Chapter Fifteen Rage #2
She stumbled back from the force of her own blow and saw the beast lying on the ground in front of her, half of its body reduced to a lump of black dust. Entrails slid out of the untouched half of the corpse, blood pumping through them into organs that were no longer there.
Unmade.
Flames and the clash of battle died as Caelan and the twins dispatched the last of the wolves. Only the voices of her ghosts remained. They all said the same thing over and over: What have you done?
The sword slipped from her fingers as the magic roared up inside her like boiling water. And then the temple went quiet.
“I don’t believe it,” the female said, the awe in her words reaching Reya through the fog of memory.
Praise Una, whispered a voice in her head. A male voice.
Reya clutched the sides of her skull.
What have you done what have you done what have you done
“Reyanwyn,” Caelan said, tone thick with warning. “Stay with me.”
Never come back.
“What’s wrong with her?” the female demanded.
Breathe, said that male voice in her head. It’s all right. The battle is done.
What the rotting hell? Reya fell to her knees, running her fingers through her hair and pulling on her scalp just to feel some control.
Leagues away, in the snow-capped peaks, Reyanwyn of the Mountain was screaming, and Reya could still hear it.
So many voices. So many ghosts. She couldn’t stand it.
Breathe. You are safe.
“Make it stop,” she begged.
Caelan’s voice boomed, “Get the hell out of her head!”
Nails digging into her skull, Reya followed his gaze to the white-haired male whose Ire had turned violet. When their gazes locked, his confident, hopeful expression filled with alarm. Her hands glowed brighter.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Caelan said, stepping between them with arms raised in surrender. “Don’t look at them, look at me. Point those hands at me.”
“Caelan,” the female said, angling her spear at Reya. “Put her out or I will.”
“No,” Caelan said. “She can do this.”
White leaked in around the edges of Reya’s vision, ringing her irises in light.
“Shit,” the male muttered.
It was like she’d been shoved out of her own mind.
“REYANWYN, DON’T!” Caelan screamed.
The floodgate holding back her magic broke open with a crack, and the earth beneath her shuddered. Her hair fluttered around her on a phantom breeze.
Someone was calling her name. But she no longer recognized it. That girl, whoever she was, was weak and useless. And now she was gone. Replaced by starlight and ancient fury that roared out of her like a tidal wave.
A galaxy burst from her chest, glittering and terrible.
It consumed the vines that had swallowed the temple and the tree that had sprouted in its center.
The All-Gods around her began to crumble, and she smiled down upon the Sages as they hit the ground, shielding themselves from the heavenly storm that threatened to rip the world apart.
They would all burn.
Her violet Ire began to change. Starting at her shoulders, veins of pure, glittering starlight melted down her arms, draining the color in their path until it was gone completely. Horror filled the golden eyes of the male on the ground before her.
The voice that rushed past her lips was older than time, all at once familiar and unwelcome. “More will come for her, son of Pirax. Make her ready, or lose her before she is even yours to lose.”
That endless power soared, ripping through the history carved on the walls.
Unyiedling, the male stood, arms wide as if to placate her. The creature that she had become enjoyed his defiance. It would make ending him all the sweeter.
“Come on, thief. Come back to me.”
Blue and orange and red flames rose from cracks in the earth—hot enough to melt the flesh from her bones. And where the fire collided with that extension of her, it melded, until together they were something else completely. Something new.
The male took advantage of her distraction, hands engulfed in gold.
He came at her from the side, throwing himself on top of her, and she hit the ground with a bellow of fury.
He reached for her forehead at the same time she pressed her hands to his chest and reveled in the scream that split the air.
Fire raced across his armor in a desperate shield.
She summoned a second storm to suffocate that wall of flame, but the shield held strong.
There was more—so much more. Enough to remake the world. To swallow her whole. She wanted to let it take her away.
“You’ll have to take me with you, thief.” His voice was a wet rasp.
Like tripping out of a dream, Reya saw Caelan’s face, wracked with agony and splattered in blood and sweat. Why was he on top of her?
A terrible sound came out of him, and Reya looked down in dread. The sculpted chest and neck beneath what was once his Shadow Legion armor was a bloody, blue ruin, as if chunks of flesh and muscle had simply been torn from existence.
She screamed.
The temple crumbled to pieces around them, and even as he shook with pain, Caelan held himself over her, shielding her from the barrage of stone.
