32. Zai
Zai
Stepping out from behind a rain barrel, I tightened the metal around the Dual Wielder. A backpack shielded his back from the searing burn, but at least his arms were pinned to his sides.
Moon girl whirled, taking in the Dual Wielder’s pained screams. “Erion!”
The way she’d confronted those monsters in town had etched itself into my mind. She’d been completely fearless, never hesitating to barge into life-threatening situations to save someone in danger.
Stupid. Reckless. Maybe a little impressive. But she was nothing more than an obstacle between me and my target.
After the monster attack, we’d followed the Dual Wielder to this secluded house. The perfect opportunity to snatch him.
As the crew members emerged from the corners of the house, moon girl flung her hands in a wide circle, plunging the world into darkness. Judging by the alarmed shouts around me, her void had swallowed most of the crew.
Channeling my light magic, I pushed back against the shadows. Our powers collided, creating that strange swirling twilight, writhing between us. The crew stood frozen, staring, some with mouths hanging open. They hadn’t witnessed this the first time we’d clashed.
But moon girl had, and she was already moving. Her hands swept wide, and the river crested into a massive wave, slamming into all of us. I grabbed the corner of the house and braced against the surge. The impact drove the air from my lungs, and my boots lost purchase on the slick ground.
Bodies tumbled past like driftwood. Tera’s hat spun past. Flint’s shout cut off in a gurgle as the current dragged him away.
The Dual Wielder remained standing, merely soaked enough to cool the metal binding him. Steam billowed as it solidified into a rigid cage around his torso.
Good. With his arms pinned, we wouldn’t risk him losing control and exploding with wild magic again.
“Lora!” His voice cracked, his eyes fixed on moon girl.
Lora. The name lodged itself beneath my skin like a splinter—sharp, irritating, impossible to ignore.
This time, I refused to let myself be distracted by her graceful movements or give in to the temptation to tease her. Thrusting my palms forward, I hurled flames at her. She swept her arms up, conjuring an ice shield. It deflected the fire in a burst of steam.
Behind me, boots scraped stone as crew members scrambled upright, shaking water from their clothes.
With a low growl, I spewed waves of flame onto moon girl’s weakening shield. Each flare drove her back, closer to the sloping hillside.
Shouts erupted behind me as a woman charged through the doorway, fire blazing from her palms. The ash-wretched traitor. Her flames engulfed the nearest crew members but washed harmlessly over fireproof leather and bolstered skin.
Tera rushed forward, meeting the traitor with twin streams of fire. Without the hat, her brown hair flowed free, framing her sharp features.
I whipped back toward moon girl just as an ice spear streaked toward my chest. I twisted aside, but it grazed my upper arm, tearing through fabric and flesh. No pain registered, muted by my bolster.
Flexing my fingers, I reached for my metals, but the horn at my belt sat empty, every scrap used to bind the Dual Wielder. I hurled another flaming attack instead. She raised a new ice shield, thicker this time.
Heat and shouts surged behind me. The traitor was putting up a good fight, but the others could handle her. I focused my attacks on moon girl.
Lora. The name seared through my mind as I added more heat to my flames.
Fury burned in her eyes. “Why are you doing this?”
“I told you.” My jaw clenched as I hurled a ball of fire toward her. “To regain my honor.”
“Funny.” Gritting her teeth, she layered more water onto her shield, thickening the ice. “Fighting ten against three seems quite dishonorable to me.”
“It’s not dishonorable, it’s strategy.” My brother’s words scraped against my throat as I pushed a heat wave across her shield.
A bitter laugh tore from her lips. “Strategy? Is that a fancy word you sunfolk use instead of cowardice?”
The accusation coiled in my chest. Less than a month ago, I could have thrown similar words at Val. This woman had an annoying habit of getting under my skin.
I hurled a ball of flames in a blazing arc over her shield. Water surged up and solidified into another ice barrier above the first, and my flames licked harmlessly across its surface.
“Look who’s talking,” I gritted out. “You’re the one threatening us with your Dual Wielder.”
“Threatening?” Her brow furrowed. “What do you mean? He’s just trying to seal the rift.”
I couldn’t read her heat signature through all the fire and ice twisting in the air, but this had to be a lie. The Moon Queendom’s ambitions had prompted them to tear open the rift a century ago, and that same ambition drove them now to use the Dual Wielder against us.
I shouldn’t even bother to answer. But something about the grace and precision of her movements stoked my itching urge to tease her.
Smirking, I stopped my onslaught of fire for a heartbeat. “Pretty lies from a pretty mouth are still just lies.”
The heat flooding her cheeks was unmistakable. My words flustered her. Amused satisfaction curled through my chest.
“You deep-rotten silt-waste,” she snarled.
Her fingers curled, and cold slammed into my body, a numbing chill creeping through muscle and bone. Lights above, she was freezing me from the inside.
Frost glittered around us as the temperature plunged.
I clenched my fists, and heat surged from my core. Fire erupted from my chest in a wild spray, striking her shield, the ground, and the patio chairs beside us.
The space between us crackled with clashing energies. My heat surged forward. Her cold pushed back. The air shimmered, caught between boiling and freezing.
Grunts and shouts cut through the roaring chaos behind me. Blazing void, how had they still not defeated the traitor?
A scrap of glowing metal flew past my head, shrapnel from their fight. I caught it with my heat magic and reshaped it into twin spikes.
Before I could hurl them at moon girl, an ice spear shot toward my face. Heat burst from my outstretched palm, melting the spear into droplets hissing against my skin.
But while I focused on the spear, water enveloped my spikes in a cloud of steam, freezing solid around the cooling metal.
One of them plummeted toward my feet. Frowning, I glanced down.
