My grip on Selina tightens, and she smiles in response, as if she knows she’s won already and I am no threat.
I am a threat.“Aslendrix! Do you hear me! Help me!”
But it isn’t Aslendrix that answers, it’s something else. A burning heat, which seems to have set fire to the calm waters within my chest, and it wraps around my arms like molten strands, until they reach my hand where I’m gripping Selina.
They grow, wrapping her to me, binding her to me, and I feel the surge of energy. The force of her power as I start to absorb it.
Selina’s face switches in an instant, no longer cocky and confident, her eyes darting first to my brother, and then to the Usher.
And her power slowly pulls into me. This isn’t like when I first drained Calix without knowing. It’s as if her magic is liquid sunshine, travelling to me along the threads, which my power has wrapped around her. Not darkness this time.
I step away, afraid of what this is, but the threads just grow, sparkling and radiant in the sun.
The more I take, the more unsettled I become, the change, the shift of my power now responding to whatever is invading, like there’s a battle within me, similar to when I touch Fenix. But this is worse, like an intruder has stepped foot inside my own centre of solace.
Her power streams in, filling the well with the glittering energy—so much of it.
I yank my arm free, breaking our connection, but I’ve already done the damage. Selina slumps to the ground, but I don’t pay her any concern. She asked for this.
I turn to the water on the other side of the cliff and call on the power, focussing on the air, the water, and the space around me.
The vibrations in the air ring loudly, shimmering in gold and silver as they reach the sea. And it answers my call, whispering from the tops of the waves and calling back to me. The current swells, just like it did for Selina, but so does my power. Growing,amassing the abundance of energy within me, and needing an outlet.
The ocean obliges. It thunders against the rocks below, breaking its force beneath us, spiralling up the cliff in thick black flows of water, as if gravity means nothing.
It runs over the edge, pooling around our feet, as if the sea wants to invade. More and more water comes in, blocking everything around us. Only it’s not water. It moves like water, but it’s pitch-black, cloud-like, and dense.
I’m thrown back in time to when the dark mist first appeared, but this is so much more. It is darkness that thunders around us now, concealing everything, overtaking everything.
“Ever!” The Usher calls, but I ignore him, eager to see how far I can push this before I feel my own magic dry up.
Until I can no longer see the sun in the sky.
twenty-five
. . .
Ever
“Enough!” The Usher tries again, but I still don’t listen.
The energy flows through me, rapturous and eager, storming, raging, and hotter than anything I’ve felt.
It’s addictive.
The loud smack of hands coming together pulls my attention, although I can’t see anything through the fog except the silhouette of the Usher, his arms outstretched to the sky, signalling a parting of the black seascape I’ve created and wiping out everything I’ve done, splitting the sky into a massive void and neutralising my magic. Just like he did to Fenix.
The heat and rush I’d felt in abundance are now gone. Left cold, as if he’s created his own new moon effect to Novandia’s magic.
I stagger back, and Fenix catches me, keeping me upright.
“See what you are capable of, Sister,” he whispers in my ear, but I wrench myself from his reach.
My movement is sluggish, my body is tired, and my vision is spotty for a few seconds. The world comes to rights as the Usher extinguishes my power and returns us to the light.
I reach for the stone at my neck and feel its heat, and I don’t know if that’s because of Novandia’s magic or Aslendrix’s coming back into power. My finger worries my ring, spinning it around and around, as I settle on my actions.
What I did.
