Hot and blinding.
It singed the ground beneath it, burning the air in close proximity. The force of it all sent Erinna to her knees. If she had been any closer, it would have peeled her skin off.
Damien grunted against the onslaught, redirecting his Talent to form a shield around himself. Most mages wouldn’t have lasted that long against Kane’s attack.
Hellfire spread in all directions; the flame wrapped around Damien, danced on the nearest trees, and burned everything it touched to ash.
Damien’s face flushed an unnatural red, and his veins bulged from his skin. He wasn’t going to last. Although she had never seen it, she knew—Damien was seconds away from Burnout.
The wind whipped and screamed around them, and even Kane started to suffer from exertion.
Still, it was clear who the winner would be. The mage had used up far too much control. The witchstone focus on his singed robe was cracked and splintered. Damien was pushed to his knees, breath ragged and strained.
“Stop.” Erinna moved as close as she could to Kane, gritting through the oppressive barrage of flame. He would raze this entire place to the ground.
The acrid stench of charred flesh hit her nostrils. Damien’s protection faltered. “You’re going to kill him!”
Kane’s gaze flickered toward her. Cold and deliberate. That was his intention.
Erinna didn’t think. She plunged forward into the flames, felt them lick and curl around her fingers, her forearms, hungry and searingly hot against her skin. Her hand closed around his wrist.
The fire died instantly.
Kane went rigid. His eyes locked with hers, wide in shock. Not at her audacity for grabbing him, but at something else entirely. His gaze dropped to where her hand gripped his wrist, then traveled up her unmarked arms.
No burns. No blistering. Not even reddened skin.
She should have been screaming. She should have been on the ground, flesh peeling away.
But she wasn't.
Erinna refused to think about it. Her life had become an endless deluge of surprise and ruin. What was one more unexplained phenomenon?
“Please,” she begged.
Kane’s arms went limp at his side.
Damien thudded to the ground; a soft gurgle of struggling breath escaped his throat.
“No!” The word tore from Erinna’s throat as she bolted to his side. Anger surged hot beneath her ribs, tangled with fear and guilt and something sharper.
Betrayal, maybe.
Damien had come here to arrest the people she was traveling with, to drag Inez away in arcanum chains. He’d rounded on her, too.
But he was her friend, and she couldn’t bear to let him die.
“Erinna, if you’re coming with me, we have to go now.” Kane’s voice cut like a knife.
Damien’s eyes rolled to the back of his head. She could smell the blood and charred flesh as it oozed from the gaping, burning hole in his chest. The color drained from his skin, leaving only the pallid coating of death.
He ushered Inez away, in the direction of the ship, before turning back to her. “He’s not dead yet. He may make it until his friends arrive.”
Erinna felt Damien’s pulse. Soft and utterly too slow. No. That would take too long. If Damien was going to live, she had to do something now.
Her eyes blurred with tears, but she forced them back. Instead, she dug into the emotion she was most comfortable with. Rage.
“You killed him!” she sobbed, cursing how weak she felt.