Then all at once, silence descended. Around them, the world had come to a standstill.
The white-haired male was standing in the center of the ruin with a look of deep concentration, the temple frozen mid-fall around him. “Hurry, please,” he said calmly, as if a building were not about to drop on top of them.
“Go,” Caelan wheezed, and nodded toward the crumbling archway.
Reya threw one of Caelan’s massive arms over her shoulder and pulled with all her might. But for all her strength, she couldn’t lift him. Panic set in. He was too heavy.
“Omira!” the male shouted.
With a jerk of her wrist, the female’s silver spear retracted in on itself, and she slid it through her waist belt. She ran toward them and took Caelan’s other arm. Together, they carried him out of the temple and set him gently on the grass a safe distance away.
“What about him?” Reya panted, staring wide-eyed at the rocks still frozen in place. “We can’t just leave him.”
The female just snorted.
Who were these people?
Before she could open her mouth again, the entire structure collapsed. The boom rattled her teeth, and around them, Ombriar shook. Reya shielded her eyes from the dust storm that came billowing toward them and waited with baited breath for it to settle. “Is he…”
The male appeared, unscathed, over the mound of rocks and walked casually toward them, dusting his hands.
Holy Mother above.
Ash whinnied as he trotted out from behind a ruined tree, unharmed, Ciz not far behind, and Reya nearly collapsed to her knees in grateful worship. Maybe the All-Gods temple had in fact provided them some protection in the end.
A moan drew her attention back to Caelan, whose torso was a waterfall of sapphire blood. He’d pulled her back, and she’d ripped him open.
“In my bag,” Reya tried, hands shaking as she tripped over the words. “I have ointments, salves—”
Caelan shook his head and lifted two dimly glowing hands.
“Someone needs to teach this one control,” the female seethed in Reya’s general direction, but she hardly registered the words.
“All right there, brother?” the male asked. When he met Reya’s flabbergasted eyes, his almost twinkled. “I assure you he’s endured far worse.”
“Do it, Caelan,” the female snapped. “You don’t have a choice.”
Reya didn’t know why Caelan was hesitating.
Whatever his reason, desperation seemed to win out.
Then Reya’s feet were sinking into the earth.
She looked down to where the grass beneath her boots shriveled and drained of color and life.
It spread like a disease from where Caelan kneeled, rotting the ground by the roots.
The luscious green carpet of moss and ferns turned a mottled yellow as it withered.
Cedars seven times their height wilted and browned.
Wrong. It was all wrong. All around them, the Cleary cried out and died.
Witnessing her horror and confusion, the male beside her clarified, “Caelan heals by moving essence from one vessel to another. Normally, a healer uses themselves as the vessel, but when they are the one who needs healing, they must take from elsewhere. I assure you, Caelan doesn’t take it lightly and would rather suffer, but he knows we won’t allow it. ”
Caelan looked between them, face pinched in concentration. “Reya, this is Omira and Thance Bruadair. They’re… very old friends.”
Reya could scarcely believe he was talking, much less observing niceties.
“Understating it a bit, don’t you think?” Thance inclined his head and said with a warm smile, “It’s wonderful to meet you, Reya.”
Where the wicked smiles Caelan so rarely offered were almost violent in their promise, Thance had a boyish sort of grin.
She noticed the Ire creeping up his neck had returned to blue.
A duo—a perceptor, like her—which meant he could look inside her head.
He had looked inside her head. Reya’s eyes narrowed in suspicion and anger, and his smile dimmed.
“Forgive me. I only meant to help.” The sides of his white-blond hair had been shorn, while the rest was swept back in a way that was both perfectly messy and intentional, including a single piece that fell across his brow.
Where Reya was covered in blood and dirt, Thance and Omira were relatively untouched.
When she was satisfied that Caelan had the bleeding under control, she responded with as much force as she could muster. “Stay the rotting hell out of my head.” She almost felt guilty when the male’s eyes filled with remorse. Almost.
Omira, death beckoning in her ice-blue irises, said, “Threaten my brother, half-breed, and I don’t care what All-God chose your skinny ass—I will impale you.”
This had to be Thance’s twin. Her hair, identical to his in color, was woven tight to her scalp on both sides and pulled back into a high plait that dangled down her back. A salmon-colored medallion swung between her breasts.