“And that’s why I need to do this.” He whipped a long dagger from behind his back and aimed it at my ribcage.
My shoulders banged against wood as I caught the blade with my bare hands. Karsyn gave a hard shove, and the tip snagged my dress’s bodice. Smoke curled around my knuckles, and blood dribbled through my fingers.
“Karsyn, put your dust away before I magnetize it!” I barely moved my lips as I yelled, afraid to inhale thewita. Although it wouldn’t kill me, breathing in too much would make me black out, and this was really not the moment to become unconscious.
“My dust?” He laughed. The kidlaughed. “I may be young but I’m not stupid,prinsisa. My dagger isn’t made ofwita.”
I gaped down at the blade I was holding, my fear receding. Obviously, Karsyn wasn’t the sharpestadamansin the field if he thought he could kill me with a normal weapon. Jabbing my heart with metal would hurt but it wouldn’t end me.
Ticked off now, I said, “You’re gonna be locked up, Karsyn.”
“I don’t care. As long as you’re dead, I don’t care what happens to me.”
I didn’t even think Remo hated me as much as this boy, but perhaps he did. Perhaps he’d sent his little brother after me. The fact that nolucionagacame to my rescue solidified this theory. I had screamed, hadn’t I?
Grunting, I pushed hard on the dagger, trying to drive back the little brat. How had I let myself get cornered by a ten-year-old? The answer was that I hadn’t deemed him a threat. Stupid me. I tried to toss the blade sideways, but the kid’s arms were steel. Had Silas trained him or had Remo? Or maybe it was Faith herself. Maybe she had cutouts of my mother and me, and made her kids use them as target practice.
Karsyn jerked his arms, managing to nick my breastbone and pierce skin.
“Enough!” I screeched. I called forth my own dust and was about to slap it into the boy’s puckered face when something glimmered at the edge of my vision.
Something shiny . . . and golden. Through the tendrils of smoke leaking from my chest, I made out what it was—an axe. If it was made ofwitaand came in contact with my open wound, I’d die.
Instead of shoving through the fence of stilts at my back, or fashioning a shield with my own dust, my muscles seized. Karsyn’s brown eyes widened, which made me realize two things: it wasn’t his dust coming at me and whomever it belonged to wasn’t working with the kid. The axe chopped the dagger’s blade from its hilt, and the blood-soaked metal slid from my trembling hands, clattering noiselessly against the soft dirt at my feet.
Karsyn’s brown hair fluttered as he whipped around. Remo was advancing toward us, his mouth moving. His words pinged off my eardrums without registering.
Had he come to save me? I could hardly believe my fiancé’s desire for the crown exceeded his desire to rid the worlds of me, but he’d ruined his brother’s weapon, so perhaps itwasstronger. Karsyn spun back toward me. He punched through the air, palm flat and sparkling.
Shielding my punctured chest with my injured palms, I rocketed sideways, toward the wall of curved moss. His dust followed my trajectory. I tried to coax my own out, but the cut in my palms stung so harshly I couldn’t grasp the threads of my powers.
What was the point in controlling every single element if they all went into hiding the minute I needed them? The bobbing faelights illuminating the dark space caught my attention. I summoned them, then sent them careering toward the villainous kid.
“Karsyn!” Remo yelled in warning.
The lit globes met their mark and bowled the boy over. Unfortunately, they didn’t smash into his ribbon ofwita, and the noxious scent of it crept into my nostrils. I spread my fingers wider and pivoted, hugging the wall of moss to get my vital organs out of harm’s way.
Come on, wita . . .I flexed my knuckles.Come on.
My fingers burned. I hadn’t reached my dust, but at least, I’d gotten ahold of mykalini. I peeked over my shoulder to see where I was directing my flames only to realize no fire leaped out of my smarting palm.
7
The Filigree
Istared at my left palm, then raised it and flipped it over.
And over.
Even though there wasn’t much sound, the world around me grew even more silent. I no longer heard the heated whispers of the Farrow brothers or the tinkle ofadamanspetals beyond the barrier of stilts. All I heard were my softening breaths and cadenced heartbeats.
Under the drying blood and thin wafts of smoke drifting from the zippering wound, a filigree design had appeared on my palm. The inky tracks of captive dust wrapped around the base of my fingers and coiled all the way up to my nail beds.
I’d seized Karsyn’s dust.
Or was it Remo’s?
I finally looked up, meeting my fiancé’s agitated stare. He yelled something my buzzing ears failed to catch. Sobbing, Karsyn shook his bruised head, no longer the cruel little warrior who’d wanted to gas me out of existence.
