Page 170 of Bound By Fury

Whatever I have left of my power, I give it to him.

Glowing, aster-pink light spreads from my fingers and mixes with something dark blue like billowing twilight from Kai’s core. Stunned, the shadows around us freeze.

I wait. Kai’s eyes are still glued to where his blood continues to spill.

Whatever I just tried to do—it didn’t work.

He shakes his head, acceptance flattening his features. Again.

No.

I rise on shaking legs and turn to face the hoods that surround me.

I pull for my magic. But it doesn’t come.

Maybe Kai was right. It’s all hopeless.

I’m too exhausted. Too green. Too useless.

I gave everything I had left to a dying boy.

It’s not right. None of this is right. This can’t be how it ends.

An unfathomable power in the wrong hands would be worse than death.

It would end the world as we know it.

As I reach inside myself one more time, I picture the witches surrounding us. I conjure the image of Nora, her disapproving eyes and frowning mouth. Of Gigi, of the new Twelve, I picture what the Mother must have looked like.

Help me, I urge. I beg. I cry.

At my core, something stirs.

Bordering the room, in flickering shades, are the ghosts of witches past.

I can’t hear the sneers of the hunters over the chanting in my head.

Across the room Nora’s chin dips just barely.

Her eyes don’t hold their familiar disappointment or doubt.

Instead they’re filled with something more akin to pride.

The lightest touch brushes my ankle.

I look down.

Kai peers up at me with juniper eyes, his fingers prodding his belly. Where a gaping, bleeding hole was a moment ago, there’s now just a slightly raised scar growing fainter by the second.

“What…,” I start, relief flooding me before—

Violet light erupts from me like an atomic blast, throwing my head and arms back as I’m propelled into the air.

Time slows.

I shoot upward into the vault of the ceiling.

From up here the Guardians look like blood splatters, their eyes wide as they watch in awe.