18. Esther #3
I shove through, grounding with the dirt beneath me and shifting it upward, similar to when I created monoliths in the canyons.
My legs burn as I grow outside the broken barrier, standing on a earthly pillar.
Anger not of my own ripples through my invisible chains, screaming that I’m abusing his magic.
It throws me back and revolts within me. It attempts to shake off my hold, but I grip onto the magic firmer, staking my claim.
A bead of sweat drips down my back, my hair bristling in the wind as fire shoots for my face.
Before I can act, a clay shield blocks me, and the flame explodes on either side.
Regent is glaring at me, twisting through the reign of fire coming down on him as he fights them off.
One earth greer fighting off six fire greers should be impossible for most, but for Regent, laughable.
My hand trembles as I will the earth to be my weapon.
Stones rattle on the ground enticed to do as I say, the scribing of foreign language offering me pieces of chants I might be able to grasp.
But then the magic is jerked back, pulled to its owner, who looks angered as he slices through the men with sword and vines.
I yank back my control of the magic, and Regent physically pulls back, narrowly dodging a vortex of flames. With shaky hands I call upon the stones and shoot them toward the soldier who’s chanting to control the fire vortex.
He’s thrown back as the sharp shrapnel impales him against a tree. He drops forward, unmoving.
The magic is pulled back again, and Regent becomes hasty, the earth ripping up around us and becoming overwhelming as men are sunken into the dirt and buried alive.
Others are grabbed by vines and pinned to trees, cutting off their air supply, restraining wrists and mouths so they can’t chant as they choke to death.
One soldier is outright flattened by a stone twice his size that comes barreling out of the jungle, ripped from fuck knows where, and splatters him against a tree that then knocks over the next.
The jungle around us falls as Regent shifts it to his will, no one able to touch him. His hair and leather coat rustle among a wind that seems to only be affecting him as the element works around him.
The longer I watch, the more I realize his magic is sucking me in like a snake slowly digesting its meal.
The earth begins to tremble, and not from Regent’s magic, but the dark beasts that were calling upon me earlier as they come out of hiding. Regent seems to only notice them now, preoccupied with his conquest of destroying this entourage.
Shrill pitches cascade over the jungle as heavy thumps echo against the earthy floor.
It’s their gold beaks I notice first, attached to translucent white beasts with flickers of gold for organs.
The tips of their feathers drip with gold, but the moment they hit the ground, smoke appears, like acid burning away the earth, destroying anything in its wake.
Flightless birdlike beasts, twice the height of any man, with tiny wings creep from the dark, a miasma pooling out from behind them.
I’m enticed by them, entranced and delighted by their darkness that, much like mine, palpably bleeds.
Predator calls to predator, and I shove Regent’s magic to the wayside.
I can sense him struggling against me, trying to reclaim his magic as I seize control and walk toward the beasts with a magnetism I’ve never known.
This power I want.
This power I need.
“Esther!” Regent screams as he fights off one soldier by blade, wriggling to take back his magic.
Regent’s mare screams and runs in the opposite direction. I don’t know how the greers are able to control the three beasts without a visible contract, but it makes no difference to me. I’ll give these beasts what they came for.
A feast.
Liberation.
Power.
Don’t be drawn to the dark. Master Kain advocated, but he never told me it tasted so delicious.
“Command.” Everything seems to slow as I speak the foreign chant to the Felia-blessed beasts, privy to what these weak greers are making them do.
A new singular chant that births an instinctual power within me.
My throat marking burns as Grimace revolts, trying to set himself free, but I lock him away with the knowledge that whatever this is, I don’t want him to be involved with it.
My magic mixes with theirs, a common understanding of power and survival, dipped with a prickle of fear and pure loathing.
The beasts’ heartbeats sync with mine, a quiet lull happening between us as we solidify our bond.
How beautiful you are, I think, looking at the beasts, and then I smile, charming death at my disposal.
“Kill,” I hear myself say, the command distant but intimate.
Pleasure fills me, flaring my lungs and heart as I sigh in relief when the control used on them by the other greers breaks, and I am revered as their savior.
I fill with satisfaction as I watch them pounce on the remaining soldiers, ripping them apart.
Men scream from the acid, others torn limb from limb as two of them fight over the same greer.
Beautiful salvation.
This is justice.
This is—
“Felia,” Regent’s voice breathes from behind me. I’m startled as I turn to face him but am hit in the back of the neck and fall into an immediate darkness.