“I’m sorry.”
His last words dispersed on a wind, Ricca’s voice chasing them away with a mocking call of his name.
But Aiden didn’t stir again, and Lory was running out of time.
Inside her, a void had opened, swallowing all emotions, and the ice on Aiden’s skin seemed to freeze her heart, lodging deep inside her chest as sorrow over losing her friend warred with the betrayal confessed on his dying breath.
When Lory squeezed his cold, limp hand, what heat had lived inside of her, ready to destroy whoever touched a hair on Aiden’s head, was swallowed by the chasm now defining the dark, hollow space where her heart had been a moment ago. She opened her mouth to tell him she didn’t know what—because there were no words of absolution forming on her tongue. Nor any of goodbye. All she could find was anger and the ice-cold that should have belonged to Aiden.
When she finally managed to let go of him, bringing her legs under her and picking up her sword, Ricca’s voicesounded from nearby, not a single echo engulfing her. “Regretting making friends with scum like Bellmont yet?”
Ricca’s green eyes glimmered in the moonlight, and at her words, a stab ran through Lory’s chest.
A Gargoyle. Aiden had been a Gargoyle. He’d belonged to the most dangerous street gang in Dunai—the one responsible for Evven’s death. And Aiden had been there.
Tears swam in Lory’s eyes, blurring her vision, but she held her ground. He’d died for her, to make up for what happened in the streets that night. Had probably been making up for it from the day they’d met at Ashthorn, and he’d never uttered a single word about it.
None of it mattered now that his body lay lifeless behind her, and Ricca blocked the path south, where Thal and Tabi had hopefully found a place to hide and rest before they made the descent to the outpost.
Two of her friends injured, one dead—it didn’t matter what he’d done, he was still dead because of her, and now, Lory was alone, the blade in her hand the only friend that could help her.
“Aren’t you going to fight, Flame-born?” Ricca prompted when she stepped closer, blade at the ready and her voice multiplying once more, the sound placing bonds around Lory’s arms and legs like invisible versions of the roots Nyla had commanded.
Lory merely stared at Ricca, the steel in her palm colder than she liked but a reminder of the power Aiden had used to save her. There was nowhere she could run if Ricca used her magic again. Not even a tree strong enough to climb.The rocks weren’t tall enough to climb out of Ricca’s reach either, only to slow her down should she choose to bolt.
Ricca took another step closer, the echoes fading, and with them, the bonds. During this fight, Lory had seen enough of the ashling’s magic to know she had a brief window to make a move before a new wave of sound could trap her, and that, if Ricca’s magic was anything like Nyla’s, hurting the magic would hurt the wielder.
A blade wouldn’t cut through sound, though, or it would have recoiled from her left hand, where she was clutching the sword in a death grip. She needed her magic.
But when she reached deep inside of her for her untamed fire, not a spark of it responded, as if Aiden’s death had frozen everything that killing Solen had taken from her.
“I’ll make it quick, Lory, because I just watched you being served the best punishment anyone could wish for—the loss of someone you care for and their betrayal.”
Ricca’s voice tightened around her once more, squeezing hard enough to take Lory’s breath for a moment, and the ashling came to a halt in front of Lory, her black clothes melting into the night, as did the chin-length curtain of her hair. The silver blade, however, flashed in front of Lory’s face as Ricca lifted it to her throat.
Think, Lory. Think!
The Almelyte?—
Like the good student she was, she’d kept it in her pocket, moving it from one set of clothes to the next whenever she’d changed, and now it weighed like lead in the pocket of her pants, a few inches from her hand. If she waited a fewminutes, kept talking about anything that kept Ricca from opening her mouth and spewing those echoes that would bind her, she might stand a chance at retrieving it.
“I know people like you, Ricca,” Lory said, her fingers twitching toward her pants. “Bitter because life hasn’t treated them the way they believe they deserve”—her fingers were an inch from the pocket—“and under the impression they are superior because life treated them better than thelikes of me,as your friend, Solen, phrased it so eloquently.” One inch in. If she dug a little deeper, she would catch the cork, and her fingers could extract the vial. Carefully, she slid deeper. “Life has certainly treated me less kindly than it has you, and yet you believe you’re the one who gets to punish me for my heritage. I didn’t choose to be Flame-born the same way you didn’t choose to be a first generation magic wielder in your family.”
The way Ricca’s eyes narrowed told Lory she’d hit a nerve.
Keep talking, Lory. Keep talking. Don’t give her a second to interrupt you.
The bonds on Lory’s limbs had faded completely, but she kept her movements so slow they wouldn’t draw attention as Ricca kept focusing on the tip of her blade coming uncomfortably close to Lory’s throat. A few more inches and she’d feel the cold steel on her skin, and once that happened, Lory wasn’t sure Ricca would stop there or cut right into the aorta violently pumping blood.
“Have I told you that I had no fucking clue I had magic? I didn’t even recognize it when my brother used magic right in front of me. Who in your family passed down the powersto you? Was it your mother? Your father? Do any of your siblings have powers like yours?” Lory instantly regretted asking questions because Ricca opened her mouth to respond, but Lory was quicker. “Maybe it is because you don’t have the same father as your siblings. A bastard child.” Lory forced a malicious laugh she didn’t feel, and the way Ricca bared her teeth told Lory she’d hit home.
Rather than following her curiosity, Lory seized the moment when Ricca’s bonds fell away completely, tearing the vial from her pocket and at the same time batting Ricca’s sword away with her own.
In a clash of steel, their blades collided, Ricca stumbling back a step, and Lory opened the vial with her teeth, sucking the powder from it in a deep inhale that nearly took her breath.
Ricca’s shout of fury locked around Lory’s body as she lifted her sword once more, preparing to strike. Frozen, mid-attack, Lory’s limbs remained hanging in the air, and she was certain, under different circumstances, it would have been a hilarious image, but Ricca’s sword came closer to her throat once more, and this time, Lory knew talking wouldn’t save her.
It started with a tingling in her chest, a sensation of warmth thawing her insides; then a wave of heat lapped over her like a finger of the sun stroking through her veins. Genuine, bone-deep fear grasped Lory as her power sprang to life, a hundredfold of what she’d ever felt, and the fire built beneath her skin until she felt she might burst at any moment. Lory sucked in a deep breath, the aftertaste of the Almelytesweet and bitter on her tongue, and as she exhaled, she could have sworn a spark of fire rushed from her lungs, a harbinger of what had been building inside of her, ready to escape into the world.
