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12
“Let go of the horse, Marley,” Atlas demanded. “No sudden movements.”
“We’ll lose them,” I protested, heart racing a million miles a minute as my grip tightened so hard around the leather straps, my knuckles lost all color.
“Let go of the fucking horse.”
But it didn’t matter what he said. Not as a shout came across the lake that took every ounce of self-preservation and strangled it. “Marley Stormborn.”
The hair lifted on my arms and down my spine, and my bladder threatened to empty.
“Run,” I screamed, dropping the reins and spinning. “It’s him. Run, Atty.”
But the second I said his name, the lake shattered into hundreds of giant pieces of ice, riding the top of an angry body of water. When the chunk below us tilted, the horses panicked. I panicked.
Atlas pulled the hatchet from his belt and slammed it into the ice below.
“Magic, Atty. We can float in an orb.”
He cast, saving the horses near the edge of the slab first. I lost my footing and dropped, slamming my head onto the ice as it continued to rock. Sliding past Atlas, he reached a hand out, rescuing me from the cold water not a second too soon. Another glacier collided with the underbelly of ours, threatening to tip us completely over as he now hung from the hatchet, and I clung to him.
“I have to let go in order to cast again,” he shouted. “Trust me.”
I nodded frantically, looking over my shoulder to see a man with pitch black hair and deep-set eyes walking across the top of the water as if it were a paved road.
In one motion, Atlas released the hatchet and cast, catching us in a bubble less than a second before we slammed into the dangerous water.
“I’m sorry I forgot to keep checking the banks,” I said, hustling to my feet.
“There’s no time for that now. Remind me of his spells? Quickly.”
“Uhm. Water. And temperature. And…” I could hardly think straight. “He’s fast. And stronger than he should be.”
“So am I,” Atty growled. “Walk backward.”
We traveled along the top of the water for mere feet before Levin conjured a geyser below us, and we crashed into each other while the orb spun out of control. Atlas and I scrambled, tumbling until I’d taken an elbow to the face and him a knee to the gut. He reached forward, grabbing and holding me tightly to him so we were one.
We struggled but somehow got to our feet, running the same way the sphere turned. Out of desperation, I called the Spirits. I didn’t have self-defense magic. I didn’t even have elemental magic. It was a move made in despair, but no one answered.
Atlas roared, slamming his hand into the orb as he stared at the man responsible, who hadn’t said more than my name, only conducted chaos.
“I’m going to do something really fucking stupid,” Atty said. “You’re going to have to trust me. And don’t fucking die.”
Before I could respond, the bubble around us burst, and I was falling. So was he. Seconds before I crashed into the icy water, he caught me in magic again. Another sphere and a blast of powerful wind slammed into me, throwing me more than halfway across the lake. But he hadn’t saved himself.
I screamed in horror as he crashed into the ice-filled water with glaciers so large they could have crushed him or trapped him below. He swam as if the temperature hadn’t shocked his body, though I knew that to be impossible. Levin wasn’t worried about Atty, though, only me. He flexed his arms forward and cast, but Atlas came from nowhere, tackling Levin to the ground.
In a single move of self-preservation, Levin refroze the entire lake, likely afraid to drown… The irony. I was only a bystander now, trapped in the glass orb to watch as the men, with more strength and speed than either of them should have had, threw each other around.
I didn’t notice the water filling my glass prison until it was ankle deep, and despite the distraction from Atlas, those deep black eyes met mine with a smile as he tried to drown me.
I screamed, banging on the sides of my entrapment until my hands throbbed. The straggled breaths I drew into my lungs would never be enough to satiate the sheer panic. Perhaps Atlas had been right to fear the walls of the tunnels in the Storm Coven.
The confinement hadn’t moved. I knew I wasn’t losing space, but my mind wouldn’t hear it. Wouldn’t focus beyond the prison wall closing in. I shouted until my voice had gone, but there was no way Atlas could hear. Not as a burst of his wind collided with a stream of Levin’s water. Atlas hadn’t trained with magic. He hadn’t spent his life casting in small moments just to feel the power ripple below his skin.
The water sloshed up to my waist, rising quickly as I watched Atty, that beautiful man with a mark upon his soul but true kindness in his heart, falter. Heavy arms dropped to his side, and he looked toward me with panicked eyes, seconds before Levin cast, and Atlas fell, slackened to the ground. I couldn’t hear the laughter from this distance. Only see the flutter of Levin’s shoulders when Atty collapsed.
Every limb threatened to buckle as tears pooled in my eyes. The tiny sliver of hope vanished when I watched him fall, absolutely gutting me. He’d fought for me, and I’d lost him because of it. I was never worthy of that sacrifice. I couldn’t swallow, couldn’t manage a breath, couldn’t string together thoughts as helplessness devoured me. After years of running, I had nothing left.
