He hasme.
I lower my hands, walking toward them, an unexplained tether panicked and fluttering in my chest.
But something catches my eye. An orange glow glinting off the reflection of water behind them.
A warmth starts crawling up my skin.
I can feel him before I see him.
Thorne’s voice is pure ice. “You think you know power?” Gone is the pretense of the concerned family friend. “This”—he gestures to Gavrail still suspended—“is nothing. I haven’t even started yet.”
“Neither have I.”
The voice comes from behind. Quiet. Deadly.
Noa.
He’s walking across the field of jagged ice, his fire already lit across his knuckles, tracing molten lines in the air as he moves—orange and gold, blinding.
He meets my eyes. I nod once.
We move together.
Noa flings fire as I summon water—our magick meeting and spinning outward in spiraling loops, catching in the air like a cyclone laced with flame and frost.
Maelflare.
The explosion knocks Thorne back. My feet brace against the ground, sliding across ice as I try to contain the storm and aim it at him. Gavrail drops from his encased prison of windand crawls to his knees, taking deep gasps of air as he gets to his feet.
Thorne snarls and stands—burned, soaked, furious. But I can see the first crack, the uncertainty and awe on his face.
Noa raises his hand. I raise mine. Gavrail’s shadows move forward. The three of us merge without speaking.
Water. Fire. Shadow.
We strike.
Noa’s fire forms a cage, Gavrail’s shadows anchor it in place, and I fill it with a tide that hardens into something heavier—shadowmire, viscous and writhing, dragging Thorne down. The tar-like magick flickers with shapes—faces, maybe, or memories.
Thorne roars and lashes out—wind slicing, slashing, raining rocks and debris in gusts around us. I hear Gavrail grunt as a small pile of boulders slams into his back and shoulder, but it isn’t enough to knock him down. My arms drip with small rivulets of blood from tiny cuts my water isn’t able to shield from, but still I hold my hands steady.
Thorne drops to his knees, sinking further into the shadowmire, which lapses around him like quicksand, the maelflare still encircling him, his wind magick snuffed out in the eye of the storm.Mystorm.Ourstorm.
Noa’s chains snap forward—freeze-fire locking Thorne’s limbs to the ground. The frost-rimmed blue flames bite into muscle without burning skin.
“Impossible,” he gasps, his eyes on all three of us working in tandem.
And then?—
“Stand down!”
The voice booms from the ridge above the bay.
Uniformed figures appear beyond the trees—Service agents, weapons drawn. Moving with practiced and lethal precision.
At their center—General Vaylor.
“Easy,” he calls, already striding toward us. His gaze flicks to Noa, measured and approving. “Good work, Officer Gallegher.” A beat. “We’ll take it from here.”
