Page 2 of All Hallows Fate

I groaned. I loathed forming the giant clouds of death magic the most; they drained me until my head swum. “I’d rather keep throwing knives at you.”

“How sad for you that I’m not a dart board.” He crossed his arms over his chest, his clothes flowing and pale, made of a substance similar to the mist of Exile. I was similarly clothed, in a mist-lace dress that plucked at my memory and made me discomfited. I could change it once I was powerful enough; it was my second motivation, right after getting revenge on those who killed me.

Not that I remembered who that was. But as soon as I recovered their names, they would regret every breath they’d taken. Ender knew who they were, but refused to tell me. He refused to tell me a lot of things, actually, insisting I needed to remember them myself. Something annoying about my mind shattering and the dregs of magic that kept me in Exile fading.

“Cloud,” he barked, eyes narrowed on me. “Now.”

I groaned, but complied, reaching for a thread of magic, bigger than the last few, and spooling it into a giant ball of smoke. It emerged dark, inky against the colourless backdrop of Exile, a pen stain on paper. Pen… again a memory tried to form, and I could almost feel the cold weight of a fountain pen in my hand, but it slipped away before I could grasp it.

“You can do better than that,” Ender complained. He was always complaining, or bickering, or muttering under his breath. I gave him the tiniest bit of grace for his social skills because he’d been alone for hundreds of years. “Make it twice as big.”

“Twice!” I blurted, panting through gritted teeth, the strain making me dizzy.

“That means two times as big.”

“I know what it means,” I muttered, the effort of holding onto the original cloud enough to make the feeling vanish from my legs. “I hate this.”

“You’re in full control. You have more magic than a rampaging vaun, you’re the only obstacle in your way.”

I gave him an alarmed look, then glanced around us. “What the hell’s a vaun?”

“Like a fawn but nastier, with more horns, teeth, and the ability to breathe fire. There’s nothing in Exile but you and I.”

“Explain that shifty look you did just then.”

“There was no shifty look. Bigger cloud. Now. Or do you not want to cast judgement over the ones who killed you?”

There was definitely a shifty look, and something he wasn’t telling me, but he knew exactly what to say to hone my focus—and my rage. The need for vengeance scorched my chest like an ever-burning flame, justice like kindling in my belly, never extinguishing, always wanting more, ready to spark into a wildfire.

I would force my killers to face their judgement, and then I would turn my eye to the rest of the world. Every monster, living or dead, would answer to me. I would make them regret every ounce of pain they’d imposed on others, every injustice they’d enforced, every cruel and callous act.

“Are you done fantasising about justice?” Ender drawled when my eyes focused again. Dizziness made me waver on my feet, but the cloud was now large enough to engulf five people, far larger than the size he’d ordered.

“Never.”

“Great.” He assessed the cloud, searching for something, some sign that I was ready to leave this place and go to the domain. Wherever that was. “Now shrink it to the size of a teacup.”

“Are you insane?” I spat. “I can’t—”

A horrible, rending sound groaned through Exile, cutting through the undulating mist like the scrape of table legs over wood floors. I wanted to throw my hands over my ears. Only the cloud of hungry death in my hands stopped me.

“Shield,” Ender commanded. I thought I’d heard the steel ring of an order in his voice before, but it was nothing like the fatally serious, furious tone now. It sent a pulse of panic through me, followed by a fear I had no reason for when a smell invaded this scentless place. Lemon, astringent and sharp, and sickly mint.

“How the fuck did he get in?” Ender demanded, pulling swaths from the mist to form a broadsword and a spiky ball on a chain.

“Is that a flail?” I breathed, stretching my hands apart, shaping the cloud into a disc I glued to my arm, reaching into my inner magic for another thread of power, forming a crude sword. It was lumpy and odd, but the sharp, pointy end would do the job well enough. “And who’s he?”

“Violence,” Ender answered in a voice of glaciers and ice floes.

And for some reason, I began to shake.

2

Cat

Aspill of cold doused my skin in goosebumps and I shuddered, frowning as my heart threw itself against my chest, my breathing sharp in my chest. Strained. “I’m… afraid of him,” I noted. “Also, apparently I know he’s a him.”

“Control that emotion,” Ender barked, stalking into the fog and gesturing for me to follow. “Do not let it free.”