Because the main force of the storm hit a moment later, still more than capable of knocking her off her latest perch and sending her flying—
And me ducking, although I didn’t need to. Her body spun through the air in our direction, but well above my head. And then splashed down in one of the lower parts of the camp, hard enough to cause a burst of water to fountain up at least a story high.
It splattered down on me like thick rain as I waded forward, trying to reach her before she drowned. While dodging the mass of people who were suddenly splashing through the water toward us. The previously disorganized crowd had just gotten their shit together in a big way, and were headed out of camp, battle be damned, and threatening to mow me down in the process.
“What the hell?” I asked Rosier as they passed us in a stream of hard elbows and churning water.
But he didn’t answer. I glanced at my shoulder and found him with his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide, staring past me. At the dark-haired princess who was somehow back on her feet, throwing off the world-shattering blow with nothing more than a snarl.
I pushed a fall of soggy hair out of my face, and even through the pelting rain, I could see her better this time. A beautiful brunette with slanting blue eyes, ivory skin, and wicked red lips, who was doing a double take of her own. I thought that was a little odd, just at seeing me again.
Until I realized: she wasn’t looking at me.
For a long second she and Rosier locked eyes, and the fierce expression she wore slowly changed into something else. Something I couldn’t quite read, even when her face cracked and her lips curved, because it was just too bizarre. Until she burst out laughing, a sound of pure hilarity chiming over the chaotic scene like a peal of bells, and so incongruous in that setting that I could only stare.
And then stare some more when she leaned over and tweaked Rosier’s little cheek.
“You should have stayed in the tree,” she told him breathlessly.
Then she was gone, running back across camp as easily as if there was no flood, because for her there wasn’t. Little patches of water solidified under her feet, like paving stones in a creek bed, catching her footfalls before she could make them. Like the wave that rose on cue, surging toward a remaining bit of palisade, up and over and carrying her with it, straight at—
“Oh,” I said, staring stupidly.
And finally realized why everyone had been headed this way.
Because Nimue had caught another storm.
I had a moment to see lightning crackle off the surface of her shield, to see something catch fire inside it, to see an inferno spiral across the formerly colorless exterior, turning it into a raging disk of red flame—
Before it came pouring out, the twister exploding from the surface like a tongue of fire from a dragon’s mouth, one that just kept coming, growing into a massive thread of fiery death that strained for the heavens—
But came hurtling back to earth when she suddenly released it.
The princess shielded, a speck of blue under the raging crimson torrent, but a group of Nimue’s own guards weren’t so lucky. The princess’ shield deflected the fire onto them, exploding half of them into ash that scattered on the wind like confetti, while the rest—who had somehow managed to get shields up—went spiraling into the heavens. Just small black specks among the clouds as that destructive finger hit down, carving a divot the size of a swimming pool out of the hillside.
And then kept on going. Jumping from the hill down into camp, tearing a furrow through the waves, sending wafts of steam skyward, and ripping apart the few remaining tents before heading for a wagon. A wagon perched on one of the remaining bits of high ground. A wagon someone must have dragged up there because it seemed like the safest spot in camp.
A wagon full of children.
Time seemed to slow, the deafening noise to fade, the only sound remaining the beat of my heart. The only thing I could see was terrified faces staring over the edge of the cart, the approaching firelight reflected in their eyes. Along with the dead certainty that nothing would deflect it, because nothing was in the way.
Until we were.
I hit the ground, along with the water that had been all around me, because I hadn’t had time to select it out. Heard my power clanging in my ears, telling me what I’d already instinctively known: that they weren’t supposed to die today. Stared at the swirling red column, fear roiling in my gut, like the last of my potion, burning its way down my throat.
And then I was throwing everything I had at the gleaming vortex, a glittering wave of Pythian power, the purest expression of godly force on earth—
And barely made it flinch.
I stared in disbelief at the swirling mass of red and black and gray. Until I remembered: Caedmon, the fey king I’d met last time, had slipped out of a time spell, not once but twice. Because fey magic didn’t respond to mine the way that earth’s did.
It barely seemed to respond at all.
Stop, I thought, my hand outstretched, my heart racing dangerously fast as the column glimmered and gleamed, like firelit rubies. Stop, I thought desperately, straining as it filled my vision, slowing enough to be mesmerizing, but not enough to matter. “Stop!” I heard myself shout, as I felt the heat, smelled the smoke, saw the wind of it lift my hair. . . .
And then lift me, too, ripping me off my feet in what I guessed was slow motion, since my power was having a visible effect now. But it didn’t feel all that slow. I went whipping through clouds of steam and smoke, the burning camp swirling dizzyingly around me, as I desperately tried to rein it in. As the maelstrom and I whirled together in a deadly dance that was only going to end one way, because I wasn’t strong enough.
I couldn’t stop it.
But a second later, it hitched anyway, like a bucking horse suddenly draped with a second lasso. And then again, stalling now, losing speed. And again. I couldn’t see why, but I knew I wasn’t doing it; I was still being spun around the glowing column of death, turning with its energy even as it slowed, as it tried to suck me in, as it reached out to claim one . . . more . . . victim. . . . Before finally grinding to a halt, as still and quiet as if it really was carved out of a single, giant jewel, gleaming in the darkness.
Like the three strands of golden power—Pythian power, I realized—that were connected to it. Like the three women glimpsed through the smoke, their faces lit up with reflected firelight, who together had tamed it. Like the face of the woman who jerked me out of the sky a moment later, down to a large, heaving bosom.
And a pudgy hand that tightened painfully on the back of my neck as I stared into furious brown eyes. “Oh.” I licked my lips, tasting ashes. “Shit.”
“You have no idea.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
“Gertie!”
Nothing.
“Gertie!” I slammed my palms against the blank white wall in front of me.
“Would you please stop?” Rosier asked, sounding as weary as I felt.