Fireball
For a moment, the burning rage took a back seat as I looked down at my arms to find I could see pulsing, glowing black flowing through my veins—like the new dark vision of my left eye was mixing with normal vision, two different sights layered on top of each other.
I looked over at Aerie to find her eyes wide and her tattoos glowing blue on her arm. I glanced at Bramick to find a necklace I hadn’t noticed before around his neck, glowing green. I tilted my head up and saw the shimmering white dome surrounding the base—the wards.
Was I seeing magic? I closed my right eye to find I wasn’t seeing colors from the left, except for the glow. The grass was gray, my skin gray. Buildings, dirt, clothing, all gray and black. Like the world was black and white, except where magic was present.
I looked at Drayce and found a faint golden glow at his chest, where his heart would be. Maybe he was such a strong fae that I could see the magic in his heart.
He eyed the open cuff on the ground near my feet, and my anger flared once more after the shock, hot and fast. I had been so stunned by my new sense of sight that the beast in my chest had faltered.
But now it was ready for a fight. I barely recognized my voice when I said, “Don’t you dare even think about shackling me ever again. I am free, and I won’t hesitate to kill anyone who tries to take that away from me.”
Two shadow tendrils whipped out from me and wrapped around the waists of Bramick and Drayce, lifting them off their feet in front of me. Through the black haze of my shadows, I recognized Aerie as a friend whom I didn’t want to hurt, but these two males had kept me shackled and lied to me.
The beastly snarl that left me was feral and deadly. I could smell their fear, just as Zareth had smelled mine. So that was just a fae sense that had nothing to do with whatever magic Zareth controlled. Interesting.
I prayed I would smell his fear one day when I cut him open with my shadows and made him hurt, made him bleed. When I finished what I had started the night I cut off his hand, just like I’d told him I would.
“Naci, control the magic. It doesn’t control you. It’s yours to command, not the other way around.”
I vaguely registered Aerie speaking, and I was pretty sure the thing in my chest laughed at that. I could feel fear rising underneath the bubbling anger. Gods, this wasn’t what I wanted to be—I wanted it to stop.
But I also wanted to kill Drayce for his betrayal, for his deceit. Everyone who’d ever shackled me, hurt me, they would all die. I’d start with Drayce the way Caedryn had started with Nella.
My chest heaved, the panic and fear over this magic giving way to rushing, addictive power. Bramick’s face was plastered with terror while Drayce’s was set and angry.
“Put Bramick down, Naci. This wasn’t his fault. It was my command to leave you cuffed. Not his. Let Aerie and Bramick leave, and you and I will figure this out.”
“Like hell we’re leaving you, Dray!” Aerie said.
“There’s nothing to figure out, Dray.” My voice was inhuman. Eerie. “I will no longer allow those that try and control me to live.” I felt a sinister smile spread across my face.
I flung Bramick away from me with the dark tendril that was holding him and didn’t even spare a glance to see if he got up. It was Drayce I was really angry at, that I really wanted to hurt.
The shadowy wisp holding him squeezed tighter, feeling his pulse quicken, while another wrapped around his throat and brought him inches from my face. I could kill this lying male in an instant if I wanted to. Just like that royal guard. It had been so easy.
I squeezed his throat with my shadows, feeling his magic and his blood pumping just below the skin.
A wave of panic coursed through the all-consuming anger. I couldn’t control this, and sure, I was mad at him, but I didn’t actually want to kill him, did I?
My heart raced, and my eyes widened in fear. I was out of control, and that scared me more than anything else had.
“Naci, don’t fear your power. Don’t let it frighten you. You can control it. Find the source in your heart and shut it down,” Aerie screamed from what sounded like miles away through my drunken stupor of power.
The intermingled terror and rage spiraled higher and higher as the flames surrounding me did the same, nearly consuming Drayce.
“Naci, come on! Fight it!” I think it was Bramick, but I really wasn’t sure.
Drayce’s heartbeat was slowing, his veins bulging under the grip of my magic.
My heart was beating too fast, my skin too hot, the sweat on my brow too slick. Every nerve and sense was overwhelmed, and I felt close to blacking out. But the thing in my chest kept fighting, kept circulating the anger and desire for carnage through my body and mind.
I couldn’t stop it. This thing wouldn’t stop until it exacted the revenge that my own unencumbered mind only vaguely wanted. And with every vengeful thought, the flames and shadows reached further, burned hotter, until I felt it would consume me and this whole compound entirely.
