Once the other sorceresses saw what I did, they all copied me and created bridges of their own to climb over the barricades with, though not all of their spells worked. Some illusions weren’t powerful enough to hold their weight— others got halfway up the bridge before the illusions failed and caused them to go tumbling down into the pool. A griffin couple wailed in pain behind us, but I turned my head forward and didn’t look back. I didn’t want to know their fate.
Once we got over the pit, the snow around us got worse. It turned into hail, and the skies darkened as the storm turned into a full-out blizzard. It became difficult to see what was ahead. The weather couldn’t cooperate for five more minutes, could it?
Yet the finish line was in sight, and Ethan and I were in the lead. We were going to win this thing!
Then everything changed in a moment. The blizzard increased its intensity, until all that was around us was a blank whiteness that enveloped everything. The snow was so fierce, I couldn’t see anything. Not the arena, not the other contestants, not the race track. I could barely see the hand in front of my own face. Ethan’s white fur became one with the blizzard.
A crackling sound met my ears as the ground below us turned to ice. A deadly cold settled on my body and deep within my bones. It was an unnatural cold. Something I’d never experienced in my life and had nothing to compare to. We’d had bad winters in Michigan growing up, but this was beyond anything I’d ever experienced. I’d never been so cold. I could be dunked naked in a freezing lake in the middle of the Arctic and it would’ve seemed like summer. This… it was unbearable.
Ethan had halted completely. His fangs were bared as he moaned with obvious agony. “I… can’t move,” he forced out. “I’m frozen.”
I was freezing, too. My body was slowly becoming a statue, from my feet upward. I tried to move my legs, and found them stuck. We were literally becoming blocks of ice!
“Emma,” Ethan gasped, but said nothing more. I squeezed my chilled fingers into his fur and tried to work out a way out of this.
Something about this didn’t feel right. I shouldn’t have been able to manipulate the snow I’d used to create an ice bridge earlier, even with the necklace helping me. I wasn’t an elemental. The weather didn’t obey my command.
Unless the snow wasn’t really snow.
It’s not real,I realized. The snowstorm was an illusion. The whole race was. The targets, the obstacles, even the storm… all it had ever been was a grand illusion. I wouldn’t have been able to make that snow bridge earlier if the snow had beenrealin the first place.
“It’s not real,” I gasped. Ethan’s eyes widened with realization.
“An illusion,” he whispered. “But a powerful one.”
Indeed. It was strong enough to hold on past the realization that it was fake. I knew what we were experiencing wasn’t really there. It was a spell cast on our minds by sorceresses, but damn if it didn’t still hurt regardless.
“I can’t break this myself. I don’t have enough magical energy,” Ethan argued. “No one does.”
I did. But I couldn’t tell him how. “Ethan, just leave it to me.”
“What are you going to do?”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I focused my energy inward on the necklace. I imagined the cold lifting… the storm breaking… warmth returning to the earth again.
It didn’t happen right away. But once again, the dark necklace burned my skin, and I felt its power channel into me. I forced it outward with my palms, and the blizzard was blasted back, displaying a clear path from here to the finish.
I’d destroyed the illusion. Not just for me. For everyone.
“You did it!The illusion broke!” Ethan cried. “I can see the finish!”
A jet black shock of pain ricocheted up my spine as the spell left my body, causing my eyes to roll backward. The insane cold melted away to be replaced by warmth and sunlight. This time, I did pass out, but Ethan was there to catch me. I fell forward onto his back, darkness enveloping me as the sound of his steady paws beat onward toward what I hoped was the end.
* * *
“Ethan,is she all right? It’s been awhile.”
“All of you, give her some air. She needs the rest.”
“What she did out there wasn’t natural. I’ve never seen such power in my—”
“Back. Off.”
That was Ethan. He sounded… really protective. And intense. There was a wet washcloth dotting sweat away from my face. My eyes fluttered open. I was back in the tent, lying on the bed. Ethan was hovering over me. He was the one holding the washcloth. His eyebrows were knitted together in concern. I noticed that my armor, as well as Ethan’s, had been removed, and we were only wearing our tourney colors.
Odette, Delmare and Kiara were close by. They’d gathered around the bed and seemed as worried as Ethan was.
“What’s going on?” I hated how faint my voice sounded. My stomach churned, and a pounding headache expanded across my temple. Man, this sucked.