The ice-encased spike pierced through my boot, biting into the earth beneath.
Crimson drops welled around the frozen intrusion.
My bolster muted the pain, but fault and fire, that looked bad.
Before I could channel heat to melt the frozen spike, a slab of ice—thick as my torso—slammed into my ribs. My pinned foot twisted at an unnatural angle as I toppled back.
She twitched her hands and wrenched the spike from my foot, aligning it beside the other hovering above me. With a flick of her wrist, she punched both straight through my palms, anchoring them to the dirt.
Frustration snarled in my chest. I strained to channel heat into my pinned hands, but muscles and tendons had been severed by the spikes, and my fingers refused to cooperate.
Raising her hands, she shaped water into an ice lance, her face blazing with fierce determination. This next strike wouldn’t just injure. She meant to kill me.
A strange calm settled in my core as she drew back for the killing blow.
Maybe this was the fate I deserved.
Dying at the hands of a woman like her—brimming with the kind of conviction I’d spent my whole life searching for—didn’t seem like the worst way to go.
Lora. The name burned in my chest like a smoldering ember, refusing to be extinguished.
Something flickered in her expression—hesitation, recognition, fury—I couldn’t decipher it. The moment stretched like a drawn bowstring. Rime gathered at her fingertips, but the killing blow didn’t come.
Her comment from our last fight surfaced in my mind—how she’d get me flat on my back. Despite everything, I couldn’t stop the corner of my mouth from twitching.
Crunching into a half-sitting position, as far as my pinned hands would allow, I stared up at her. “Are you waiting for me to beg for mercy?”
Her eyes widened for a heartbeat before narrowing into furious slits.
“Lora!” The Dual Wielder’s scream tore through the air, raw with terror.
Both our gazes snapped toward the chaos.
Tera and the traitor were locked in a battle of slashing metals, their powers evenly matched.
The crew circled the Dual Wielder with wary expressions. One of his arms jutted free from the bindings, water dancing above his twirling fingers. He must’ve helped in the fight, but that still didn’t explain how two of them had held up against eight pirates.
Flint thrust his hands forward, and the Dual Wielder’s bindings glowed hotter. He couldn’t control metal like Tera and me, but he could make it hurt.
Roaring in pain, the Dual Wielder waved his free arm in wild circles, and rivulets of water swirled around him. The crew flinched back, eyes wide.
A low growl escaped my throat. The cinder-hearted cowards were afraid of him.
Sweat beaded my forehead as I willed my fingers to flex, forcing a ripple of heat into my hands. The ice piercing my palms melted, water trickling across my skin, but the metal beneath stayed cold and solid.
Moon girl’s arms swept wide. The river surged into another massive wave, crashing toward the crew. Bodies tumbled away in a tangle of limbs and shouts.
“Get your scorching arses up, you char-touched fools!” Tera’s voice cut across the chaos like a whip.
But the distraction was enough for the traitor to aim a glowing spear at the captain.
“Watch out!” I roared.
Too late.
The spear punched through Tera’s shoulder, slamming her into the house wall, pinning her there.
The traitor threw blinding light across the crew, then flexed her palms toward the Dual Wielder. The metal bindings turned bright orange as she lifted him clean off the ground, feet dangling.
He stared wide-eyed but didn’t scream. Either he was bolstering himself, or she was doing it for him.
With a grunt, she heaved her arms sideways, her whole body twisting with the movement.
He rocketed through the air, soaring past moon girl in a blur of glowing metal and flailing limbs before plunging into the churning river.
“Get him!” The traitor fixed her gaze on moon girl. “Save him!”
Moon girl stared at the woman, a storm of emotion in her eyes. Then she bolted, boots kicking up mud as she dove headfirst into the river, disappearing into the steep cascade.
A frustrated growl ripped from my throat. This couldn’t be happening. They’d escaped me again. I forced my fingers to curl around the spikes, channeling heat down my arms. The metal softened and melted, pooling through the wounds in sizzling rivulets.
Crew members closed in around the traitor, finally brave enough to join the fight. Their hands spun in tight circles, weaving flames between their palms.
Straightening, she lifted her chin, heat waves dancing around her. She seized a metal scrap from the ground and stretched it into a nail-thin spike, hurtling it straight toward Flint’s face.
With a growl, I wrenched my hands free and flung an arm out, homing in on the dart’s heat. Flicking my wrist, I threw it off course, and it whistled past a hair’s breadth from Flint’s ear.
Behind him, Tera let out a savage grunt as she melted the spear piercing her shoulder. Ignoring the blood streaming down her arm, she reheated the metal into a glowing white-hot mass.
I sprang to my feet and stepped forward, facing the traitor. “How?” All my boiling frustration spilled into my rasping words. “How could you betray your own people for them?”
“My people?” A humorless laugh tore out of her. “You mean people who’d sooner kill innocent children than question their king’s order?”
My lip curled. “You ash-born filth. You will suffer the Sun Kingdom’s wrath for your treason.”
I hurled a storm of fire toward her. She answered with a searing torrent, and the two forces collided in a violent inferno. The crew closed in, fire blooming from their palms. Flames engulfed her from all sides. Fury boiled beneath my skin, and I used it as fuel, driving more heat into the storm.
Snarling, Tera hurtled her metal, reshaping it midair into a spear. It streaked through the chaos and punched through the woman’s chest.
She stumbled back, her bolster crumbling under the barrage. Her mouth opened in a silent gasp, lips bubbling and melting. The stench of charred flesh choked the air. She collapsed to the ground, but I kept flaring my heat until nothing but a blackened heap remained.
Ragged breaths tore from my lungs. Frustration coiled through my chest, hot and restless.
The traitor was dead, but the blaze-wretched Dual Wielder had escaped again.