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For one split second, she could see everything, could see through every veil in all of Spirit Terra.
She saw a tree, glowing teal, its great roots arching like a dome above a luminescent pond. Fireflies, their bodies and wings the same shade of blue as the water and tree, fluttered about, alighting on gnarled branches and lily pads floating on the surface of the water.
It was life. Immortality. The restorative body of water everyone sought, the answers to all their questions, right within reach.
The Veil fell down. The tree disappeared from her mind. The hounds—the Shucca—charged through.
Exactly as she’d feared, there were too many of them.
Barks and growls rent the air. Bullets were fired, beams of white sinking deep into tattered flesh that hung off ribcages. Black hearts beat within those ribcages, secreting an oily black substance that dripped to the ground with every pulsation.
More bullets were fired, but it wasn’t enough.
The biggest Shucca in the pack took down one of the men, throwing him to the ground, teeth ripping into his jugular.
Another of the men had his back and chest torn open. He screamed as the dog ripped a chunk of flesh away, baring his lung to the icy air.
Quinton used his magic to pulverize the Shucca’s heart, literally exploding it in the canine’s chest. Black moisture showered the air.
But there were still too many. Even with the imperator moving to incapacitate another, eyes as black as Shucca hearts, there were too many.
A dark shape hurtled toward Loren.
Not her—toward her dad. Erasmus stumbled away, face stricken with terror.
She acted—fast.
Her power erupted out of her like rainbow lightning, slicing through the creature—through every creature. It carved them up until they were nothing but steaming chunks, their hearts deflating like popped balloons, blood fizzling into the frosted ground.
Loren gaped, looking between her hand—a blossom of power glowing in the centre—and the destruction spread around her.
She had done that. She had done that.
There was no time to lose. If she could do that to these creatures, then she could do it to the imperator and his men.
Quickly, she moved, hand lashing out before her, her whole body glowing white and rainbow. That bud of magic that resembled a flower expanded in her flattened palm—
Her bodysuit suddenly electrified like a taser, and her magic shut off, as if a switch was hit.
She fell to the ground, fingers grasping at the neck of her bodysuit. Bolts of electricity crackled there, like a collar of lightning, the heat searing her skin.
Erasmus rushed over, falling to his knees beside her. “L-Loren. Loren—”
But she couldn’t answer him. Couldn’t focus on anything but the agony crippling her body, rendering her useless and barely able to breathe.
It felt like an eternity before the pain finally stopped.
Dirt crunched underfoot as someone approached.
Erasmus looked up, throat bobbing, his closed mouth twitching with the angry words he held back.
Loren coughed up blood, vision wheeling as she took in the man—Quinton—leaning over her, a cruel smile marring his face.
“You didn’t think I wouldn’t take precautions, did you?” he hissed. One hand was on his knee, the other holding up a switch—a trigger for her bodysuit. A built-in taser. “Stupid girl.” He straightened and turned to face the remainder of his men, a couple of them injured. “Take her back. Let her recuperate.” Of the man writhing on the ground in agony, lung exposed to the air, he said, “Kill him.”
“No!” the man blubbered. “No, no, please—”
His cries were silenced by a bullet to the heart, a spear of white briefly lighting up the area as it was ejected from the gun.
