A crack appeared in front of me, shattering the ward. I wasted no time and shot a blade of ice through Nigel’s stomach. I manipulated it so that it grew and twisted around him like a snake.
I dropped to my knees, sweat dripping from my hairline and down my back against the cool climate. My stomach churned from the pain and now nausea. My healing magic wasn’t working fast enough to tackle this poison. Healing spells weren’t really my specialty.
I looked back to Nigel, who stood quietly, not moving, his eyes closed. Well, that couldn’t be good. I closed my hands, manipulating my ice bonds around him to squeeze tighter. I then conjured a sword of ice in my right hand. Time to behead this fool with the rest of my energy.
I walked forward, sword at the ready, but as my foot went into the tar-colored sand in front of me, I immediately sank. It was as if I had stepped into a hole, falling waist-deep. I let go of my ice sword and immediately scrambled to hold on to the rocky sand around me. I wasn’t sinking as fast as the initial drop, but I was definitely still lowering, and there was no wiggle room. I tried to lift myself up, but nothing would move. It was as if the sand around me had me in a tight hold. And I was still sinking.
This was no good. If this sand worked like normal quicksand, I couldn’t fight against it. Still, glancing up at Nigel’s triumphant face, I had a feeling that the natural rules wouldn’t apply.
“Release me, and I’ll release you,” he said with a smirk.
Fuck out of here if he thought that would happen. This would not be a fight with my body. I had to use the old brain cells. But concentrating on magic while my body was slowly sinking into sand with an arrow protruding from my side, screaming in worsening pain as the sand hit every wound in my body, and also fighting nausea from a possibly deadly poisoning made thinking hard to do.
I had to quiet my mind and body. Get everything in my body to think I was okay. That I was, at the very least, in control. And so, I began to hum. It was a popular pop song out now by an artist I loved, so I knew the whole melody. I closed my eyes and began to bob my head. I knew I looked crazy, but damn if the rising panic started to dissipate a fraction.
Sand kicked around me, hitting my face, and I felt a body close to mine.
Nigel laughed. “Humming at a time like this?”
He sounded much closer, and I guessed that he must have moved, hence the extra sound.
“The sand is at your shoulders now. You’re about to die, don’t you care? Break this ice hold.”
His voice sounded stiff, almost as if he was speaking through clenched teeth. He was getting colder from my ice grip. Frostbite should have taken hold by now, and soon, it would be cutting into his skin. I kept humming through the pain and panic.
“You stupid, bitch. I will get out of this hold as soon as you die. Will it be worth it? You could join us in our cause. With your power, you could be a leader. What are you getting now, being some bake shop owner? It’s a waste. Why are you allowing yourself to be ruled by people who stunt you? Control you? They even tried to force your omega friend into a pack she didn’t want. How are they better?”
I wanted to ignore his words as I hummed, but it was challenging. I could already feel the tight sand squeezing in on my chin. Once it covered my nose, I would be done. And he was right on that last part of his words. Not everyone in my greater coven was ethical, but the dark mages were doing some brutal things, and their cause didn’t allow room for anyone that was not like them. There would be no space for Billie’s pack. There would be no space for my guys. They would be tools, and these Nodoorians fighting along with them were too caught up in their battle with the Prinaths to understand that the endgame would not go well for them. The dark mages would use up the fae until there was nothing left. They would end up causing more strife between the fae and the human realm.
I hummed louder as the sand covered my mouth. Faint cries in the background disrupted my humming. I heard my name, but things were so out of focus for me now that I couldn’t tell who had called me. And then the sinking stopped right before it hit my nose.
My mind raced for my plan of action. I couldn’t rise without using my ice. Even if I truly was part dragon, that didn’t mean I would sprout wings and fly like Luca. Still, ice was strong, and I knew that I had done some incredible things with ice in my time. Not to mention, I was sure Yosef’s claiming was still power-boosting me a bit.
I let my ice encase me and then envisioned a column under me, rising higher like an elevator. Keeping my eyes tightly shut, I felt my body moving upward. Only when I heard Nigel curse did I open them to see that I was now several feet above him, no longer buried in the dark sand. I was perched on a real ice column, and, oddly, being inside an ice cube felt good. The arrow in my side broke off, and I gritted my teeth as searing pain surrounded the wound. The arrow inside me slid out, replaced by what felt like the familiar healing power. Even the sand cuts on the rest of my body began to warm and tighten up. I was freaking healing. Well, mostly. The poisonous cramping and sickness inside me hovered around me.
Okay, a healing ice cube was new territory for me. I’d played with my ice magic for all these years, and this was one option that I had never had. Had Luca awoken some dragon magic in me with our connection? Had Yosef’s claiming saved me once again? Maybe it was both. I’d have to figure that out later. In the meantime, I had a wizard to slay.
Nigel was already standing upright as the ice hold began to crack and break around him. I assumed that by pushing all my focus on not dying and getting out of the sand had weakened my hold on him. When he was freed, he pushed his hands upward at me, shouting words I could not hear within my icehouse.
Soon, my encasement began to shake, and the tower holding me up leaned sideways like the tower of Pisa. Naturally, I began to slide off. I screamed and shot out steps of ice to catch my fall to the ground, which was far from a cozy landing. Once I landed, I broke my protective ice cube. I wasn’t all the way healed, but I didn’t have that kind of time. I balled my fists, conjuring snowballs as solid as rocks at him, encircling him from all angles. He dropped to the ground covering himself as he got struck and cut and bruised.
A breeze wiped my hair from the right, and I glanced over to see Yosef standing there, bloodied. “Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner.”
He took a step toward Nigel, holding two long, onyx daggers the size of machetes in his hands. He looked pretty badass with the weapons, all sweaty and messy in his uniform.
Distracted much, Lila?I threw my arm out in front of him. “I got this,” I started. “Just watch my back.” I didn’t need saving. I was a damn soldier.
He raised a brow. “I love a bossy woman,” he replied before turning around and taking on a few oncoming Nodoorians with impressive ease.
I refocused my still blurry vision back to Nigel. The wizard straightened up and shot out his hand, forcing a magical wind in my direction, which blasted me backward into the rocky sand. Yosef turned to me, and that’s when things began to move in slow motion.
A weightlessness overcame me, and every hair on my body moved upwards. Then my body, with my arms and legs spreading out, began to rise. I looked to Yosef, who seemed to be walking toward me, although my mind knew he was running. It was too late, though. I was already up in the air.
Nigel looked up at me, shaking his head. “Such a waste. You could have had it all. Now I’ll be sending you somewhere else where we can drain you of that special dragon magic you have.”
I raised my brows in surprise. So, he knew? How?
Nigel laughed, rising as well. My body lurched toward him, and he roughly grasped me by the arm. “We know how special you are, and if you think we are going to allow a half ice dragon to escape us, you’ve lost your mind. It’s time to contain you. And I’m not letting you go.”
