“I accept,” I say simply, putting steel in my spine as I hold my head high and climb down the bleachers.
Dani and Keller are gaping at me like I’ve lost my mind. Baron and Lance have similar looks on their faces as I pass them.
Then I meet Raph’s eyes and something like concern flashes in them. But I don’t need his concern. I don’t want him to care.
I shoot him an icy look. He’s the reason why Layla hates me so much in the first place. The hate that I should feel for Layla in that moment, I direct at Raph, putting as much venom as I can muster in my stare. Raph’s lips clamp shut and he scowls as he sits back down.
I meet Layla in the middle of the field, feeling strangely calm. She looks like she’s having the time of her life. Her eyes are bright with excitement, eager to start tearing chunks out of me.
My heartbeat is roaring in my ears. My legs feel like jelly, but I won’t let Layla see that.
Layla leans over, her perfectly manicured talons digging into my forearm as she speaks.
“I’m going to enjoy this, you little slut,” she whispers.
“Now I totally understand why your poor father killed himself when he found out about you. The shame of finding out that he fathered a dirty human bastard who was selling her body must have been too great a shame to bear. No King would have been able to survive it.”
I can feel my self-control being shredded to pieces. But I force myself to breathe. She’s trying to get to me, trying to make me lose focus and it’s working, because I can barely see straight through the rage. I shake off her arm and thrust my face up to hers so that we’re breathing the same air, so that she can feel that I mean exactly what I’m about to say.
“I’m going to tear you to pieces.”
But as soon as I say the words, I have no idea why I’ve said them, because I’m no match for her in an elements duel and we both know it. The only one that’s going to be torn to pieces is me, with Layla doing the tearing.
She just smiles at me before turning to walk away towards the other side of the field. I didn’t think it was possible for a smile to convey how much you want to kill someone. But Layla manages it.
I stand on my side of the field, desperately trying to remember everything that I’ve learned so far. Layla is pacing like a caged animal on her side of the field, ready to strike at any moment.
I clear my mind and gather my focus. The field falls away, as does the crowd watching from the bleachers. There is only the humming of power in my veins and the connection I feel to the elements around me.
Layla lashes out first, with an arc of fire which rivals Raph’s own flamethrower that I’d seen in that first elements lesson. The flames surge towards me and I only have a split second to react.
I hold my hand out, focusing on summoning a whirlwind to engulf the fire and the power rushes from my veins, connecting with the air around me to form the whirlwind. I hear the startled shouts from the crowd and I stare dumbfounded, because we definitely didn’t cover that in the training sessions. No one has taught me that and yet the knowledge of it is somewhere inside me.
Layla’s expression is shocked for a moment, but she quickly recovers and is moving again.
She retaliates with another blast of fire, this time there’s wind swirling it and she creates her own whirlwind but this one is made of flame. I react almost instantly, some primal part of me holding a knowledge that my conscious state is not aware of. I summon a wave of water which swallows the fire, extinguishing it in less than a second.
Barely conscious of my own actions, I summon lightning as thunderbolts hurl down from the sky. Ice hails down on the field as the ground rumbles and quakes. Another round of gasps breaks out from the bleachers.
The fear is clear on Layla’s face as I step forward, the storm around me raging stronger. I’m not in control of my own body. I can feel nothing, can think of nothing but the connection, the storm raging around me until I become the storm. The power is dizzying, I can feel the danger in it, something that I have never felt before because in that moment, it feels like the entire universe is in my hands and such power is infinitely dangerous.
I should stop then. But I don’t. I stretch out both my arms and the power recedes like a tsunami pulling back before unleashing its final wave of destruction. I can feel the air shifting, changing. What came before feels like nothing compared to what’s roiling in my veins in that moment.
The sky above the field darkens until day becomes night and the gasps and exclamations from the crowd becomes dead silence. Tapping into the power of night, the power which runs most potent in my blood feels exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. It feels like skydiving through the air or like drinking water for the first time after months in the desert or like taking the first breath after suffocating underwater. It feels like all of those things and none because nothing can really describe the raw power that I feel coursing through me in that moment.
I feel the shadows gathering around me, like a mist creeping along the ground, it thickens. The tendrils of darkness curl around me, ready to act on my command. The shadows are so dark that I know that if I were to release it from this darkness, none would emerge.
The power is consuming me, demanding that I release it. But something inside me stops me cold. This isn’t me. I’m not this person. I look over at Layla, let myself see what I’m about to do. The girl is frozen in place, her eyes wide with terror, the earlier venom replaced by a look of helpless fear.
Something inside me fractures as I drop onto my knees, the shadows receding and dissipating. The ground stills and the darkness disappears as I drop my head into my hands. What am I doing?
What comes next happens so fast, that I barely have time to register. The air thickens again as another arc of fire blasts towards me. I look up and catch a glimpse of Layla, her face contorting in fury as she directs the wave of fire towards me. Then there’s a flash of blinding light and something comes between me and the wall of flames, shielding me from it, moving faster than humanly possible.
It takes a moment to register that Raph is kneeling on the ground in front of me. His arms are around me as he shields me and he holds my head to his chest. His back absorbing the fire.
I pull away in shock and look up at him. Our eyes lock and something undefinable passes between us. Raph’s eyes are as dark and unfathomable as storm clouds, his expression unreadable.
Everything happens so quickly after that, Professor Roman, who had been standing paralyzed, is moving towards the field. Chaos breaks out on the bleachers.