And every time they drop to the ground, Ever looks devastated.
“Hold on, Little Siren.”I push the words across the ring to her, unable to keep my shields in place for her when her distress is so loud around us.
“Don’t! You don’t know what it’s like to be forced to do this!”She wields around and stares at me, her eyes cloudy with darkness, her hair wild and untamed.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Remember, you’re not alone. I will take whatever you need me to take to help you.”
“I have to get better, Ten. I have to master my magic. Once and for all.”Her words are like a cry across the connection, and as her emotional pain piques, the wave of sorrow blasts likea snowstorm.“I can’t fight you and him. He’ll take everything from me if he can until I’m nothing.”
“I won’t let that happen,”I promise.“He won’t, Ever. I won’t let him.”
She looks up at me, a final pained expression on her face.“I’m sorry. I have to do this.”
But as I shout the words to her, I get nothing back, our connection now cold, devoid of any of the comfort it usually brings. This isn’t like all the other times it had gone cold from her shielding or blocking. This is worse. Like the tether that joined us, that secret line of communication to each other is absent. Missing.
“Ever!”I scream inside my head.
“Ever!” Out loud, this time, but she still doesn’t answer.
She ignores me and turns to Fenix.
In the blink of an eye, she’s in front of him, using Crimson’s speed, and then she grabs his face with both of her hands.
And in another blink of an eye, she’s on the other side of the ring. It doesn’t make any sense. Everything around us is the same, except for them.
And Ever’s holding a knife in her hand.
My knife.
twenty-four
. . .
Ever
The energy inside me rushes, swarms, and surrounds us, freezing the world outside of Fenix and me.
“You think that wearing me down, poisoning me, is the way to get what you want?” I move my arm, using Crimson’s speed, and my knuckles skim his jaw, knocking him out of my touch.
But the magic holds around us.
We both stop, and check, and Fenix smiles like he knew this would happen. “You are as infuriating as you are remarkable, Sister. You refuse to help yourself, and I am just a tool to remind you of that. See,” he circles, looking around as if making his point, “you’re doing it, because I’m not. You’re casting this, making our little bubble work without physical contact. If you’d just done that—” I don’t let him finish.
The knife at my back is in my hand, and then, I arc my arm, slashing it across his chest and arm. It’s deep, and the blood blooms quickly.
But I keep the concentration, forcing the world around us to keep still while we do this. It might be rash. I might not be strong enough, but I can’t take any more. And now, I have power, replenished over these days of torture, my well full of every drop of magic he’s made me take.
It’s angry.I’mangry. And it thrashes at the walls I’ve confined it within.
No more!
“Bitch!”
“Monster!”
“You shouldn’t have wasted that opportunity. You are too weak. You should be grateful I’ve not tossed you aside.” He continues to circle me, and I can feel the strain to keep the world in stillness around us. The invisible threads of his control, all shining and golden, aren’t in harmony with mine, to keep us in this status. Just like when I tried to release Crimson from his grasp, my own strands of darkness eat away at his, overpowering him, dissolving his light.
The ropes of black stream faster and faster, flowing out of me to attack him.
