I heard Nyah shout, but I could no longer see her.
I opened my hands and the doors to the room burst open. Wind screamed against the stained-glass windows until they too burst, sending shards across the crowd. Screams of confusion and fear filled the room, elves cowered to shield themselves from the raining glass and onslaught of wind that roared around them.
I didn’t care.
I threw my arms forward. The torrent of air reached Illera first.
It was so easy. I was unstoppable.
I flicked my hand and she flew. I needed her out of my way. She skidded across the floor, nothing more than my toy. I giggled, watching her flailing body slam into a set of guards who had been moving closer to me, spears up, sending them toppling over one another.
I pushed both hands to the floor, spending a burst of wind away from me on all sides. It reached the guards that walked for me. They each went down to the ground and toppled into the crowd.
Illera whimpered. I turned my gaze to her and brought my hands down, sending my magick on top of her feline body until it crushed down on her. The bones of the guards beneath her snapped, it was music to my ears.
Illera shifted back and gasped for air, stumbling from the broken bodies beneath her and running. She will not bother me again.
Arrows rained down on me but never made it past my shield of spinning air. Like twigs, they bounced off my wall and fell to the floor. Many guards attempted to run for me. I slashed the wind at them and sent their bodies smashing into the walls.
I was their hurricane.
I turned for Alina who stood before me. Her sword drawn. Pathetic. The name, her name, still rang across my mind fuelling my storm. It was her.
“Why?” my voice thundered across to her.
She only smiled.
It would be her last.
A part of me wished for answers, to find out why she had done it. It was her in the forest who’d tried to kill Hadrian. But the overwhelming emotion that filled every cell in my body only wanted one thing. Death.
I lifted a single finger and pointed at her. I wrapped my air around her sword and yanked it from her hands. She was a chicken in my pen of air, and I was the fox.
Her mouth was forced open by my magick and my tendrils of power flowed into her. She clawed at her throat whilst I winnowed all remnants of air from her lungs. She would no longer need it. Her cheeks began to cave in, her eyes red and bulging.
I laughed at her attempts to make any sound, taking pleasure in every gasped cough and gurgle of spit that flew from her mouth.
I held her from the floor, my little doll.
A familiar beacon of warmth hit my shield and I turned to see Hadrian, his red face mid scream. He was beautiful awash in his own flames.
This was for him.
I yanked hard at the invisible strings that held me tethered to Alina. They pulled her arms and legs in different directions. Her face contorted in pain and terror.
Hadrian slammed his fiery fists, hitting my wall of air. It irritated me.
I pushed more power into my shield and turned back to Alina.
It took me a moment to realize she was dead. I was disappointed, I wanted her pain to last a life time.
I no longer had a need for her. I closed my eyes, pulled at my cyclone of power and sent her lifeless body flying. Her body spun around and around until she fell from view outside of a half-smashed window.
As soon as her body disappeared, everything began to falter.
What was I doing?
Hadrian took full advantage of the slack on my shield and pushed through, ripping it open with flames burning from his hands. I squinted from the heat and he grabbed me.
I hated him for it. I tried to push at him, but his strength was too much.
Why was my magick not listening to me?
He was whispering something in my ear, but my power ran wild. Something fluttered beside my head, a small emerald body with pulsing wings. Nyah. I blinked and she had shifted back and placed a hand on my neck. I wanted to scream the moment she invaded my body with her glowing existence. I couldn’t get her off.
I screamed and screamed. My magick pushed at her invasion, but against my will, I began to lose my hold. The wind died and my mind fell black.
Nyah kept her hand pressed to me, her face twisted in concentration. The air ceased and the view of the room was spinning in front of me. The great hall was destroyed. Glass and stone layered across bodies of unknown beings, ruby blood puddled beneath them.
“Help me!” Hadrian’s voice was filled with panic.
He moved fast, lifting me into his arms. He ran to a door. I couldn’t be sure. My mind was focused on the lifeless bodies littered across the throne room floor.
I did this.
I looked up to the main throne room doors where shouts met my ears. Guards flooded into the room, pointing our way. Right at me.
“I killed them,” I whispered.
Neither of them responded.
Nyah swiped up a spear from a fallen body on the floor. Her knuckles white when she held onto it.
We reached a door.
“I killed them.”
The shouts were growing louder behind us. Hadrian thrust a fist at the door we’d passed through, sending a ball of fire towards it. Flames licked up the doorframe and blocked the view of the throne room.
“It will hold them, but not for long.” He was talking to Nyah, not me.
“I killed them.”
He ran fast. I pushed at the burning in my chest and fought through the exhaustion that battered my mind. We moved through the darkened rooms, corridors, and down a set of stairs until we were in the belly of the palace.
The guards had made it past Hadrian’s inferno, I could hear their feet pounding on the ground after us.
“I killed them.”
My mind drowned in exhaustion and it was a struggle to keep my eyes from closing.
Light shone ahead, blinding me for a moment.
We were outside. I felt the fresh bursts of sea hit my face and heard the loud clash of water against rocks.
Hadrian dropped me from his arms. I tried to stand, but wobbled to the ground.
I squinted to where Hadrian was running to. I spotted two shapes who stood in the distance. One was waving their arms to catch our attention. Hadrian noticed I wasn’t following and turned back. He shouted something. I couldn’t hear.
The arrow surprised me at first.
There was no pain.
I looked down at my chest to see the metal arrow head poking out from my shirt. I poked my finger on its bloodied point, my metal claw clanking against it. I looked from the arrow to Nyah whose face was a mask of a silent scream. I turned behind me in time to see the next arrow fly at me from a window in the tower closest to us. It struck my leg, sending me to the floor from its strong force. Still no pain.
I opened my mouth to call for her, but choked on the sudden bubble of blood.
The world tilted and I fell to my side. Then there was only water.
THERE IS ONLY PAIN.
I am pain.
I breathe it. I live in it.
Fire courses through me. Water drowns my ability to move. There is no air. I am buried under mounds of earth.
There is no light. I don’t see the blessed tree of life. Only black.