Vale bares his teeth at Malkyn, his eyes glittering dangerously. “Does your magic outrank mine, Malkyn?”
Malkyn sighs, his expression relaxing to one of bored resignation. He languidly turns away from Vale and then, whip-fast, slices his wand out.
Vale flicks his wrist and catches Malkyn’s javelin with a small strike of lightning, exploding it into a puff of snow that falls harmlessly at Vale’s feet.
“Ah,” Vale says, giving Malkyn a nod of mock encouragement. “You’re improving.” He strides toward Jules, wand out, lips moving. Black vines fly out from the wand to encircle Jules’s upper body. Jules groans in agony as the vines cinch tight.
Vale grabs Jules’s good arm and roughly hoists him up. Jules looks dazed, his eyes barely focused, his face a bloody mess.
“I know this one,” Vale states coldly. “We’ve a score to settle.” Not waiting for a response, Vale drags a shambling, half-conscious Jules off toward the woods.
“Where are you taking him?” Malkyn asks as he inspects his wand, flicking frost off the end it.
Vale doesn’t bother to turn around. “Somewhere no one will witness what I’m about to do.”
Tears roll down my face as I struggle to breathe, to summon enough air to utter a protest. I try to shake loose from Fain’s grip, thrashing my upper body, but Fain holds tight as spears of fiery magic lash against my insides.
Another orange explosion lights up the horizon. Fain, Malkyn and the Upper River girl look toward the mountains.
“I’ll need you for the shield,” Malkyn tells Fain, his voice low and level. He sets his dark gaze on me. Gasping, I still manage to send him a glare of red-hot defiance.
“Go,” Fain says to Malkyn with a flick of his chin toward the barn. “I’ll be right there.”
A scream of agony tears through the air.
Jules!
Malkyn pauses, his face taking on a fleeting look of half-lidded rapture. The Upper River girl fixes me with a hateful look before Malkyn leads her away, the two of them disappearing behind the burning barn.
Images of Jules being tortured flash through my mind, and a shuddering sob overtakes me, my chest heaving, the fire whipping my insides in relentless slashes. I throw my head from side to side, fighting against Fain, fighting to breathe, barely hearing him as he urges me to slow my breaths.
Another explosion sounds, closer this time. My lungs heave, burning, then constrict tight.
I’ve lost the ability to breathe.
Fain rips open my clothing and pushes his hands hard against my chest as I thrash my head back and forth, desperate for air, my eyes bulging out, straining. Teeth gritted, he increases the pressure and murmurs a spell. A cool current of his water magic flows through me, loosening the net of fire, briefly opening up my lungs.
I greedily breathe in what air I can, panting shallowly in desperation, wondering if Jules is still alive. Anguish rips through me at the thought of him dying, and the fiery net takes hold once more.
Fain leans in close as I fight for breath, terrified.
“What’s your name, love?”
“Tessla,” I rasp out. “Tessla Harrow.”
“Your brother,” he asks me, deadly serious. “How old is he?”
“Eight,” I mouth as my chest heaves and hot tears course down my trembling, fevered face.
“He needs you alive, hmm?” His voice is calm and controlled, his eyes locked hard on mine.
I gasp and nod, my eyes fixed on him.
“Don’t think of anything but him,” he orders. “Can you do that?”
I nod again.
Fain pushes his full weight down onto me as he hisses out the spell through clenched teeth, flowing more of his cooling water magic around my scorched lungs.
Vale runs out of the woods down toward us, his boot heels thudding hard. His expression is one of deep urgency.
I can feel his fire the minute he gets close, and my magic responds with a mind of its own. All the tendrils of power within me orient themselves toward him like a flock of birds, then rush out in a wave of heat.
I cry out as a searing pain scorches the side of my ribs closest to Vale.
Fain holds his palm out stridently. “Stay back! Your affinities match.”
Vales halts, his eyes gone wide, his gaze fixed on me. He swallows, looking rattled. “I know. I can feel it.”
Sweet Ancient One, such fire in him!
His cold visage is a lie. I’m clear now on what lies underneath it—the same molten landscape that lives under my skin.
“She’s Magedrunk,” Fain observes, shooting Vale a grave look. “I don’t know how she’s done it, but she’s layered spells. There’s a river of fire trapped in her. I’ve got to purge her. Now.”
I’m suddenly all too aware of my exposed chest, and a hot, nauseating shame washes over me. As if sensing my discomfort, Vale whips off his cloak and thrusts it toward Fain.
“You care about modesty?” Fain gapes. “Right now?”
“Get it on her,” Vale orders. “I can restrain her then, without inadvertently killing her.”
Fain pulls his hands off me, and my lungs immediately begin to heat and seize up again. I throw my head back, gasping, painfully jostled as Fain hoists me up to slide the cloak around my body. I look at him in desperation, able to pull in only a thin sliver of air, as if from an impossibly narrow straw.
“Vyyn’ys’en’ar,” Vale says, teeth clenched, pointing his wand at me.
Black vines—the same he bound Jules with—flow from his wand and cinch tight around my upper body, holding the cloak in place and restraining my numbed arms as my rearing affinity fire drives the air from my lungs. Fuzzy black circles explode chaotically in my vision as Fain settles my weight against him, pressing his wand into my limp hand, his own hand coming around mine to point the wand toward the woods.
“Scyy’yl’ar,” Fain grinds out, his cheekbone pressed tight against my shuddering face.
Sensation blasts violently through my wand arm as a torrent of flames bursts from the wand’s tip. With a turbulent roar, the fire slams into the edge of the forest, shattering the trunks of two trees, which crash to the ground with the snapping of a thousand branches.
“Sweet Ancient One’s bollocks!” Fain gasps.
Air rushes into my lungs. Steam follows the fire and chugs out of the wand like a kettle at a furious boil. I take in great gulps of air and flex my hand around Fain’s wand as the steam lessens. My vision clears for a moment, but searing heat advances on my lungs again, like a thousand small battering rams, spearing me, straining to destroy me.
Fain clasps his hand around mine and points the wand once more toward the crackling trees.
“Again?” I force out, my voice a scraping, frightened hiss.
“I’m sorry, but yes,” he replies, his voice steely. “I need to force out the rest of the trapped fire with quite a bit of water.” His voice turns grim, his head turning toward mine. “Are you ready?”
I grow afraid at the question. “It hurts,” I tell him, my mouth a trembling grimace.
Another orange explosion