“Just once … then I’ll tell you … Ash’s …”
The elemental raised his weary head to Simon. With a mere glance, the stone claws clutching Kate’s scalp opened and she fell to the ground. She lay gasping for air. Gaios reached down and pulled her up. “Anstruther, go to him. Keep him alive long enough so he can tell me what I need.”
Kate weakly tried to pull her arm from the elemental’s grasp. She nearly toppled as Gaios dragged her toward the impaled Simon.
Simon looked down. Rivers of red streamed down Kate’s horror-stricken face. She could barely stand. Her clothes were torn. He smiled at her and reached out.
“Kate,” he said. “Take my hand, please.”
He felt her stiff cold fingers slip against his. He pursed his lips and whispered a secret word. Aether surged down his arm into her hand. He saw Kate jerk with alarm and a bright glow shot from above her heart. Her green eyes streamed aether and glittered bright with the same power that flowed through Simon.
Gaios turned his head to Kate. She returned his gaze with a fierce grin. Her hand came up and it glowed from a green rune that appeared on her palm. The elemental shouted and started to back away, but Kate grasped his face between her searing fingers. A blast of aether tore from her hand.
Gaios shook free, but a rune was emblazoned across his features. He roared in anger and extended his hands, fingers like claws. But nothing happened. The obsidian tendrils holding Simon crumbled and he dropped hard to the ground. On Kate’s other side, Malcolm fell too. In the distance, Jane dragged Nick back to solid ground, both collapsing against the other.
Kate grabbed Gaios as the old elemental tumbled backward. He tried to shove her away, but his strength had fled with his magic. He seemed to grow older and more wizened. Kate knocked his hands aside and slammed her fist into his face. He stumbled back. She struck him again and Gaios fell to one knee. Kate herself couldn’t stay on her feet and fell onto her hands and knees, gasping for breath. The elemental scrabbled weakly across the dirt and seized a jagged shard of obsidian. He rose onto one knee and lifted the blade to plunge it into her unprotected back.
A hand grabbed Gaios’s wrist and an arm clasped the old man’s unprotected throat. Simon tightened his forearm on Gaios’s neck until the elemental began to choke, his tongue lolling from his mouth, eyes rolling up in his head. Gaios tried to raise his feeble hand and stab Simon with the stone blade. The razor black stone jabbed into Simon’s leg.
“No … more.” Simon shut his eyes against the blossom of new pain. He gritted his teeth and drew a final burst of runic strength into his wracked form. His arm cracked through the remnants of the obsidian armor and crushed against Gaios’s throat. The elemental gagged, but he still raised the knife to strike again. Simon tightened with all his might, nearly blacking out. Gaios’s arm faltered at its apex and the old man stopped moving. He slumped. Simon kept up his death grip on the elemental’s throat for another minute, until darkness swallowed his vision. Finally, they both collapsed unmoving into the dust.
Kate crawled to Simon. She struggled to unbend his arm from around Gaios’s neck and roll the elemental’s lifeless body aside. Simon was still breathing. He looked up at her with a tired, grateful expression. She should have had nothing left, but she still lifted him into her arms. Then she saw his red wounds and pulled him against her breast.
After a moment, she shifted him back slightly and looked down. “You are going to live, aren’t you?”
“If you are, I will.” Simon put his head on her lap.
Chapter 25