Chapter 37
Chapter
Thirty-Seven
NISSA
Poisons and potions or not, I won’t go down without a fight. I invoke every last flicker of magic that is left in my blood to fight. One last effort I pull from my fear in this moment, from my anger for Nova and my love for Cillian.
The foundation of the building shakes. The brittle and broken door slides off the top hinge in the tremor. It isn’t strong, but it is just enough to give me hope… until it doesn’t.
Everything stills, and one of Caspien’s eyebrows lifts, humor dancing in his eyes.
“Well, that was interesting.” He chuckles.
“Pathetic. But interesting. With how much I gave you, there’s no way you should be able to access any of your magic.
” He studies my face, a momentary curiosity filling his eyes.
Thunder rumbles from outside the building, distracting him. He looks up at the ceiling with a villainous grin. “She didn’t like when I killed Nova either.”
I do everything I can to move while he is looking up but the best I can manage is getting a hand flat on the slick floor.
He must notice my efforts since he looks back at me and laughs, “Like I said, Pathetic. So, how should we do this? Should I kill your human friend first and make you watch?” He says it casually - playfully- like we are figuring out plans for the day.
His eyes brighten, “We could wisp my brother! Let him listen to your screams!”
The rage that rushes through my body sends a tingle across my skin. Hope blooms in my chest that my magic is returning. I reach out to pull at the seed of power but it still lay dormant just out of reach. Buried by the effects of the forget-me-nots and whatever else he gave me.
The tingling intensifies anywhere my skin touches the stone floor, and a soft pulse begins beneath my palm.
This time, I don’t try to take from my element - I surrender to it.
And in that surrender, I feel it respond.
Not by giving, but by taking. The moss and algae that cling to the floor rise to meet me, drawing the poison from my body as if the earth itself is protecting one of its own.
Distracted, I don’t even realize Caspien has stopped pacing. Pain erupts, white and searing, as fire chews through my ankle where he just grabbed me. I scream as the fire blazes through my veins. The putrid smell of burnt flesh fills the room with my cries, turning my stomach.
“Great, now that we are all listening,” He says, voice simmering with sarcasm. “Like I was saying, Mother always said I am too reckless. So I guess I shouldn’t risk involving a wisp.”
My chest heaves erratically. The microorganisms below pulse harder, knitting my charred skin back together, leeching the toxins from my blood.
I am physically exhausted but haze filling my mind thins. Caspien is back to pacing, now ranting about Isolde’s criticism of him. I get that. But when I roll to my back he pauses mid sentence.
“How did you-” he snarls, stomping over. I’m still weak. My heart is still pumping poison through me. But I can’t pass up the opportunity he unknowingly gives me.
As soon as he is within reach I lunge. Seizing his legs and yank as hard as I can. A loud crack fills the room when his head smacks against the stone.
I roll away from him but freeze. A laugh, low and broken, crawls up his throat. Not unconscious. Not even slowed.
Looking over at him, a stream of blood drips from one of his ears. I didn’t expect it to kill him but I had hoped it would at least knock him out for a breeze.
“That wasn’t very nice.” He seethes as he props himself on one elbow, blood sliding down his face, dripping into a puddle on the floor. His dead eyes locking on me.
With surprising speed he reaches out to grab me. I jerk backwards, sliding across the floor, scrambling to stand. The room tilts and spins, my vision blurring.
“Neither was killing my sister!” My voice splinters, echoing off stone. “Or kidnapping me, you lunatic!” My legs swaying like a sapling in one of Gaia’s storms, roots too shallow to ground me.
He tilts his head like he is genuinely considering the accusation as he stands. “True but I never said I was a nice person, Nissa.” He states, flashing me a bloody smile.
My body shakes, my muscles still half-frozen. I blink when, a subtle vibration whispers to me through the wall. Through the cracks a sprout, tiny and green, calls to me.
Caspien advances, “You’re barely standing.
” He mocks, each step slow and deliberate.
“I’m not sure what chance you think you have against me.
” Fear coils around me, each step like a wildfire driven towards the forest. But I remind myself that sometimes the blaze is what clears the way for new growth.
I bare my teeth at him, hoping the element of surprise will benefit me. I reach out my hand and pull. The tiny sprout transforms before my eyes into a vine, thick and spiked. Responding to my call, it snaps out, binding him around his waist and ankles.
The act drains me. My vision doubling. Sweat slicks my palms.
I close my eyes and focus on finding any roots to get me to the next room where I can get Ophe and rootwalk out of here. But it doesn’t come. Even if I was able to find a root system to connect the two rooms, I’m too tired.
