Chapter 37
“Rust bucket,” Tempest said, smiling.
The car operated on magic and magic alone. Magic kept the doors in place and gave the appearance of a windscreen. We changed the car exterior every week, and the idiotic teens at high school believed my family was rolling in money.
Grandmother yelled at someone out the window, and Mother shushed her.
I linked my pinky with Tempest’s and looked at her across the empty middle seat. “I need to tell you something, T.”
I’d been meaning to tell her for weeks. Something was going on with my magic.
And me. This pressure was building up in my body, and I’d been sneaking out to release all my power in an effort to manage the feeling.
My Magus power was pitiful compared to my twin’s, and I couldn’t imagine why the hell the paltry amount I had was playing up.
How did I even have enough to build up in the first place? All I knew was I would explode if it got worse. Which it was. Tempest had so much power, and she’d be queen of the world one day. She’d know what to do.
She waggled her brows. “About why you’ve been sneaking out?”
She’d read my mind.
Mother and Grandmother were arguing in the front. My heart warmed at the sound. That was their love language.
“Yeah,” I said, my gut twisting with nerves. There was something wrong with me. And I had no idea what. It wasn’t just the pressure build-up. I was having seriously weird thoughts. In a different language.
“What is it?” she asked, leaning closer.
“There’s something happening to me, T. Something… I thought my magic was coming in more. Finally. But—”
Bang.
Metal screeched as the roof was ripped off in one sheet. My head crashed against something hard, and then all I saw were colors. Familiar colors.
White-gold power erupted. Grandmother’s magic.
Periwinkle blue. Mother’s power.
Black power. Liquid black. Unknown.
I blinked back the black spots in my vision and gasped at Tempest covered in blood. Our heads had crashed together. She was out of it.
“Tempest!” I shouted.
Mother was already pouring magic into her.
“Take from me,” I screamed at her. “Mother, take magic from me.”
Where was Grandmother?
“Fight me, motherfucker,” I heard her bellow. “I dare you.”
Someone was outside. I cast one last terrified look at Tempest and my pale mother, then my gaze lowered to my fingers.
Black was pouring from them. Black power. Or smoke? My Magus power wasn’t that color.
I followed the trail of black out of the car. Everything outside apart from the flashes of Grandmother’s white-gold magic was black.
From me.
I was the unknown. I was doing this.
And I didn’t know how to stop it. “I don’t know how to stop it!”
Panic gripped me, and the black magic shattered the windows to pour inside. Outside, Grandmother’s magic was fading. I felt Grandmother gather what remained to her and blast it in Tempest’s direction.
Mother’s magic was fading.
I was killing them! Whatever this power was, it was killing them.
I had to get out.
I kicked open the door and rolled over glass and grass outside. Get away from them. Save them. Sobbing, I crawled from the wrecked car and my dying family.
But I was dying too. As black poured out, more strength left me.
I kept crawling, but my path was stopped by the largest legs I’d ever seen. They were clad in loose-fitting training pants. Like something a Viking would wear to train.
I sat back on my haunches and stared up through tears and blood that I hadn’t felt.
I stared up and up until my eyes met his.
And when they did, I might as well have been kneeling in quicksand. It was as if the world fell away from beneath me. Like the world punched me in the heart and mind and soul.
The Viking’s eyes rounded, and he knelt before me. His hand went to my throat, but only to tilt my chin higher.
“You are the threat to my throne.” His tone was filled with awe. His breath was hitching, and there was a clipped quality to his accent that told me this wasn’t his first language.
I shook my head. “Please help. I think I’m killing them.”
His gaze moved past me, and utter devastation took up residence on his face, one so strong that I could feel his despair in my heart. I broke out in fresh sobs. “I think I’ve killed my family. Are they dead?”
I clutched my chest despite his hold around my throat. “I can’t feel them anymore.”
The Viking closed his eyes, and when he opened them, they were suddenly gray. I couldn’t recall what they’d been a moment ago, but now I was aware of looking into my own eyes.
“Why do I know you?” I whispered, reaching up to grip his wrist.
His chest rose and fell, and in that clipped accent, he said hoarsely, “Because you are mine, and I am yours. Our souls sing for finding each other.”
I swayed on the spot. “I need help.”
His gaze slammed on my hand around his wrist. “You need to stop releasing smoke.”
I shook my head.
He flipped my hand, then snatched up the other. “Stop the flow.”
My head lolled forward, and I collapsed against him.
I was laid flat, and he hovered over me. I felt a blanket—the softest, most comforting blanket—flutter over me, and I sighed at the weight of his magic over my body and mind.
The Viking looked into my eyes.
Devastation. This being carried a terrible burden, whatever that was.
“No,” he hissed.
And he started to shake. He shook as if an earthquake had erupted within him.
“I won’t do it,” the Viking snapped.
Not at me. Whoever else was here, I couldn’t see them, and he wasn’t looking away from me.
He started to convulse, and when his hand snapped out to grip my throat this time, the difference was plain.
He was going to kill me, and I couldn’t do a thing about it except feel deeply saddened at the betrayal. We knew each other. I couldn’t remember how.
That didn’t matter.
Ice filled his gaze, though he continued to convulse, until eventually the Viking threw back his head and roared his pain to the black skies.
So much pain. My entire body arched upward with the sound, and a scream rose to my lips too.
He collapsed to his hands and knees, panting hard. “Okay,” he said in a broken voice.
Tears fell from my eyes at the sound.
But when he looked up again, only the ice glared back at me. I didn’t have the strength to feel afraid, and there was nothing to be done about the confusion in my heart.
I couldn’t stay awake. There was something so important to do. But what was it?
The Viking rose and left me, and when screams filled the air, my mind was hundreds of miles away.
Nearly gone.
Into a darkness thicker than whatever had poured from my very hands.