From Within #2
I twist, pulling away from my titan as she holds Velasara down, and I chant a spell.
Shadows burst from beneath Velasara’s feet in massive tendrils, wrapping around her legs and waist before she can react. Her power wavers as her concentration breaks and surprise flashes across her face.
Velasara tears through the first wave of shadows, her dark aura exploding around her as she frees herself, but she’s half a second too slow.
My titan’s fist collides with her barrier. The impact detonates across the mountainside, and the barrier shatters.
Her eyes widen.
And before she can recover, I move; the distance between us disappears as I move with speed I never knew I possessed – the speed of a Deimos’ mate.
I appear directly in front of her, shadows swirling around my arm as I drive my fist into her stomach, the force making her double over, a grunt escaping her lips.
Her aura whips around me more strongly, but my barriers remain, with intense precision and control. My shadows wrap around her arms and legs, dragging her backwards whilst my titan strikes again.
This time, she manages to block, but the impact still launches her through the air.
She crashes through a cluster of frozen, dead trees before skidding across the snow.
Silence settles across the battlefield for a moment, and I stand there breathing hard. My eyes are burning with a fierce confidence.
Velasara slowly rises, and blood drips from the corner of her mouth.
Fury burns in her crimson eyes as she wipes the blood from her mouth.
“Bitch.”
I cock a brow. “You don’t like to lose… A bit rich considering how many lives I’m sure you have taken.”
“I’d willingly make you one more,” she sneers. She then stiffens, glancing toward Vincenzo and Jayce.
“Seems your boss has other plans for me,” I mock, working on my next spell.
“We don’t need you with legs,” she remarks venomously. She moves back, her eyes glowing as she begins chanting. Pain thrums through me, and I stagger.
What is she doing?!
My powers surge around me, and I can feel myself losing my grasp on my titan.
My wolf whimpers, and I grit my teeth as the taste of blood fills my mouth.
Fuck.
I can’t breathe; the power is too intense.
No. Focus, Sienna, focus!
Through the agony, I take a deep, steadying breath, my eyes blazing, and then something inside of me stirs. It’s as if something buried inside me since birth has finally opened its eyes.
I suck in a breath as my eyes widen, and a snap echoes through my entire body. Something in the air shifts; the dome ripples in the distance, but it’s not the dome – this – this is something different.
It feels different.
It feels like… like I’m in the space between the realms, I think, as realisation sinks in.
Then things seem to slow; Velasara is chanting, but it’s muffled and slow. For the first time, I can see the spaces between things.
The distance between snowflakes… The distance between moments… The distance between places.
What is this?
The invisible threads connecting one place to another. One second to the next. One possibility to another.
My pulse thumps as the sensation dances through me, and it’s as if realisation settles into me. Because I suddenly understand what this is, and it’s not because I learned about it, but through recognition.
Like remembering something I was always meant to know. This feeling that dances through my energy, through my aura…
It’s aether.
The element that exists between all things.
The force that binds reality together. The space and distance between. The invisible framework upon which the world itself rests.
The realisation crashes into me with enough force to steal my breath.
I know what I must do!
I keep my eyes on Velasara and continue to focus. Around me, the air begins to distort.
Cracks of dark, shimmering shadows spread through the air and around my hand as I watch Velasara’s eyes slowly turn towards what I’m doing.
Her mouth moves, but she won’t make it in time. The power pouring through me eclipses everything.
I know I should reach for my powers to cast the portal spell, but I simply reach for the space between instead.
The world blurs around me, and Velasara’s eyes turn upon me as she throws something my way: hundreds of daggers.
I flick my hand, slamming it forward, and they disappear from existence before reappearing behind Velasara, hammering into her back as she realises at the last second what’s happening.
She falls to the ground as dagger after dagger rains down upon her.
Her eyes widen as she pulls up a barrier, and my own heart is hammering.
I redirected them! Not like Kataleya’s power, but something like it!
Excitement leaps in my chest, but I remain grounded, my mind racing as a plan forms within my mind.
I don’t understand this completely, but I understand enough.
I spare Jayce a glance before I focus my thoughts on the dome. And as I do, dark, shimmering fractures begin appearing before me, the air collapsing inward as space itself bends.
I can do this… I think of the dome as I pull from deep within, and then the cracks of magic begin to spread.
Jayce! We need to go. NOW!
How did you…
He doesn’t bother finishing off as power blasts through the air, and I look through the portal I’ve conjured out of nowhere. I can see the dome!
The realisation sends a shiver down my spine. I have opened a doorway right into the dome…
By using my element, I bridged the distance between where we are and where we need to be.
“You…” Velasara snarls as she forces herself to her feet, her glimmering eyes full of hatred and something sinister.
A blazing bolt of lightning strikes where she stands, and she barely manages to escape as Jayce’s arm wraps around my waist, and then he launches us both through the portal and to the other side, trusting me blindly.
Gods, I hope this works.