Kael moved with purpose, his stride unwavering, as if he knew exactly where he was going. Did he know this place? Something fierce and consuming had taken hold of him, I could feel it. Not the same fire that had burned between us minutes ago, but something darker.
We came upon a central square, swallowed in ruin, where dozens of thick black vines pulsed and slithered into the ground. They were larger than any I had seen before.
And where they crept beneath the ruins, heavy slabs and timbers shifted, as though nothing could stop them.
I stepped forward for a closer look, and my boot crushed a vine. It hissed and recoiled beneath my foot.
Kael and I locked eyes. We both knew what I had just done.
In the space of a heartbeat, the entire ground stirred. The vines withdrew, then surged together at several points, writhing and swelling with wet, sucking sounds until three humanoid shapes rose from the tar. They groaned, metallic, unnatural, and began their advance.
“Vine blights…” Kael muttered, taking a fighting stance. “Stay behind me.”
Fear clutched my chest. I didn’t know how to fight. I read the weather, spoke to goats, and sometimes glimpsed the past. None of that would help me now. I pressed myself close behind him.
The blights slithered forward, vines cracking against the ground like whips.
A roar split the air, one of them lunging toward us, just as Kael’s thunder answered. Light erupted, lightning bursting from his fingertips and striking all three at once.
They screamed, shrieking metal and agony, and I clamped my hands over my ears.
But then the vines reformed, slithering together like black serpents into a single, larger creature.
Another roar, deeper this time.
Kael extended an arm, shielding me. “Evie, stand back. Let me handle this.”
The edge in his voice, the darkness in his eyes—it wasn’t the same intensity I’d seen in our dangerous games. This was real. This was wrath. I didn’t dare argue.
He advanced, light leaking from his eyes. Clouds gathered overhead, swelling into a churning mass of darkness. Kael clenched his fist, and I knew to close my eyes.
Thunder shattered the air. Lightning flashed again and again. When I finally looked, the creature was gone, reduced to ash.
But the vines below writhed still, crawling back together, forming more blights. Endless. Kael destroyed them one by one, turning each to tar and ash, lightning flaring brighter with every strike. The more he fought, the less of the vines remained.
Then something moved beneath me.
The ground burst open. Vines surged up, twisting between Kael and me, cutting us apart. He fought six of the creatures now, his lightning crackling like fury itself, while two more slithered toward me.
My heart pounded against my ribs. My hands shook. I had no idea what to do. Panic clawed its way through me.
I was a seerling.
A goat whisperer.
No real wizard.
One of the creatures slashed, and I barely ducked in time, rolling across the dirt.
I forced myself to focus. The arcane thrummed in my veins, ready to come out. If I just focused, I could dosomething.
Using the power of nature.
I hurled a gust of wind at one of the creatures, powerful enough to tear it from the ground and fling it straight into Kael’s storm.
The other met the force of a spike of earth that I wrenched frombelow. It tore through the creature’s body, through vines, through tar, and the thing groaned in agony.
A heartbeat later, lightning split the sky, striking it full on and blinding me in a white flash.
