“My magic might not be all special,” Jaden continued. “But it’s the one thing Idon’tshare.”
Nate snorted, clearly not impressed.
“I’m curious about your parents,” Jaden continued, turning his attention on me. “Did they also have fire magic like you? Or were they both ungifted?”
Lionel clenched his teeth audibly.
“I wouldn’t know,” I murmured. “I was young when they passed.”
“Oh, my bad.” Jaden’s tone shifted, leaving us in silence once more.
The forest ended abruptly, giving way to an open stretch of grey sand. Further away, a dark mist coiled like smoke.
Like a line between worlds.
“Looks friendly,” Eve said sarcastically.
“Stay sharp,” I told them, tightening the strap across my chest.
As my first step carried me over the grey dune of the Demon Lands, I felt Malakai’s presence just behind me, silent, patient, and impossibly close.
The land beyond the border didn’t breathe the same way ours did.
Grey sand stretched out in long, rippling waves, every step sinking with a soft hiss. The air hung thick, the mist coiling low around our boots. Even the wind refused to move.
No birds. No insects. Just the hollow crunch of our footsteps.
“Anyone else feel like we shouldn’t be here?” Ashley whispered.
Eve answered without lowering her rifle. “Congratulations, you have instincts.”
“Nothing’s moving. Not even the mist,” Lionel said, scanning the horizon through his scope.
“That’s the problem,” Nate murmured. “The stillness.”
I glanced back at Malakai, his head slightly bowed, eyes half-lidded like he was listening to something no one else could hear. The ropes around his wrists were still holding.
“You smell something?” I asked under my breath.
He nodded once. “They’re close.”
We pressed on, the silence thickening until even the smallest sound felt like blasphemy. My magic prickled beneath my skin, restless and hungry. I caught Lionel watching me from the corner of his eye, his knuckles white around his rifle.
Suddenly, Malakai stopped. “Something’s coming.”
The mist moved first, tightening, then splitting open in a dozen places at once.
Figures poured out of it like oil given solid form, humanoid, but wrong. Their bodies shimmered between shapes, flickering faces that mimicked ours, then twisted back into faceless shadows. After them came the elemental demons, born of earth, flame, water, and air, bound by the dark.
“Positions!” I shouted.
Eve dropped to a knee, rifle up, and Ashley began pulling pins with her teeth. Nate drew steel, positioning his back against Ashley’s as demons encircled us from behind as well. Jaden slammed his palms into the ground, sand coalescing into a wave of stone surging up to form a barricade.
Malakai stood still, as we watched the demons hesitate, their attention snapping to him like hounds catching a scent. The air filled with hostility.
“They’re focusing on me,” he said, voice low, almost calm. “They know what I am.”
“Then make them regret it!” Ashley yelled, lighting a bomb and hurling it into the mist.
