The wind roared.
Then it screamed.
The trees ahead nearly doubled over, their branches cracking like gunshots. A trash can from the nearby park lifted into the air, spinning violently before smashing into a parked car and shattering the windshield.
The family screamed, huddling together as the wind whipped their clothes and hair.
“Get down!” Discord shouted, shoving me behind him.
Above us, hovering twenty feet in the air, a figure descended from the treetops.
Adrian. Mother effing Adrian.
Only he wasn’t the polished, arrogant High Priest I knew. His suit hung in tattered rags, whipping around his body. His skin glowed with a faint, sickly golden light—the residual power of the broken amulet leaking out of his pores.
His eyes were wide and crazed, the pupils so large they looked like black holes. His hair stood on end, charged with static, and a manic, terrifying grin stretched his face.
“I knew you’d be back.” His voice boomed, amplified by the wind so that it echoed off the buildings behind us.
He looked at the tourists cowering on the ground, and then at us.
“An audience!” He spread his arms, and the wind intensified, lifting the father off the ground.
“Put him down, Adrian,” I shouted, stepping out from behind Discord. “This is between us.”
Adrian tilted his head, looking at me like a bird studying a worm. “Everything is between us, Cinder. The sky. The earth. The air. I am all of it.”
He flicked his wrist, throwing the father sideways, skipping him across the grass like a stone on water before slamming him into a tree.
The mother screamed, covering her children’s bodies with her own.
“You want to mend the veil?” Adrian laughed, the sound sharp and jagged. He lowered himself until he hovered inches above the ground, blocking our path to the woods. Power radiated off him in waves, hot and suffocating. It wasn’t just air magic anymore. It was raw, unrefined energy from the amulet, and it was eating him alive from the inside out.
“You’ll have to get through God first.” He raised both hands, and the air around us solidified into a thousand invisible blades.
16
DISCORD
“Stop.” Chaos clutched Ash’s hand. “You will not harm these people.”
Mayhem slipped his hand into Ember’s. “Let’s discuss this. Violence is never the answer.”
My eyes widened in shock. Those were words I never dreamed my brother would utter, yet they carried the weight of command.
Adrian faltered, the blades of air around us softening as his brow crumpled. He lowered to the ground, confusion contorting his features. “It’s not?”
“No,” Ember said. “You don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“You want to let the humans go,” Ash said, and I realized what was happening.
The witches’ magic countered my brothers’ power, much like Cinder’s countered mine. Where Chaos would normally cause disruption, Ash helped him create control, and Ember subdued Mayhem’s aggression, flipping it into a sincere desire for peace.
I turned toward the family, using the distraction to my advantage. “Run. Return to town and don’t look back.”
The mother nodded and helped the father to his feet before clutching her children’s hands and darting toward the town square.
“We don’t want to kill you, Adrian.” Cinder wrapped her fingers around the handle of a dagger.
