HAVEN
When I burst from ashes, I’m reborn.
Reborn in fire and magic.
Reborn into the creature I was always meant to be.
The power coursing through me is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. It all makes sense now. Why the demon needed me.
This magic is life. This magic is endless. This magic is strong enough to bring light to the darkest places.
Starting with the demon.
I spread my wings, magenta and purple fire blazing at the tips as I protect Becks’ broken body behind me.
My anger burns as brightly as I do. The demon will pay for that. I’ll make sure of it.
I’m larger now, vast and blazing, hovering above the demon as it cowers. The fear that once paralyzed me has burned away.
I’m no longer what the demon hunts.
I’m what hunts it.
With a loud cry, I beat my wings, sending a surge of flaming magic crashing into the demon. It shrieks as my fire tears through its dark smoke, shredding it like tissue paper.
But instead of burning away completely, the darkness splinters.
The demon stumbles back, its form blurring at the edges, unraveling into ribbons of mist and shadow. The ground blackens beneath it, cracks spiderwebbing outward as the smoke sinks into the earth.
No.
Understanding slams into me all at once.
It isn’t trying to fight me anymore.
It’s trying to flee.
My fire scorches through what remains of its body, but the darkness keeps slipping through, bleeding into the forest, seeping between roots and stone, thinning into a substance I can’t grab hold of no matter how hot I burn.
Panic flares, sharp and unwanted.
I’m powerful, but I don’t know how to stop it.
If it escapes now, wounded and furious, it will survive. It will heal. It will come back stronger. Smarter.
According to Locklyn and the Society, I can only destroy it under a blood moon. If it escapes now, it will rain two years of terror and horror down on people.
This is my chance. I have to stop it now, and for good.
I dive after it, fire slamming into the ground in another blazing strike, but the demon is already unraveling, its laughter echoing thin and broken through the smoke.
“You can’t cage darkness,” it hisses.
No. No!
Suddenly, shadows surge up from the forest floor, thick and deliberate, wrapping around the demon’s escaping form and yanking it violently back into itself.
Imogen bursts from the trees, blood streaking her face, her magic flaring dark and vicious as she snarls, “Like hell we can’t.”
