The anger that had clung to me left as he fell from the wall in a heap. I could only stare in horror at the red that drenched his back. I needed to leave, to get out of here. To run away from what I had done.
I backed up as I tried to remember how to walk—as I attempted to tear my eyes from him—only to see his pale face turn up to me, his fingers flexing as razor-sharp blades soared through the air, slicing across my face. I felt the heat as they cut through the skin, the painful burn as they gashed me open.
I stumbled back in pain as my hands flew to my face, the warm wetness of my own blood flooding over my skin.
“You are nothing without me,” he yelled as he approached me, “and even less with Ilyan. If you won’t kill me, then I will gladly kill you. My father was right all along. You are nothing, and you deserve to be dead.”
“I am NOT nothing!” My voice rumbled, my magic growing as I fired blindly through the rivers of my blood. In my attempt to fight back sparks of electricity and flame flashed through the smoke-filled air.
“Ilyan!” I shouted through the pain without knowing if I called the words into his head or aloud, not knowing if the barrier I had trapped him in would keep him from me.
The word escaped my lips just as Ryland pulled me back into him, his body hard against mine, his iron arm pressing me against him. I tried to fight the hold—to move away from the unwanted contact—but he only held on tighter, his face moving closer until I could taste his breath on my tongue.
“Why do you call for him if he doesn’t own you? Why do you sleep with him? Why do you cling to him?” He hissed his words against me as he held me, my heart stuttering as it fought to beat.
I just glared into him in response, my eyes narrowed dangerously as his words seeped into me and joined with my anger.
“You are weak with him! But I can make you strong. I can make you strong enough to be the Siln?. Strong enough,” he whispered, letting the pressure he held me with drop just enough that I gasped for air, “for me.”
My breath was stuck in my chest as his hands ran over my face, the touch acid and ice as my magic fought against his. I gasped at the contact, but he only smiled as though he thought I enjoyed it. Could he not feel the burn, the way his magic raged through me? I could see in his smile that he couldn’t. He believed in what he was saying, every word; that I belonged to him.
It was what was behind the words that scared me—the possessiveness, the control. I could see the danger in his eyes and hear the violence in his voice, and it boiled through me, hot and angry, as my magic moved to match it.
“I don’t need you!” My words sounded more like the roar of a thunderstorm as my magic rocked through the air, pulsing in a wave of white light as Ryland stumbled away from me.
My feet left the ground as my magic picked me up, speeding me through the air only to land above him, straddling him as he had me.
“I can do this on my own! I was born to do this! I am the Siln?!” His hair whipped around his face as I yelled at him.
“Are you?” Ryland asked, his weak voice mocking from underneath me. “You have all the magic in the world and you can’t conjure enough to kill me.” He smiled again, his teeth red with his blood, his eyes dark and dangerous. “If you won’t take me… kill me! Kill me! Kill me!”
It was enough. I felt the anger snap into a wave of loathing, the emotion so strong and hot that I willingly let it take over me. I let it rule over me. I wouldn’t let him do this anymore.
“I won’t let you hurt me!” The air around me rippled as the hurricane of my anger surged, pulling in the magic that surrounded me and sending it right into Ryland as I lifted him out from under me. I suspended him in the air, the whirlwind I had created circling closer and closer as it compressed against him.
“You deserve to die!”
The tanned skin of his face faded to white before the red of his lips painted blue. He clawed at his neck as an invisible force squeezed the life out of him. I only smiled as I watched him fight it, knowing it was pointless, knowing I wouldn’t let him get away.
His hands stopped fighting as his eyes began to close, his body moments away from death. I wanted to watch him die. I wanted to see his legs stop kicking. I wanted to see the last tendrils of life leave him.
I was going to be the one to do it.
Eight
Ryland’s eyes opened in horror, his mouth gaping as the last of his air left him, his body moments away from giving in. I was going to see his end; see the final breath of the boy who had haunted me and hurt me more times than I could count.
The boy I had loved once.