Gods, I was a danger to myself and to everyone here.
Then I heard the click of metal and felt the cold snap across my wrist before everything went black.
* * *
“Wake up, sleepyhead.”
That voice…
“Naci, you in there?”
Noxie.
My eyes flew open, and I found myself in one of the many empty beds in a long room, light pouring in from small windows on each wall.
I looked around and spotted him perched on the edge of the bed next to me.
“Noxie, is this real? Are you in my head for real?”
He blinked at me. “Yeah, kid, I’m back, and I’m never leaving.”
I smiled, and happy tears spilled from my eyes immediately.
Eyes that could both see, but such very different things.
But right now, my only friend was all that mattered.
“Good. I missed having someone to annoy whenever I pleased.” I wiped my tears as he hopped up onto my leg.
“Does this mean we’re officially bonded? Now that my magic is free?”
“If you choose the bond, it’ll snap into place.”
“Don’t you have to choose it, too?”
“I already have, kid.”
My heart felt like it swelled as I thought, without hesitation, that I would choose this bond always, in every lifetime.
The feeling intensified, like my heart was expanding beyond the confines of my chest. I gasped as magic pulsed through my entire body in warm waves, a silver glow surrounding Noxie and me.
He blinked rapidly as his eyes began to change, the midnight black now speckled with gold.
He ruffled his wings as the tips of his longest feathers tinted gold as well.
I didn’t know what was happening to me, but when the waves subsided, I felt a featherlight imprint on my heart and in my magic that hadn’t been there before. Like Noxie was a physical part of me now.
When the glow subsided, tears streamed down my face, and I pulled him into a hug.
He hated his feathers rumpled, but I knew neither of us cared right now. We were bonded. I could feel it. He cawed long and loud. Proud.
His caw must have drawn someone’s attention, as the door to this barrack opened.
It was Aerie. “How ya feeling?” she asked as she sat down next to Noxie and stroked his feathers, noticing the gold and gasping. “Is that… are you… oh, Naci!” She shrieked with excitement. “Your shoulder!”
I looked down to the left and visible under the thin straps of Aerie’s tank top I was still wearing, I found the imprint of a familiar crow’s talons etched onto my skin in black.
As if Noxie had stood one legged on my shoulder with black paint on his claw—three claws to the front and one extending back.
The bond left his mark on my shoulder, and mine in his eyes and feathers.
I beamed.
“How do I look?” he asked.
“Better than ever. How do you feel?”
“Better than ever.”
“You’re stuck with me forever now, Noxie. Hope you knew what you were doing.”
“Oh, I could cry this is just so perfect!” Aerie actually had tears in her eyes. “You’re bonded, aren’t you?”
I nodded, wiping the last of my tears.
“How does it feel?”
“Really good.” I couldn’t even bring myself to be sarcastic. I was too happy, too overfilled with joy and love.
She hugged me, her grin contagious. “And what about last night, how are you feeling physically?”
“Surprisingly okay.” I realized that my body didn’t hurt like I thought it would. “What happened last night? I remember anger, rage, and darkness. And fear.” I remembered the click before everything went black and frantically checked my wrists.
No cuffs. I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Bramick cuffed you before your magic could consume you. But only for a minute. He took it off as soon as you passed out.” She looked sheepish as she resumed stroking Noxie’s black and gold feathers.
I sat up, shame threatening to consume me as the entire scene played in my mind, sped up across mere seconds. “It’s alright, I understand. I’m just glad I didn’t hurt anyone.” I hadn’t, right?
Aerie threw her head back and laughed, and underneath I could hear the avian caw of her vey form.
“You didn’t, but you sure burned all the clothes off Dray.
Don’t panic, he has water magic, so you didn’t burn him, just left him naked and fuming.
But between you and me, he deserved it for keeping those cuffs on you. ”
I smiled back and suddenly felt better about how the night went.
With the anger monster asleep in my chest, I could think clearly, and while I wasn’t happy that Drayce had lied about having the key, I understood, especially after seeing how my power exploded last night, why it was the right thing to do.
I would never admit that to him, though, the pompous ass. I wished he had told me the truth. It felt like lies and secrets were stacking up, and it made me uneasy. At minimum, I didn’t think I could trust him.
“Aerie, I don’t know how to control this. I was so angry, I wanted to hurt someone. I…I wanted to kill Drayce.”
She tried to conceal the shock, but I saw just enough to know she hadn’t expected that.