“Let me leave, Fenix,” I whisper, aware that this could get very bad, very quickly.
“It’s a shame you couldn’t come to trust us and see things from our perspective.” He’s still in the shadows, his face masked, but his cocky voice is enough of a target for me.
“Your perspective. To rule over those who don’t have power, just because you’re jealous of thosewithpower? Because that’s what this comes down to. You’re on the side that wants more power when you don’t have it. You disagree with those in charge, and so you’re raising an army of those who don’t have the gifts that others do. An uprising, to do the same to others as has been done to them. An eye for an eye?”
“Our parents fought for this.” Anger seeps into the air with his words.
“No. I refuse to believe it’s as simple as that.”
“They started this, Ever. Like it or not. And if you leave, you’ll be going against their wishes. Do you want that? You have the ability to turn this to our advantage. You, with the power that all the Orders are afraid of. Who kept you weak, just to save their own skin?”
“Why would I want to help you, side with you, or have anything to do with you, after everything you’ve forced me to do?” I tilt my head and wonder just how delusional he is. “You could have played this differently. But you resorted to threats, pain, and dominance, relying on your own power and magic to jail and trap me. It’s no surprise, given that’s what the Usher’s done to you, ever since he played his trick and gave you power, all so you can build your so-called army. To manipulate people into doing your bidding with threats and a promise you can’t keep. You wanted me to be as broken and torn down as you were. Well, I’m not.”
“Oh, you’re going to stop us, all, are you?”
“I don’t need to stop all of you. Just you.”
“You don’t have it in you.”
We’re in a standoff, but worse, the snap of a branch to my right tells me we’re not alone in the dark anymore. He’s used our little tête-à-tête to wait for reinforcements.
Well, if he wants a show, I’ll give it to him.
He killed Micah. He put a sword in me—over and over again. He broke Crimson’s wrist. He tortured Ten and cut away pieces of us. I draw on every emotion that’s been bottled up and swallowed for the last few weeks, and let it infuse through me, let it heat the magic inside of me, until I’m brimming with nothing more than vengeance and anger.
The Maker said my emotions were raw and needed to be mastered. Well, I say otherwise.
I focus on everyone around me and let streams of power rush out in thick ropes of darkness, darker than night, and wrap around the men and women circling us. And I draw from them, absorbing everyone’s energy. Their power. Just as I did with Selina. I don’t stop until I’ve pulled everything from them, and then I start on Fenix. As I connect with him, the usual unease, the never-mixing current, is familiar, but I am so much more powerful now. He is weak, cut off, and my magic easily freezes him in place, so he can’t fight against me.
“Ever!” he shouts, but I know he can’t do more than yell at me. “What are you doing?”
But I don’t answer.
My head falls back, and I search the sky for Aslendrix, hoping she’ll hear my cry.
More and more energy gathers, spooling like a thread inside of me. Light and dark.
“Ever, stop. You can’t do this!”
But I can.
It’s more than anything I’ve felt before.
Greater. More powerful, like a full moon—even more than that. More than taking Selina’s energy. As I drink in Fenix’s power, I realise there’s too much, and I can’t turn this off.
A light begins to glow around me.
No. I’m the light. Novandia’s power is rising against my own. Fighting.
It’s too much. I can’t let it go.
“Ever!” The high-pitched wail of the Usher is the last thing I hear as the streams of power reach him and don’t stop to take from him, too. They wrap around and smother him, drawing Novandia’s power out because I can recognise it now. The difference. The change between both God and Goddess.
And it’s terrifying.
My eyes scan the sky as my body starts to burn.
All the images, all the memories, scatter in front of my eyes. Stars, darkness, flames, trees… image after image, they collide and shift, over and over. Faster and faster.
