Page 172 of Bound By Fury

She’s a husk. Skin and bones. Like she’s been drained of life.

I rip the tape from her mouth with one swift tug before laying her on her back and shoving two fingers against her throat in search of a pulse. It’s there, but it’s thready.

I place my hands on the sides of her face. Her eyes flutter for only a moment.

“Please,” I beg. “Please don’t go!”

Her hand rests on my arm.

Her lips move, but I can’t hear her over the chaos surrounding me.

“Ma’am?” I lower my ear to her mouth.

Her voice is so quiet that I can’t be sure what she says.

“Syphon…,” she croaks, and my head snaps up to where Lucas looms above us, practically glowing. Vines erupt from the ground and twist around his body like anacondas.

Earth magic. I glance at Maureen, and it’s like something clicks into place. Lucas has drained her of her renewed power brought on by my catalyst. She never even got a chance to feel it. To wield it as she always wanted.

When I look back down, her eyes are frozen. Eternally fixed on the stars peeking through the slanted skylight.

There’s no time to cry. To mourn.

“Harper,” Lucas breathes. “What… I feel…” His eyes are not his eyes. The twist of his mouth, that isn’t him either. I scramble back, standing and spinning as I search the room for anyone with any goddamn sense. Instead I’m faced with Guardians and Alastair, his mouth wide open as he stares at his son.

“How is that possible?” he marvels, his palms turning upward, a string of unintelligible prayers falling from his lips. “I always suspected, but I was never sure…”

In the distance Kai’s gaze meets mine, his cheeks pink, his chest heaving, desperation written all over his face.

He’s just as confused as I am.

From the side a hooded Guardian’s fist flies toward Kai’s face, and he ducks just in time.

I take off again, crisscrossing through the pews, and as the Guardians close in on me, I turn to face them.

I can feel it.

I picture a storm, massive and rushing through the sky. The air around me cools as the wind picks up, whipping, rotating like a hurricane. Thunder crashes in the distance.

I pocket the grief rocketing through me once again. Burning the image of Maureen from my mind.

I am fated.

And these freaks are about to learn exactly what that means.

Now when I reach for my magic, it’s near endless. Overwhelming. Like if I’m not careful, I might accidently flood the whole world.

I open my eyes and grin when I see the look on Lucas’s face. Despite the vines crawling along his skin, he’s scared of what he sees.

And he should be.

“This is going to be fun,” I say, thrusting my hands out and releasing my light.

He freezes, his head cocking at an uncanny angle before he moves, lightning quick, dodging the strike as he flings his hand out and matches me magic for magic. Maureen’s stolen ability manifests in thick ropes of thorned ivy that creep up through the chapel floor and wrap around my legs.

If Lucas was able to syphon her power, then that confirms what I already suspected. I really am the last Cardinal. My emotions are slippery and strange. Relief because this means I succeeded in reaching my catalyst before the century’s end. Grief because Maureen is gone. Fear that I won’t survive long enough for any of this to matter much anyway.

I yank my feet from Lucas’s vines, breaking them as the Guardians form a circle around me. Somewhere in the distance Kai has taken care of the hunter he was fighting. Now he and Alastair circle each other with fists raised, shadows snaking from Alastair like extra limbs.