I reacted before my mind even fully understood what was happening, my instincts kicking in as I raised my hand toward him, a wall of fire erupting from within me. Even though I knew I should be careful, that I shouldn’t attack him, I couldn’t stop it. The magical barrier sped away from me in a destructive force that intercepted the attack, burning it to a crisp before it had a chance to reach me.
With one pulse of magic, I shattered the wall of flame into nothing, ribbons of fire twisting into the air until it was nothing but smoke. I only hoped Ryland was safe and untouched on the other side.
It wasn’t Ryland I should have been concerned about, though.
It was then that I saw what the real danger was, saw the dozens of Trpaslík that Ryland had led right to us, saw the danger in their eyes, and I was facing them with only a useless Drak beside me.
I didn’t even lament this battle, this fight, this bloodshed. It was what I had wanted, after all.
I only smiled.
I smiled as they yelled, my voice echoing through the forest right alongside them, battle calls ringing loud as the thunder rumbled the earth and the magic broke the air.
My hands spread before me as fire lunged from my fingers in a ring that ignited a wall, an attack so much more powerful than what I had sent Ryland’s way exploding from me. This would only bring death, and nothing I could do would stop it. A solid mass of flame burned the front lines of the assassins, a second wave of power speeding through the ground and into the souls of those right behind, turning them to ash before they could even feel the heat of my power. Before they had a chance to fight back.
The tongues of flame fell to the ground when my magic withdrew, the bubbling torrent expanding under my skin as the rain began to fall. Large drops of water fell over us and stuck against the remains of what had once been people.
“Watch yourself,” Sain said from beside me. His voice was full of parental guidance that ground against my spine and clamped my teeth together.
“Now is not the time for lectures, old man,” I growled. “Go fix that one before you criticize my attempts to keep both of us alive.” I nodded my head toward Ryland who was now attacking the next wave of Edmund’s men, his face filled with maniacal laughter before he moved to slamming his head against a tree. “Now.”
I really shouldn’t have to ask him twice. First of his kind or not, now was not the time.
Sain left without another word as the earth moved below me, some magic shifting the dirt as another attack sped past my ear, singeing my hair as it flew beside me.
I had dodged on instinct, but it wasn’t going to be enough. With one flux of my magic, I could feel the deep hatred of the lines of enemies that were moving toward us. Wave after wave moved as swiftly as if they were nothing more than the flow of a tide.
As much as I had wanted this battle, this was going to try my ability to the absolute limit.
Challenge accepted, Edmund.
I fought without thinking, magic moving from my hands, streaking through the air as attacks met in mid-flight, exploding into the air in fireworks of color and energy. More than once, I felt the heat of them against my skin, the now stagnant attack burning potently into my flesh.
I had only just destroyed the last man before five more broke through the trees. Ryland screamed to the left of me right as Sain called out, the sound loud and pained as I was sure whatever Ryland had done was injuring him.
I couldn’t even turn to check.
I couldn’t even help.
The knowledge was a painful vice against my heart. I needed to help them, but with the armies Edmund had sent after us … I might be powerful, but I wasn’t Ilyan.
“Thom!” I screamed his name, my voice cracking with iron and salt as I transformed the five before me into ash, their bodies erupting in stone as the rain splashed against their once alive facades, streaking them with tears they could no longer shed.
“Thom!” I ran to Ryland before the next wave hit us, my magic rushing into him the moment I reached him in a desperate plea to calm him, to knock him out, anything. I might as well have been trying to turn carrots into glass. My hand was nothing more than ice against the heat of his skin.
He looked to me at the contact, his black eyes startling me for the briefest of moments before he smiled. It was a wide, wicked gleam that spread malice over his face. Stone weighed me down at that look, the realization that I was looking at Edmund and not at Ryland feeling like a stab in the gut.
“Think you can survive this, do you?” His voice was a snarl of ice, the magic that had built a wall inside of him so familiar that, for one brief moment, I wasn’t sure if I was looking at Ryland or Edmund. They looked so similar. The voice was the same. The magic was the same.
However, they weren’t.