“No,” she answered tightly.
“The Witches?” Razik pushed.
“No,” she ground out, suddenly finding the room too stuffy. Too hot. Too enclosed. “Can we go? I’d like to see more of the town.”
Her hood was still in place, shrouding her features, but she still felt like they could see her clear as day. Cethin was watching her too intently, and even Razik’s mask of boredom had slipped at this topic.
“Kailia—” Cethin started, but she didn’t let him finish.
“Please,” she pushed, feeling beads of sweat at her nape.
“Of course,” he said, sliding across the seat, his mug still half full.
She moved fast, pushing past him and making her way to the door. Shoving it open, she stumbled into the dark night, sucking in a deep breath. But the air stalled in her lungs at what was lingering on the streets. Not the people hiding in the shadows, but translucent beings hovering off the ground.
“Fuck,” Razik muttered, already summoning his dragon fire when he came to a stop at her side.
She could feel Cethin at her back, taking everything in. Gold swords raised in unison. There weren’t many of them though. Sweeping her gaze over them again, she counted ten as she summoned her bow and three arrows.Then she madethe first move, releasing the arrows and taking out three. The remaining phantoms scattered, trying to surround them. Razik had pivoted, his dragon fire incinerating one to ashes that got too close.
Kailia released two more arrows at the one nearest her, its keening wail filling the night. That left five, and if she could?—
Ashes fluttered around her, trying to take her with them. She was trying. Trying to move among them. To let them carry her like they had nearly her entire existence. If she could, then she’d be able to end this in moments. She could move faster. Be quicker. Find her targets before they could even see her.
Instead, she shuddered as she stayed put. Her essence almost flickering as her power tried and she tried.
And failed.
With a growl of frustration, she summoned more arrows, shoving them at Cethin before she turned and released another. A second later, another wail of despair joined the first until a chorus was filling the night as they took out the last of them.
Her chest was heaving when she turned to face the males. Not from the fight. No, that had been exhilarating in the best way. She’d needed that outlet, but not being able to access her full power was slowly draining something inside her. Something primal and necessary. A piece of her she needed to survive.
A fine layer of ash covered the males from the beings Razik had incinerated, neither of them bothering to brush it off. Instead, they both left her standing there while they moved, bending down to gather things on the ground.
Her arrowheads.
It wasn’t necessary, but she couldn’t exactly tell them that. Not when they believed she needed them to create more weapons.
Dropping them into her palms, she closed her fist, feeling the skin break and blood seep.
“Tenebrae?” Razik asked after a long moment.
Cethin nodded.
No one said anything while they walked, Razik leading the way, and Cethin at her side. Too lost to her thoughts, she hardly noticed the buildings or the mist or the flickering candles in windows. She could still feel eyes on her, but she didn’t care.
She needed to figure out what was wrong with her power. None of it made any sense. She could summon weapons, create them from her gifts. It made no sense thatthispart of her power had suddenly stopped working.
But she was running out of time. If she didn’t figure things out, all of this was for nothing.
Chapter 26
Cethin
“While I’m sure I know the answer to this, I’m going to ask you anyway,” Cethin said as they approached Tenebrae Halls. “Are you certain you don’t want to simply Travel back to Aimonway? We can come back to Shadowfen tomorrow.”
Kailia looked up at him, and he knew she wasn’t being a smart ass when she asked, “Why would we do that?”
Trying to appeal to logic, since that was what it seemed like she responded to best, he said, “You don’t like waking in unfamiliar places.”
