Chapter 25 #2
“I think you’ve had enough fighting for now, Ever.” The Usher’s words hold a ring to them, and I’m still unsure if he knows what I saw in his mind or not.
I set off for my tent, my heart thudding with a tempo my feet try to match. As I pull the fabric closed, I wonder if they’ll guard my tent tonight. There are so many parts of this that could go wrong, and I’m nervous to think about all the moves ahead of me, in case…
No. There is only one outcome I’m prepared to see tonight. And that is the four of us leaving.
Patience is what I need. I’ve had it all these weeks. I’ve done horrible, cruel things, and it can’t all be for nothing. This must work.
Shaking my head, I take a moment.
Faith.
Faith that Fenix won’t have his magic tonight. That he really does need me and won’t stop my heart the moment he realises what I’m doing. Faith that Kalan will get Ten and Crimson free.
After what feels like an age, and the nerves inside of me are wound so tightly that I’m surprised I’m not about to snap in two, I stand and listen to the world around me.
The camp is quiet. No movement. No noise.
With three deep, calming breaths, I think of my friends and why I need to do this.
I picture Ten, but slide into guilt for keeping him in the dark right now. We’ll have time to fix that when we’re all safe. That’s the priority. We will find our way back to each other—when we’re free.
One more breath.
I plunge my hands into the dirt on the ground and think about the first time I connected with Raiden. It was inside, but the wood all around us grew into thorny branches inside the classroom.
I don’t need the wood to grow; I just need it to stop being the barricade around me, keeping me trapped. With my mind focused on that feeling with Raiden, with her energy and magic, I command the well in my chest to answer, for the water to flow and do as I intend.
The energy is there, a vibration through me, and I lean into it. Harder than ever before because I know I can do this.
My eyes close, and I picture the wooden stakes bent and twisted, with room to escape. And sure enough, the creaks and groans that start inside the tent tell me it’s working.
I open my eyes and see the stakes are split and open, no longer straight and regimented around my tent, but crooked and gnarled, with a wide gap between two posts.
Snatching my hands away from the soil, I dash for the material and tear at it, escaping into the pitch black.
It worked!
My rapid breaths are the only thing I can hear, the smell of smoke, still thick in the air. Everything is still. So still.
I’ve never seen the back of the tented area before. I can’t even make out the shape of Fenix’s accommodations. I take a step forward, my boot planting firmly into the leafy carpet, the noise almost deafening as I crunch and break the leaves on the ground.
I can’t stop. I press on, arcing around the outside of my abode, and giving Fenix’s a wide berth. As my eyes adjust to the night, shapes become clearer, the tall silhouette of trees, long-limbed and prowling in the dark.
I’m caught between wanting to rush to Ten and Crimson to ensure their safety and what I must do, which is to face my brother and ensure he doesn’t block our path.
The line of trees marking the edge of camp comes into shady focus, giving me a clearer sense of where I am.
Only the tree in the centre seems to move, but it’s not the trunk of a tree, but a man.
Fenix.
“I’m impressed. A little push, and look at you, using all kinds of Fifth magic to aid you.” His tone is mocking, as if he’s responsible for my escape. “I’m surprised you didn’t try to escape earlier.”
I didn’t think to use my power before. A sorry confession, but one I won’t forget again.
“Let me leave, Fenix,” I whisper, aware that this could get very bad, very quickly.
“It’s a shame you couldn’t come to trust us and see things from our perspective.” He’s still in the shadows, his face masked, but his cocky voice is enough of a target for me.
“Your perspective. To rule over those who don’t have power, just because you’re jealous of those with power?
Because that’s what this comes down to. You’re on the side that wants more power when you don’t have it.
You disagree with those in charge, and so you’re raising an army of those who don’t have the gifts that others do.
An uprising, to do the same to others as has been done to them. An eye for an eye?”
“Our parents fought for this.” Anger seeps into the air with his words.
“No. I refuse to believe it’s as simple as that.”
“They started this, Ever. Like it or not. And if you leave, you’ll be going against their wishes. Do you want that? You have the ability to turn this to our advantage. You, with the power that all the Orders are afraid of. Who kept you weak, just to save their own skin?”
“Why would I want to help you, side with you, or have anything to do with you, after everything you’ve forced me to do?
” I tilt my head and wonder just how delusional he is.
“You could have played this differently. But you resorted to threats, pain, and dominance, relying on your own power and magic to jail and trap me. It’s no surprise, given that’s what the Usher’s done to you, ever since he played his trick and gave you power, all so you can build your so-called army.
To manipulate people into doing your bidding with threats and a promise you can’t keep.
You wanted me to be as broken and torn down as you were. Well, I’m not.”
“Oh, you’re going to stop us, all, are you?”
“I don’t need to stop all of you. Just you.”
“You don’t have it in you.”
We’re in a standoff, but worse, the snap of a branch to my right tells me we’re not alone in the dark anymore. He’s used our little tête-à-tête to wait for reinforcements.
Well, if he wants a show, I’ll give it to him.
He killed Micah. He put a sword in me—over and over again.
He broke Crimson’s wrist. He tortured Ten and cut away pieces of us.
I draw on every emotion that’s been bottled up and swallowed for the last few weeks, and let it infuse through me, let it heat the magic inside of me, until I’m brimming with nothing more than vengeance and anger.
The Maker said my emotions were raw and needed to be mastered. Well, I say otherwise.
I focus on everyone around me and let streams of power rush out in thick ropes of darkness, darker than night, and wrap around the men and women circling us.
And I draw from them, absorbing everyone’s energy.
Their power. Just as I did with Selina. I don’t stop until I’ve pulled everything from them, and then I start on Fenix.
As I connect with him, the usual unease, the never-mixing current, is familiar, but I am so much more powerful now.
He is weak, cut off, and my magic easily freezes him in place, so he can’t fight against me.
“Ever!” he shouts, but I know he can’t do more than yell at me. “What are you doing?”
But I don’t answer.
My head falls back, and I search the sky for Aslendrix, hoping she’ll hear my cry.
More and more energy gathers, spooling like a thread inside of me. Light and dark.
“Ever, stop. You can’t do this!”
But I can.
It’s more than anything I’ve felt before.
Greater. More powerful, like a full moon—even more than that. More than taking Selina’s energy. As I drink in Fenix’s power, I realise there’s too much, and I can’t turn this off.
A light begins to glow around me.
No. I’m the light. Novandia’s power is rising against my own. Fighting.
It’s too much. I can’t let it go.
“Ever!” The high-pitched wail of the Usher is the last thing I hear as the streams of power reach him and don’t stop to take from him, too. They wrap around and smother him, drawing Novandia’s power out because I can recognise it now. The difference. The change between both God and Goddess.
And it’s terrifying.
My eyes scan the sky as my body starts to burn.
All the images, all the memories, scatter in front of my eyes. Stars, darkness, flames, trees… image after image, they collide and shift, over and over. Faster and faster.
“Arghhhhh!” Stars flash across the sky as I look above, searching for help. For anything.
My necklace burns, scolding my skin, and the light is now a pillar, rising into the sky from me.
Until the walls of the well inside me crack and the hum overtakes everything within me and shatters. Breaking open, and the magic explodes, wrecking everything in its path, rippling free and blanketing everything around us to the ground.