Helmar’s lips cracked into a smile, his long white hair swaying as he swung off Anchor’s back. He held his withered hands to each side, palms facing me, and flicked his fingers upward.
An arsenal of forest debris rose into the air, riding his wind with ill intent, before he rotated his wrists and fired at us. My arm flung up to shield my face as sticks and small rocks stoned us. Tempest’s pained whinny reverberated through her body and into my legs. A sting ripped across my face as I lowered my arm, the edge of a branch drawing a fresh line of blood across my cheek.
Tempest reared, her rage funneling into her agrippa nature, and she plowed toward him. Helmar’s lips stretched into a wide smile as he cackled, and he swept his arms to the side before raising them above his head. My gut lurched as a downed tree trunk lifted into the air and rotated, aiming straight for us.
I jerked on the reins, craning Tempest to the side as the trunk hurtled toward us. The momentum sent her hooves slipping beneath us, and I tumbled off her back and onto the cool ground.
High Priest Helmar blasted Tempest back, his wind pushing her over the crest of the ridge. Her hooves slipped against the damp ground as she struggled to stand. The whites of her eyes flashed as a vicious line of wind cut across her chest, and her mouth opened as her large form disappeared down the ridge.
I surged to my feet, hands moving to my sides as Helmar slowly turned back to me.
“I’m surprised you didn’t recognize me sooner, Drystan Amando.” Evil leaked from the high priest’s smile as he signed the words with practiced precision.
A quiet rage ignited behind the door to my pained trauma.
I kept my eyes up, not daring to risk revealing what I prayed the high priest remained ignorant of. That Ihadbeen able to access the lost arts, to whisper with the wind and the water, to perform spells of my own. That I was not only a mage, but a Bellator. And my powers reached toward that line of stones.
Ezrich’s head lolled to the side, and an intense wave of relief struck me as I crossed one foot over the other, moving as casually as possible to the edge of the rubelline zone.
“You’ve changed,” I signed back, forcing the tremors from my hands.
The high priest’s head tilted back, and his chest heaved as he laughed.
“Yes,” he agreed, holding his hands out before him as if examining their aging. “But not for long. It is time for us to get reacquainted, I think. Your dear friend Lyvia has much to answer for. And now that I have you?—”
I lunged, my boots digging into the mud as I sprinted to the line of stones. High Priest Helmar’s face went slack for a glimpsing second before his wrinkled lips curled over his teeth, and he raised both hands.
A grunt slipped from my lips as the jagged edge of a broken branch ripped through my wrist, and I slid across the line. My body crashed to the ground, scattering the stones. A weight lifted as the rubelline’s wall began to crumble, and my power raced to the surface in freedom. My breath escaped in a sigh, and I resisted the urge to close my eyes in relief as the rubelline’s shackles fell away in wisps of a cloud.
Helmar twisted toward me, wrath morphing his smile into an ugly snarl, and I reached for my connection to the wind. Mymind quieted as its presence surrounded me. I flicked my wrists, chanting the shield spell in my mind and merging it with the force of nature that gives us breath.
My shield snapped into place as Helmar hurtled a volley of rocks at me, the old priest pausing as his mouth fell open in shock when they bounced off. A slow, dangerous smile slipped across my lips as I pushed off the ground and got to my feet.
“You were such a disappointment,” he signed, catching his breath safely behind his shield. “If you’d just?—”
A snarl ripped from my lips as pressure built in my chest. The Advetis roared as I wrapped my intended location around the power and prayed like hell it would take me where I wanted to go.
Darkness smothered a blinding flash as the pressure exploded in me. My consciousness siphoned into a single thought before the wind whipped itself from my lungs. One moment, I was standing feet from Helmar, and the next, my boots slipped against the bloody mud beneath Ezrich’s heavy body.
Helmar’s momentary confusion was the only time I needed to snap off the arrows’ fletchings and heave Ezrich forward. My body crumpled beneath his massive weight as he fell.
The high priest’s robes flashed in my periphery, and I snapped my shield into place, twisting as I threw a blast of wind back at the old priest. Ezrich slid to the ground as I lifted both hands, ready to battle the monster who had tortured me for months in Stynguard.
A flash of charcoal, and Tempest was back and lunging at the high priest. He whipped his hands toward her, and the massive agrippa’s hooves hammered down a magical shield instead of the priest’s face.
Her ears pinned against her head as she bucked. I let out a sharp whistle, and the pressure of the sound pushed against myinner ears. A blast of wind ripped from my hands, bouncing off the high priest’s shield, but I pushed. His boots slipped against the mud as my magic forced his shield back.
Tempest cantered toward us before slamming her hooves in the ground and snapping her head back to the direction we came, her head high and alert.
What the?—
Ezrich’s gelding bolted as trees crashed to the ground and the head of a sand serpent lunged from the underbrush. My stomach dropped as the massive snake surged forward, likely drawn by Ezrich’s blood.
High Priest Helmar’s eyes widened, and he shifted his attention, reinforcing his shield.
I slapped Ezrich’s face to wake him, and his head bobbed in unconsciousness. I wrapped my arms around him, my muscles shaking as I tried to lift him to Tempest’s back while Helmar was distracted. Panic took root, and I allowed the feeling to wrap around the Advetis, zapping through my body.
Pressure seized me, and we were sucked through space, landing on top of Tempest’s back. The snake turned its massive head toward us, its diamond-shaped pupils dilating as it opened its mouth.
