Isla frantically searched around her. Kai waved her arms to get her attention, shouting, “She can’t last long in a physical body. If you hold her off long enough, she’ll have to go back to the spirit realm!”
Isla nodded, only partially listening.
A second later, shadows with purple pulsating veins slinked their way up her legs and around her hands. Jerking her head up, she saw Celesine several yards away, her hands held out in front of her. Isla thrashed but the tendrils of shadow held tight as they enveloped her body, a smaller, more delicate ribbon breaking off and slowly crawling over the handle of the dagger in her waistband. She closed her eyes and willed herself to think.
Wind sweetly stroked at her with featherlight fingers, and her eyes flew open. It caressed her as if it were whispering, “Tell me what you want.” The elements were speaking to her, filling her, learning the feel and taste of her thoughts. She pulled on that thread of air and commanded it to circle her, picking up speed and, with a groan, sent it flying in Celesine’s direction, Isla’s neck snapping forward with exertion. The force caused Celesine to stumble only a few steps, but it was enough to break her concentration and allow Isla to detach herself from the bindings. She lunged for the dagger as it teetered out of its place and fell to the sand.
Celesine’s jaw tightened. She threw her hands out to her sides, then quickly brought them together again in a thunderous clap. A ball of the same darkness with a slight purple glow appeared between her palms, shifting and rolling with frayed and unfocused edges. Celesine thrust her arms out, sending dart after dart of raw energy at Isla.
This time, Isla was prepared. She summoned a wall of rock, relieved that the elements seemed to be answering her whims more easily each time, almost knowing what she needed before she knew herself. As she held the barrier with her left arm outstretched, she tried to form balls of fire in the other, but the flames cracked and sputtered in her palm, her mind too focused on the rock shield to force the fire to life.
Isla cursed in frustration.Too ambitious.
Suddenly, the spirit witch’s assault on her barrier stopped. Isla peered over the rock, but her foe was gone. Jade let out a loud gasp and Isla whirled around, locking eyes with Celesine.
Her heart plummeted to her feet and her lungs refused to draw air. Everything inside of her stilled and died.
Celesine stood by the large boulder where her father and brother hid, with Arden cloaked in cords of shadow and raised in the air.
Isla’s fear was all-consuming; it took on a life of its own, clawing and ripping her mind to shreds. “No!” she screamed as she tripped over her feet in an effort to rush forward.
This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.
Sebastian appeared behind Celesine in his own flash of power, drawing his sword in a single movement.
Isla sucked in a breath.
Sebastian aimed the sword at Celesine’s back.
Faster than Isla could follow, Celesine shot another snake of shadows to wrap around Sebastian’s sword and yanked it from his grasp. The handle fell into her open palm, and the smile she gave the king made Isla’s skin crawl.
“Enough of this!” Celesine shouted. “I will do what I must to ensure that I bring prosperity to the lands. Give me the dagger, Isla.”
Isla’s mind reeled with the hypocrisy of it all. “This isn’t—you aren’t somegod! You don’t get to decide what this world needs! Please—just let him go!” Isla cried. She barely felt the words coming from her mouth, barely felt her feet as they carried her across the beach. All she could see was Arden. She called to the swirling mass of power inside of her, not even knowing which element would answer, only that she wouldnotlet Celesine hurt her twin. She could still stop this.
Celesine easily blocked the onslaught of water that erupted from Isla’s panicked hands. The elements seemed to be as distraught as Isla felt, mixing and tumbling and freezing together within her, and she couldn’t separate them.
“It truly is a pity you feel that way. Perhaps I have not provided proper motivation.” Celesine snapped her fingers, sending curls of purple shadow through the air and around Arden’s head.
Time stopped.
A sickeningcrackresounded across the beach.
Arden’s head rolled to the side, his empty eyes caught on Isla’s.
Her knees hit the sand.
Every wall inside her cracked and tumbled, every piece of her broke apart and wasted away, caving in like a thunderous mountain collapsing. She couldn’t breathe through the pain, and she knew she was dying—surely, this soul-wrenching agony meant she was passing into the afterlife, following her twin. Her other half.
Grief bound her limbs together and took her mind captive, replaying the moment over and over and over. She saw Arden in vivid color behind her eyelids, his feet dangling in the air, kicking and writhing as he tried to escape Celesine’s grasp. And then those purple tendrils lashed out, striking again and again in her memory. With every crack of his neck, her heart cracked even further, until it was nothing more than shards scattered across the sand, blowing away and disappearing in the ferocious wind that had overtaken the beach. She threw her head back and an agonizing cry pierced her ears; it might have been from her lips, she wasn’t sure, but suddenly—everything stilled.
Her chest heaving and her skin pounding, Isla looked around to see her companions frozen in place. Papa’s body was bent like he was in the process of falling; Sebastian’s outstretched arm reached for her; Celesine’s face held an unmoving, murderous look of victory. Confusion swept through Isla, barely poking a hole in her anguish but enough to give her pause.What is—
In an instant, her mind snapped back, and their movements began again like it had never even happened. Time sped up, and she saw everyone moving for her, felt her brother’s death like a blow to the chest.
The elements could sense she needed them, could read her absolute despair and torment. Fire and air flickered inside of her, feeding off of one another as they gained strength. Earth and water rushed through her in a tidal wave of force. They warred in her flesh, yearning to be set loose, begging for freedom to carry out retribution and destroy as she had been destroyed.
She let them.
