Free from the carefully crafted cage I always kept it locked in.
It moved into the monsters that surrounded me, attack after attack felling man, woman, and tiny, winged beasts. Everything was illuminated as I stood, surrounded by death. My heart was racing, muscles tensing, when out of nowhere, a scream I recognized broke through the death, broke through the light, broke through the battle I was trapped in.
Joclyn.
She was screaming. I could feel her fear, hear her cries as she lay miles from me, trapped in one of the many nightmares her sight had plagued her with for the past few months. Our connection opened up within me as I fought. My magic swelled, her fear ripping through me in agony, in an emotional prison that, even if I hadn’t been preoccupied, I couldn’t have saved her from.
Listening to her scream as I continued to fight, my chest constricted painfully, but I kept up the attacks, her magic continuing to move into me, strengthening me, filling me, controlling me in dangerous waves of frightening ability.
Joclyn’s magic supercharged my own past what I was capable of, the darkness and terror of her sight pulling my magic into a deadly concoction that felled one after another, many of them turning to nothing more than smoke and faded memories.
Teeth clenched, chest heaving, I continued to fight, focusing on Joclyn’s magic, on her fear, knowing what I needed to do. It was the only way I could calm her.
“Joclyn!” I yelled aloud, letting my magic smother her as Edmund’s men kept coming, flowing through the streets, flooding the space that was growing smaller.
I smiled as my power grew within me like a warm water bottle of determination.
I was out of time.
With one powerful stream of magic, I turned, red and yellow light flying right into the broken foundation of the building that was threatening to collapse and, without warning, sending it to the ground.
Right on top of me.
Joclyn’s magic erupted as mine did, the two joining together in a powerful force that encompassed me in a barrier so strong that, as I stood still, I could watch tons of ancient architecture crumbling around me.
The dust settled as I remained untouched, standing in an upturned fish bowl, witnessing the fall of something that had once been beautiful.
My heart rate increased as Joclyn’s did, as images of her sight flashed before me, a battle eerily similar to the one I had ended replaying right before my very eyes.
“Wake up, m?j nav?dy,” I said, my voice echoing through the shield as I surveyed the damage, making one last sweep for any life that might choose to follow me before taking off into the sky, the shielded globe ascending around me, dust falling away from my movement like the tail of a kite.
“Wake up!” I spoke aloud to my mate as the blood of her sight flowed over her, her heart rate so fast within me I was sure some monster was trying to break free from the inside of my chest as well as hers.
With a graceful step, I landed on the rooftop of the highest point—the tall, lookout building I had told Risha to meet me at. My tension was still high with fear of the possibility that she and the others might not have made it as the shield fell away with the faintest pop, the solitary sound loud in the silence after the battle I had escaped.
There was only the faint red of the world, only the hot breeze that moved through my hair as I stood, heart pounding, on the high rooftop, looking over the city I was raised in, the city I was now trapped in. The city that had quickly become a prison.
Wake up, mi lasko! I tried again, this time sending the call right into her mind, and I was grateful when her heart rate slowed, the heavy influx of her magic regulating.
I could still feel her fear, still feel her panic, but it was mixed with reality now, the uncertainty and anxiety of nightmares leaving. Still, she was silent, and even through the temporary calm, my heart rate picked up.
“Mi lasko?” I breathed, sending the words right into her mind as the fright left. “Are you all right?”
Ilyan, she finally replied, her voice a calm wave.
With one word, my heart relaxed, my soul calmed, and although I had escaped the literal destruction of yet another part of this beautiful city…
It was still home.
She made it that way.
I could hear him crying, the boy’s soft whimpers ringing through the cave in a mournful sound that tensed through me. The distorted sobs were so mangled I wasn’t sure if he was laughing or crying. It was just the broken echo of pain and sadness, the feral growl of some beast following behind. The sounds rippled across the space in a pressure that was hard to breathe through, my heart tensing in expectation of what I was walking toward, of what was ahead.