My bones ache, the tainted blood in my veins is sluggish, my muscles fighting against every movement.
Blinking my eyes open, the room blurs and slants. I rub my eyes to clear my vision.
“Very impressive,” he says, drawing a blade. I glance between him and the door and my heart withers. He is too close to be able to make it out without him grabbing me.
Caspien slices through the fibrous flesh of the vine that is wrapped around his waist before leaning down. But instead of cutting his feet free, as I suspect, he slowly drags the knife over the flooring.
I flinch as the shriek of metal against stone slices through the silence in the room, flaring embers in its wake.
Calling the sparks to him, fire licks to his palm — igniting into a blinding flame.
His eyes bore into me through the flame as he burns my element away. “You, princess,” he snarls through the firelight, “should not have access to your powers.”
“Yeah?” My voice is a rasp. “Well, I’m the Queen now.”
I am the Daughter of Gaia. The Goddess chose me. Not him. I may not understand why but she put me in this position but I’m not going to let some delusional, power hungry male stop me. Not like he did with Nova.
She deserves justice. Castara deserves justice.
I lunge to the side when he hurls a fireball in my direction, leaving a sear mark across the wall where I had just been. Embers rain down around us like dying stars.
Advancing towards me, his eyes flashing with murderous intent. They appear almost completely black, absent of the gleam that normally lights his eyes.
The tingling in my fingertips sync with my heartbeat. I plead to the stones. And they respond. A tremor shudders above him. Chunks of rock rain down — but he dissolves into smoke before they hit.
I curse as the sound of rock on rock rumble through the room. I jerk my head around for a moment but when I don’t see him materialize, I crawl for the door. Climbing over cracked and broken rocks that are shattered across the floor from their impact.
I have to get Ophe and get us out of here.
My fingers barely brush the doorknob before an arm snakes around my throat, lifting me off my knees. Acrid smoke floods my lungs, clawing down my windpipe. I cough, choking. Desperate to expel it, but his grip seals off the air way as he drags me back.
“Uh uh uh,” he whispers against my ear. The tone is soft, intimate, worst than a shout. My ribcage convulses against his hold, the smoke searing through my chest, trapped with nowhere to escape.
He flings my weakened body onto the mattress and I curl into myself in a coughing fit. Smoke and dust plume around me tainting the wind I am able to pull in.
My lungs burn, smoke still curling around me like a serpent. He straddles me, binding my wrists. I buck, but my limbs feel weighted with lead.
I can’t let him constrain me. The panic coursing through me fuels my energy. I just got my happy ending. There is a reason I am still here. A divine reason.
Searching out the edge of the mattress, I take my foot and slam it down onto the stones. Shards of rock explode from the wall, knocking him backwards. He groans, still partially on top of me as I try to push him off with my half bound hands.
As he sits up, his blood drips warm onto my skin. His eyes alight with murder. Baring his teeth, he rips a spike from his stomach.
I scramble backwards towards the wall but he wraps his burning hands around my ankle, yanking me back down onto the mattress.
“Caspien stop,” I yell, my kick doing little more than taking his wind away.
His chuckle is a broken, simmering sound. He leans close, his words hot against my ear. “No,” is all he says before he plunges the blade into my stomach.
Pain floods everything but I won’t let it take me down. Not yet. The taste of iron, and something else, spreads thick across my tongue. “What… was on… that blade?” I sputter the words, blood spilling out of me.
In the next breath, my body is no longer mine to command. The taste of soil replaces the iron tang of blood and a floral scent fills my nostrils, offering me a momentarily reprieve from the pain that had taken over.
Suddenly my back arches off the mattress, as my magic erupts within me. A power I’ve never felt before taking root inside me, branching out through my blood. Exploding outward, unbidden.
A deep groan reverberates from the earth beneath. The sound is low and primal, like the world itself is awakening from a deep sleep. The edges of my vision blur to black but through the haze I still see the room being torn apart.
Stones scream as roots spear through them, splitting the walls in jagged fractures. Vines burst through the cracks in a frenzy, writhing, coiling and spreading like veins across the walls. Dust and shards rain down, the stone beneath us shivering as though it is afraid.
Caspien staggers backwards, slipping to his knees. His head jerks up, eyes wide. Not from the pain but something sharper. Fear. His breath catches as the ground beneath him heaves and splits, threatening to swallow him whole.
And in that moment, before the black edges finally move in, he looks at me. Not as prey. Not as broken.
But as the Daughter of Gaia.