Page 118 of Wings of Destruction

Scorch it.

Scorch everything standing in my way and scorch Evie right along with it. I straighten, breathing in sharply, and throw the broom down.

I can’t escape the mines. There’s no way out of it no matter how many escape routes I’ve plotted or how many half-reasoned plans I form. I might as well make it count. I will go down my way instead of tiptoeing over glass shards.

Evie and her gang erupt in peals of laughter and the sound cuts off the moment I bury my knuckles in her throat.

Her eyes widen, her hands rising to her throat as she chokes. The rest of her friends stop laughing and, in their hush, I launch myself at her, our chests colliding.

I’ll bury her.

I’ll make Evie regret ever seeking me out or any foul words she’d waited to launch at me. My mother is dead. My sister, Fallkirk, everyone I’ve ever cared about is gone.

And she wants to call it a necessary culling? A cleaning out of a dirty stable?

I punch her again in the temple and her head snaps to the side satisfyingly. But Evie recovers quickly and rushes forward, her arms coming around my midsection. She uses her weight to send us both to the floor and I land hard on my spine, the wind knocked out of me.

The fight goes from zero to intense in the span of a heartbeat. Evie slams her head against mine hard enough to have broken my nose if I hadn’t twisted to the side at the last minute. Her skull cracks against my ear, white-hot pain exploding through my head.

She’s quick, landing some serious blows. I taste blood.

Quick, small, and a little unhinged. Her perfected and utterly fake smile is gone, replaced by something wide and real and toothy. Her eyes are wild as she goes for my neck to squeeze the air out of my lungs.

I buck underneath her, throwing her off balance before she has a chance to get her knees on either side of my hips. The motion sways her and her fingers lock around my neck. I roll her to her side, grinding my elbow into her ribs until she yelps.

Instead of backing off, Evie pummels, landing three rapid punches to my ribs hard enough to break them.

“I’ve been training for years!” She laughs again. “Don’t you get it?”

What I know is that she fights like a little tornado. She might have the training, but she doesn’t understand loss or rage or emptiness. She doesn’t know what it’s like to be an orphan.

“You. Can’t. Beat. Me!”

Evie’s got the look of the well coddled.

Not for long.

I throw my frustration and fury into my next punch and the skin over her cheekbone splits. Blood gushes from the wound.

I push off of her, our positions reversed, and grind my knees down. Locking them over her and using my bodyweight to keep Evie pinned to the floor. Everything comes pouring out of me, directly into the other girl’s face in a hail of punches.

There’s nothing and no one except for Evie’s bloody face. Her laughter dissolves slowly. I can’t hear it. Not outside of the storm in my ears.

Then I lose myself to the rage.

Twenty-Five

Kieran

Astrid does a horrible job of disguising her amusement at my expense. As does Mozi. His dragon roar of laughter shakes the quivering trees beneath us and sends several stray pebbles catapulting off the rock edge.

“I’m a joke to you?” I grind out.

“Not a joke, per se. But a source of delight? Regularly,” Astrid says. She presses her hand to her gut. “You really didn’t know?”

I think you didn’t want to know. If you’re in the market for my opinion.

Sickening heat floods my system in a combination of embarrassment and realization. I’m not.