After that, I create a wall behind the lower fae to prevent attacks from the back. It’s hard to see much into the city to know where archers are positioned, so I extend the wall horizontally, making a large canopy shielding the fae by the gate. I’m about to work on it, when I notice the gate hinges and lock cracking then breaking.
Ziven actually managed to open it.
We step aside as it falls forward in the direction of the plaza, and the fae burst free, escaping the containment of the Jewel, their faces full of joy and relief.
Easy and fast.
Or maybe not.
Hundreds of arrows hit the ice canopy—fire arrows, from here just luminous dots. Just dots. I can ignore the fire, and I reinforce the wall and canopy with my magic.
As I’m doing that, I see more guards advancing to the plaza from the sides, some of them with heavy weaponry. It’s as if they had been waiting for something to happen, waiting for someone to rescue the fae.
They hurl a huge flaming ball against the multitude escaping the city, where there’s no ice protecting them.
All it takes is half a second. An eternity. A brief moment when I notice the flames. And in that moment, that thin layer separating me from my pit of pain cracks.
I fall, fall, fall, down into that pit.
So many screams. My mother, my stepfather, my sister, my brother. Those screams echo and echo in my head, sharp like the sharpest blade, digging deep into my heart.
Everything burns and that dreadful fire rages inside me, around me, everywhere. I can’t stop it, can’t save them, and I’m locked in that moment, watching them burn through eternity. I never left that room.
My family and I are burning with my own fire and there’s nothing I can do but to watch helplessly while flames take me.
“Marlak!”
My eyes snap open. Ziven’s shaking my shoulders.
“Marlak!” he yells again.
Other than his voice, all I hear is silence and my own loud heartbeats. No fire around me. No fire anywhere, but I don’tknow where I am. Rain pours down from the sky. Not rain—water magic. Not mine.
I’m at the Jewel Plaza, and the memories assault me like a punch. Did I let that fire ball hit those fae?
I don’t want to look, don’t want to see the result of my mistake, and yet I dare. To my relief, nobody’s dead, nobody’s hurt.
Ferer is standing beside me, and I realize that the “rain” is his magic, and I think it doused the fire.
Ziven exhales when he meets my eyes. “I thought you were collapsing from magic fatigue.”
Fatigue. He doesn’t realize all I had was illogical, childish fear paralyzing me.
Shame crawls over my skin, eats my insides. Shame for failing. For a moment, my magic feels dormant, dead.Ifeel dead inside, so pathetically weak, even if my body’s trembling and I can still sense some trace of wayward magic coursing through my veins.
As thick drops of water fall on me, I let them wash away my horror as I try to use my shame as a fuel.
My magic is returning; angry, erratic, but at least I can use it for something useful.
I take a deep breath and focus on the present moment, the present foes. Some lower fae are still leaving the city, and we need to give them the best chance of escaping.
I create two high ice barriers, blocking the guards advancing from the sides. I even extend the ice as much as I can on the ground, so it’s hard to advance over a slippery surface. As the last lower fae crosses what used to be the gate of the Jewel, I seal the city with a thick ice wall, so that more guards don’t follow them right away. There are still some guards in the plaza, within the recently created ice walls, but their feet are locked in ice.
“I think we can leave,” I mutter, my voice still shaky, the memory of the fire and my foolish fear still too clear, too vivid, too horrid.
“I can’t transcend right now,” Ferer says. “My magic needs to rest.”
“You can’t take all of us regardless. We’ll walk away, then find another circle, or… I don’t know.”
