just a moment, stumbling forward.
Desperation flooded me as well, and my power responded without my permission.
An odd, purplish light exploded from my hands in a wild, uncontrolled burst. It slammed into Nova, spiraling through her shadows and pulling them to a center point in front of me, into a small galaxy of writhing darkness, and then into… nothing.
With no real effort from me, the shadows dissipated.
Only that odd, dark violet light remained, crackling around my fingers.
Nova stumbled, knocked off balance by the force of…of whatever the hell I’d just done to her.
The fear in her eyes was more pronounced now. Undeniable.
“You did it again,” she whispered.
We stared at one another for several horrible, uncertain seconds, until our attention was jerked back to Orin and the Order members—
Just as Severin’s dagger descended in a smooth, practiced arc, impaling Orin’s heart.