Easy, Suraya.
The marks on my skin ignite as heat bursts from me, and I hear a ragged yelp as the compression on my throat abruptly recedes. Ripping the sack from my head, I whirl to face my attackers... but there’s only Roshan cradling a blistered arm and warding me off with the other. The smoldering sack in my hand bursts into flame, and I stomp it out with my feet in horror. “What thefuck,Roshan!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You were right—your magic wouldn’t have manifested unless you really believed you were in danger,” he pants. “But at least it worked.”
“What was that smell? The perfume?” I ask, still confused, my eyes darting around the room as if some other attacker is hiding nearby. My brain is playing catch-up, disoriented from the unexpected bait and switch.
“Cologne from one of the drawers.”
I look down, blinking against the glow streaming from me and surrounding my entire body, and then glance at Roshan’s red, suppurated skin. “I told you I could hurt you!”
“It’s nothing. I’ll put some healing salve on it and the skin will be good as new. Or I’ll get Aran to heal me.” A proud gaze sweeps me. “You controlled it, Suraya.”
Did the burns also scorch his brain? “Barely.”
He approaches, and I flinch, feeling light and heat rear like twin demons inside of me.
“Don’t come any closer,” I warn him. “I don’t know what it’ll do.”
“It’s fine. Just try to keep it at bay. Tell me, what does it feel like, in this moment?”
I take a breath and focus on the power sizzling like a roaring beast in the center of my chest. It’s hard to categorize the sensation, the sheer force coursing through my veins; it’s even harder to put it into words, but I try anyway.
“It’s hot,” I say at first. “Not like the heat outside. An unnatural heat, like fire and lightning bound together. Every nerve inside of me feels tight with a force that’s desperate to escape, as if I’m at the center of... of a...”
I trail off, but Roshan finishes my sentence. “Star.”
Yes.That’s exactly what it feels like—as if I am a hot, pulsing ball of volatile energy, burning at impossible temperatures and held together only by the envisioned simurgh in my center. Unpredictable and powerful.Deadly.
Roshan moves over to the table and places a round melon at its center. “Can you direct the magic to that?”
I pant against the heat. I want to quit, want to let the power subside, but I know I can’t. “I can try.”
Centering myself, I concentrate on the melon and push my palms out, imagining the energy from my body lancing outward. For an eternal moment, nothing happens, but then the fruit brightens, an eerie glow saturating it. My runes light up as bands of heat race up and down my spine. Then without warning, the melon explodes, splattering yellow flesh and seeds everywhere. The table beneath it is the next thing to go, igniting white and then incinerating into a pile of red-hot embers. Panicked, I try to pull the magic back, to restrain it, but it’s burning too wild, too fast.
“Roshan, get out of here,” I shriek, shuddering and clenching my fists together.
His voice is faint, nearly inaudible above the deafening roar in my ears. “Control, Suraya. Your magic answers to you, not the other way around.”
“It’s too strong—”
“Trust yourself.”
Suddenly, the door swings open. The figure standing on the threshold is indistinct, but I sense dangerous power—threat, threat, threat—and I’m numb to everything but pure self-preservation.
Dimly, I hear Roshan’s voice bellowing a warning to the new arrival—Aran—as if from a million miles away, but it’s too late. The magic surges toward its new target, and there’s nothing I can do but watch in horror as the pungent stench of burning hair fills the room.
No, no, no. Please, no, please, no.
I’m stuck, suspended in the thrall of this execrable power, unable to control it or stop it, and forced to watch as I commit the unforgivable.
Aran is chanting, his fingers casting invisible runes like a barrier, but nothing can stop the lethal torrent of my magic devouring his. And then something large and heavy crashes into me. A voice howls with pain at the impact, but it’s enough to jar me out of my deadly trance. Lips murmur at my ear as tears pour from my streaming eyes, and I curl into a ball on my side, weeping helplessly as the frenzy recedes and, with it, my ravenous, deadly magic.
With horrified eyes, I watch as Aran sinks to his knees with a shudder. Clenching my palms into fists, I pull them toward me and pin them against my belly.
“Holy mother of Droon,” Roshan whispers.
“Did I hurt him?” I burst out with a strangled sob. “Is he dead?”
