From their left, roots were sneaking up on them, slowly growing from the bushes they’d left behind, and a cluster of laughs swirled in the air, layering itself over them like one of those glass bells protecting cheese plates on fancy dinner tables.
“Didn’t expect you to run like a coward, Vednis,” the ashling shouted, the sound crashing into Lory like a physical blow. “Today seems to be my lucky day. I’m getting two criminals for one. Plus two filth-lovers who tried to save them. The Triad will be handing me an award for that.”
“Distract her,” Tabi hissed from Lory’s side. “I’ll try to take her out.”
Lory could almost feel Tabi’s power spilling into the night, searching for Ricca like a bloodhound, but halfway across the space, it hit a wall, and Tabi rocked back on her heels.
“What the fuck?”
A second form stopped next to Ricca, hand lifted in front of him, and where Tabi’s magic seemed to stop, coiling into itself, a barrier of hard air seemed to stop even the breeze tugging strands of hair from Lory’s braid. Another strike of lightning cracked down behind Lory, nearly taking out Aiden, and a surprising force of fire sprang to life in her palm in response, ready to protect what she cared about.
Lory startled at the orange glow between her fingers, but her instincts seemed to recognize that wicked power as an ancient friend.
Not my family,it seems to hiss, sputtering and winding from fingertip to fingertip until her entire hand was engulfed in a small inferno.
“Doesn’t matter if I brighten the night up a bit with these.” She wiggled her burning fingers in front of her face. “The lightning has already drawn attention.”
Three more forms stopped next to Ricca, and Lory recognized Nyla, Solen, and Herion Ariden, another yellow who usually sat with Ricca during meals.
He lifted his sword, marching up to the edge of the invisible barrier. “Who wants to go first?”
Thirty-One
So fast Lorycouldn’t even think, a fistful of rocks lifted from the ground, zooming for their heads. She barely managed to shield her face as they battered down on them in a rain of stones, pain blooming on the back of her head and her shoulder where they hit.
Beside her, Aiden cursed. “So, the dick with the sword is the one with matter manipulation.”
Tabi grunted humorlessly, still pitting her power against the air magic of the nameless student. He wasn’t an ashling, or she’d have seen him in training before. A thornling, perhaps?
“If I can break through the wall, I can take him out first.”
“Or the lightning wielder,” Thal suggested, gesturing at Solen, the only one left in the group who could hold the power to summon the electricity in the sky.
As if on a command, Solen raised a palm, and from the remaining wisps of clouds, streaks of bright light burst toward the ground. Lory ducked, bumping into Tabi, whose power seemed to snap like an elastic band, and together, they tumbled out of harm’s way.
“You all right?” Lory asked Tabi, rubbing her hip with a sword-clutching fist.
Tabi rolled to her feet, her power collecting in a dense ball of shadow at her fingertips and her eyes burning with revenge. “I will be, as soon as I’m not hit by lightning.”
Why anyone was afraid of a Flame-born in the face of people who could command the sky, the sound, who could freeze the world over or make rocks rain upon their enemies, was beyond Lory, but the magic in her veins whispered an ancient melody as it snaked from her fingertips, ready to spill across the ground and devour everything in its path—friend or foe.
“What’s wrong, Vednis?” Ricca mocked across the shortening distance. “Aren’t you going to attack?”
How the fire burned to leap at the ashling, but Lory wasn’t ready to kill.
“Are you going to run like the coward you are?” Nyla joined the conversation. “Too weak to kill. Too slow to save anyone. Running seems like the only real option for you, doesn’t it?” A root slithered closer, licking the ground like the tongue of a snake on the hunt.
“Focus on Nyla first,” Aiden hissed at Tabi, twirling his sword in an awkward curve in front of him. A crooked bend defined the length of the blade, and the deep V etched between his brows gave away how much that impacted theprecision of the weapon. “Her magic is the only tangible one. Lory, burn the roots; Tabi, go for the wielder.”
Tabi didn’t hesitate, her power already unwinding, and Lory swallowed the guilt as she willed her fire to meet the tip of the root closest to her.
It didn’t move an inch, as if her reluctance spilled over into the personality of her power.
“It’s not working.” Perhaps the lamest excuse in history, so Lory grasped her weapon harder, taking a few quick steps toward the root, and when it stretched to coil around her ankles, Lory grabbed it with a quick hand, holding it in an iron grasp as her flames ate into the living wood.
A shriek tore the air, and Lory couldn’t tell if it was Nyla or the roots; the only thing she knew was that the fire kept spreading down the length of the plant, leaping from one wooden limb to the other as more shot from the ground to attack Lory until, at the end of them, the expression of horror on Nyla’s face became evident in the glow of the flames.
Somewhere in the background, lightning brightened the sky, and a spray of rocks rained down on them, while Thal drew up water from the air or the ground or a running source nearby; Lory didn’t know and didn’t care. In a thin mesh, it hovered above them, catching the lightning and directing it into the ground like a harmless magic trick, and when Lory dared look away from Nyla, Thal had emptied his canteen, and the splash he sent into the air formed a sharp shape. It turned into ice halfway across the field, and when it hit the wall of air, it sliced through it like a knife into butter—and through the nameless student’s neck.
