Page 45 of Little Witch

A creature lunged for her from the side, and I didn't think, just reacted, shadow lashing out fast enough to intercept it a foot from her throat, tearing it apart before it could land a single hit. My chest heaved. Blood ran hot down my arm, my shoulder screaming with every movement, and I still couldn't fully catch my breath before the next wave came at us, three more shapes peeling off the main mass and circling toward where she stood.

"Rowan!" I shouted, catching his eye across the chaos, blood spraying off my hand as I ripped another creature apart. "She's not moving! Something's wrong!"

He turned, and I watched the exact second he saw it too — Amber's hand closing around her locket, ripping it free in one sharp motion, magic surging off her in a wave visible enough to see even through the dark, the ground around her feet already starting to hum with something that had nothing to do with the fight around us.

"No," Rowan breathed, loud enough to carry even over the fighting. "Amber, stop!"

She didn't stop. Words started pouring from her mouth, faster and more forceful with every syllable, and the ground beneath her feet began to pulse with light, orange bleeding into blinding white. I could feel it dragging at my own magic even from here, a current strong enough to tug at the shadow still curling around my hands, like it wanted to pull every last scrap of power in the clearing toward her.

I turned back to the fight because I had to, throwing everything I had left into the wall of shadow-things still pressing in from every side, but every part of me screamed to get to her instead. A creature caught me across the ribs while I was distracted, claws sinking deep enough that I felt something crack under the impact, and I went down hard onto one knee, breath punched clean out of me, vision white for a second with the pain of it.

"Orias!" Cian's voice, sharp with panic, wind blasting the creature off me before it could finish what it started.

I forced myself back up, blood soaking through my whole side now, warm and sticky against my ribs, vision swimming at the edges every time I moved too fast. "I'm fine. Go. Help him get to her."

Cian didn't argue. He turned and fought his way toward Rowan, both of them cutting a brutal path through the last wave of creatures between them and Amber, wind and light tearing through shadow after shadow until the space around her finally started to clear enough for Rowan to close the distance.

I stayed on my feet through sheer stubbornness, tearing into whatever got close enough, ribs grinding with every twist of my body, watching the light around Amber climb brighter and hotter with every passing second, until it wasn't just glowing anymore. It was blinding. The whole clearing lit up like the sun had fallen straight out of the sky and landed exactly where she stood, heat rolling off it in waves I could feel even from a dozen feet away, strong enough to make my eyes water.

I killed one more creature almost blind, guided entirely by instinct and the sound of its snarl, and the last thing I saw clearly before I had to throw an arm up against the light was Rowan finally breaking through, hands reaching for her through a glow so bright it looked like it might swallow both of them whole and never give either of them back.

Chapter Twenty Five

The light was blinding by the time I finally broke through the last of the creatures separating me from her, heat rolling off it in waves strong enough to feel through my clothes, strong enough to sting against my eyes even squinted half shut. I didn't slow down. Couldn't. Every instinct in me had narrowed down to one single point in the whole burning clearing, and that point was Amber.

"Amber!" I screamed her name loud enough to tear something in my throat, pushing through wind and heat and the last scattered remnants of the fight to reach her.

She didn't turn. Didn't respond at all. Her eyes had gone distant, fixed on something none of the rest of us could see, her whole body rigid, her face pale and drawn in a way that scared me worse than the entire battle behind me had.

I knew exactly what was happening. She was the key. Using herself to balance the magic, to fix whatever had broken loose in this town years before either of us had understood what was actually at stake. And I knew, with a cold certainty that settled straight into my bones, exactly what that kind of magic could do to someone who wasn't ready for the weight of it.

The magic was pulling her away. Pulling her somewhere none of us could follow. If she went too far into it, there'd be nothing left to bring back.

I couldn't lose her. I refused to.

I fought through the last stretch of wind and light separating us, my hands finally closing around hers, though she didn't so much as flinch at the contact. Her eyes stayed distant, unseeing, fixed on the magic pouring out of her like it had claimed every part of her attention and left nothing behind for the rest of us.

"Amber!" I grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her gently, desperately, and got nothing back. My heart slammed against my ribs, fear closing tight around my throat. I wasn't losing her. Not now. Not after everything it had taken to get here.

I did the only thing I could think to do. I reached up, cupped her face in both hands, and forced her to face me even though her eyes stayed empty.

"Amber, come back to me." My voice shook with everything I felt for her, all of it rising up at once. I pressed my forehead to hers, breathing her in even through the smell of smoke and magic thick in the air around us. "Please, love. I need you. We need you."

Nothing. Just the crackle of magic building louder around us, the light climbing brighter, hotter, more dangerous by the second.

I closed my eyes and reached for the bond instead. The mate bond, the thread that had tied us together since the day I'd stood at our mothers' grave and felt it lock into place, deeper than magic, deeper than anything I'd ever understood before her. I poured everything I had into it — every ounce of strength left in me, every scrap of love I'd spent years too afraid to say out loud — and pushed it straight down that thread toward her.

I know you can hear me, I thought, willing it toward her with everything left in my chest. You're not alone in this. You don't have to carry it by yourself. I'm right here. We're all right here.

The light flared again, hard enough that for one terrible second I thought I'd already lost her. That she'd slip past whatever edge she was standing on and disappear into the spell completely, gone the same way Cian and Yakob had nearly been gone for years.

Then I felt it. A faint shift in the current around us. A thread pulled taut, finally responding.

"Amber," I whispered again, forehead still pressed to hers. "Come back to me. Please."

Her breath hitched. Her eyes fluttered, blinking fast, some of that terrible distance finally starting to clear as she fought her way back toward the surface. The magic still swirled thick around us, but I could see her wrestling it now, actively pulling herself back from wherever it had tried to drag her.

"Rowan..." Barely a whisper, but clear. Hers.