I take a step forward as the arm retreats back into the carriage, the door slamming shut. Before I can take a second step, the driver is whipping at the horses, and the carriage is pulling away. The fire of my fury burns brighter.
I summon my magic, throwing my orbital power after the carriage only to growl with frustration. I can’t get a hold on the seal inside the carriage, not when I can’t actually see it and it’s moving so fast. I call upon the heat burning in my veins instead. I can’t hurt Caledon with my sun beam power, but I can blast the top off the carriage. I shove my hands out, releasing a blast of sunlight and?—
Something bursts from the ground, blocking my way—a sheet of shining mineral that looks like diamond. My sun beam slams into it with a spray of sparks and smoke, the light refracting out into a hundred smaller rays shooting in different directions.
A thin, red-headed woman steps out from behind the strange protrusion. She’s wearing the purple sash of a bearer and is staring me down with a smug smile on her face.
I let another sun beam loose from my fingertips, blazing toward the woman. In an instant, there’s another shield of diamond between her and me. The putrid smoke that rises up as my magiccollides with it suggests I could burn through it given enough time, but that’s exactly what I don’t have.
“Enough!” I shout at the bearer, grabbing hold of her celestial flame.
It doesn’t snuff out instantly like the other clerics. She’s too powerful, and her celestial spark fights against me, finding the gaps in my hold on it and flaring brightly through them. I wrestle against it, enough to bring the woman to her knees, gasping, but with every moment, the carriage is getting farther and farther away. My eyes shift from it to the bearer to a loose horse wandering nearby whose rider must be dead.
With one final, suffocating squeeze, I release the woman, sprinting toward the animal. Magic flies around me as the clerics who haven’t made a run for it try to hold their ground against the fae. I dodge a flare of incendi magic, then swing myself up onto the horse. It’s already skittish, frightened by the explosions and smells, so it doesn’t take much persuasion to get it to bolt after the carriage.
With every hoofbeat, my hatred for the man in that trundling vehicle rises. I want to bring Tira his head for what he did to Kit. I want to burn him alive for the way he murdered those solari children. In this moment, no punishment is too cruel or gruesome. My horse is fast, as if fueled by my rage, and we gain on the carriage until I’m almost level with the window.
The figure inside leans forward, his face turning. Caledon’s dark, cold eyes meet mine.
I don’t hesitate, throwing my magic out toward him. It’s a hungry hand sweeping toward his center, searching out the light that keeps him alive, looking to strangle it out of existence.
I can end this now, in this moment. I just have to fight hard enough.
But what I find inside Caledon chills me tomycore.
It’s just…nothingness. An edgeless, bottomless void. I see for the first time the black hole Respen described to me as the source of Caledon’s power—a vast, desolate space that can only consume rather than create. And somewhere, beyond it, is his inner flame.
I push my magic out across the void, trying to find that spark, but the blackness swallows my power, extinguishing it before it can find its target. I grit my teeth, putting more force behind it, drawing on the deep wells of my magic to pour power into Caledon. The void devours every last scrap before I get anywhere near the other side.
“Pull back, Ana. This is too much.”
Leon must feel my battle across the mooring. I was so focused on Caledon, I’d lost all awareness of our connection. Now his voice sends a jolt through me, jerking me back to reality.
The horse is still galloping beneath me, the carriage rattling just out of reach, and Caledon’s cold, black gaze stares out at me, but I can’t hear a thing. My ears are muffled, only the distant rush of blood sounding in them, and I know what’s coming next. I’ve almost drained myself dry, and soon I’ll have to pay the price.
Darkness dances at the edge of my vision, and I know with an odd certainty I’m about to faint. Caledon smiles at me—a manic, sickening grin—and I briefly wonder what’s so funny. Something sharp slices into my back, and I arch out of the saddle, screaming. I have a brief second to register that my right foot has dislodged from its stirrup, then I’m falling toward the earth.
When I come back to consciousness, I’m aware of my whole body aching, a searing pain shooting through my back. Slowly, I blink open my eyes. Faint sounds of battle start to filter back through as I stare up at the sky forming above me, and I realize I haven’t been out for more than a few seconds. Footsteps crunch nearby, and I glance over to see the red-headed bearer holding a shard of her diamond mineral, lifting it above my chest.
A blur of black slams into her, pulling her from my vision. There’s a shriek and a gurgle, then Leon’s bending over me, no less beautiful for the splatter of blood across his face. He gently lifts my head, examining me.
“My love, tell me where you’re hurt.”
“The carriage,” I croak.
He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, it’s gone. But what’s important right now is making sure you’re okay.”
He’s wrong, of course. The most important thing is leaving us behind in that carriage, but I don’t have the strength to argue right now. Slowly, he lifts me up off the ground, stopping when I hiss at the pain in my back.
“Hold still,”he orders.“If you broke something when you fell from that horse?—”
“No, it’s not that. That bearer cut me with something.”
He nods, turning me around.
“Yes, thank the gods, it’s just a stab wound.”
“Just?”I protest.
