Page 10 of The Nymph King

Her shadows had barely entered the world, yet the wounded Fabric was already reacting to them. If she released enough power to tear through six armed witches, she had no idea what would happen to the Draswood around them. The strained ground might split farther. The roots that had protected her could die. Whatever force had woven these snares into the forest might gain another opening.

With a trembling hand, she swirled her wand in the air and dragged the shadows back into herself.

The decision cost her, and a heartbeat later, she collided with a wall of muscle and leather armor. She drove the heel of her palm into his throat and twisted away from the arm reaching for her wand, but another spell struck the ground beside her. The concussion knocked her off balance. Fingers closed around her wrist.

Imani punched the man across the mouth.

He swore and tightened his grip.

Across the clearing, Esa was still fighting. Blue light burst from her wand as she drove two soldiers backward, her wings beating hard enough to lift her briefly above another spell. She turned in the air and fired again, but one of the spell-threads stretched between the trees and flared as her magic crossed it.

The backlash hit her first. Esa cried out and dropped hard to one knee. The moss around her darkened, and another fracture raced through the soil.

“Esa, stop!” Imani shouted.

Esa looked at the spreading crack, then at Imani.

That instant of distraction was enough.

A soldier caught Esa from behind while two more closed on Imani. Imani kicked one in the knee and tore her arm free, but there were too many bodies and too little ground she could safely destroy. Every instinct screamed at her to unleash the shadows. They pressed beneath her skin, ready to rip through flesh and bone.

A second crack split the earth.

Agony ripped through her, knowing she couldn’t.

Someone’s fist struck her hand. Her wand fell into the moss. Imani lunged for it, but a boot came down over her wrist before her fingers reached the handle. Pain shot up her arm. A soldier wrenched both hands behind her back.

“Don’t touch her!” Esa shouted.

Another male twisted Esa’s arm until her wand dropped as well.

Imani tested the restraint around her wrists, and the shadows answered immediately. So did the Draswood. Moss dimmed beneath her knees. Her teeth ground together.

“Enough,” she said.

Esa glared at the men as Imani studied the cracked ground between them. She gave Esa a subtle shake of her head, ordering her not to release her Nightmare Dust.

Understanding crossed her friend’s face. Her fury remained, but she stopped fighting.

The Draswood magic signature tensed around the violence, but these were Norn men, and nothing in their magic carried the killing intent the forest had recognized in the chapalus. They were restraining her, not trying to destroy her. Apparently, that distinction mattered.

Only then did the soldiers manage to bind them and force them toward the wooden cart. One of them retrieved Imani’s wand from the moss and tucked it beneath his belt before helping shove her inside.

Bound, Imani forced her breathing to steady. Her shadows remained immediately available. Nothing prevented her from using them except the widening fractures beneath the wheels and the blackened moss left behind by every surge of unstable magic.

She could probably kill the soldiers, but she might kill part of the Draswood with them.

Beside her, Esa struggled against her bindings, angling herself closer as if a bound pixie could somehow put her body between Imani and whatever came next.

Above them, a vast, winged shadow eclipsed the canopy.

At first, the soldiers barely reacted, but the trees trembled. Leaves shook, and the roots beneath the soil tightened, bracing for impact. The crown pulsed against Imani’s temples, and she wished she knew how to control its magic more. Maybe they would have been in this mess. Then a second pulse echoed from Imani’s wand where it rested against the hip of the soldier guarding the cart.

When Kiran landed, the impact shook the clearing, but the deeper tremor that followed rumbled against Imani’s magic signature, ancient and powerful. He rose from the cratered earth with that terrifying menace in his eyes she knew too well. He locked on her as if she were the only thing in existence. The Norn soldiers reacted to the dragon king exactly as trained soldiers should. Several turned their wands away from Imani and toward Kiran, forming a barrier between him and the cart.

Kiran took one look at the bindings around Imani’s wrists, and whatever restraint he had brought into the clearing disappeared.

“Move.”