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I bit my tongue to keep from cursing at the burn.
“You might be a strong witch, but you have never been good at actual fighting without magic.”
I didn’t get to reply as Tate came at me again. Once more, I froze him and moved, waiting for Tala to come again. But she didn’t back up.
“Remember what I told you about fighting, Druella? It’s catching them off guard. Waiting to strike, making them exhaust themselves.”
This time, they both charged at me. But it was a distraction, hiding in the smoke, moving with the flames, were Rue and Faye. I could not see them, but I felt them enough to know.
“Stop,” I whispered and moved toward the fire beside me. I felt Rue’s magic and grabbed her. “Go.”
Her eyes widened as I gripped her.
“I do not have time to waste. I was waiting for more of you, but this will do.”
“Let go of me—”
Squeezing harder, I grabbed and threw her toward the others. With two fingers, I flung Faye over into the center and into Tala and Tate.
“Faye Whitmore, Tate Blackwood, Tala Blackwood, Rue Umbra, I bind you!” I screamed out against the wall of fire rising around us.
“You bitch—” Rue screamed, trying to get up and fighting against the wind that rushed the grass tops.
“May your magic dwindle, and may the gifts upon the earth find you not of their worth.”
“Druella!” Tate spat out with rage. The veins in his neck showed under his skin, his face red, as he fought to rise to his feet. “You will not get away with this! You are no goddess! You do not have infinite magic! The earth will not stand for this! There must always be balance! You curse us, and you curse yourself! You destroy yourself!”
“That is all part of the plan,” I whispered, holding both my hands out. “May the gifts upon the earth find you not of their worth. I bind you under the moon! I bind you under the sun! I bind you under all the heavens and over all earth—”
“Ah!” I cried out, glancing down at the snake on my leg. Burning it off me, I searched for Jericho, only to feel the heat of his whip across my side, nearly sending me off the cliff.
“You really came here on your own?” His voice made my skin crawl and my stomach turn. “Is it hubris or arrogance that makes you believe in yourself as you do?”
I grinned, pushing myself off the ground. “You used to have that much faith and more in me, Uncle.”
“And see how foolish that belief has left me.”
My vision was blurred but not so much that I couldn’t see him, standing with the wall of fire behind him, lightning in his hands. I waited, but I didn’t see the ghost of Magdalena at his side for some reason.
“Foolish is the politest thing to call you,” I spat out furiously, breaking my promise to myself as a tear slipped from my eyes. “Do you know what the book calls you? The twin of night, full of bitterness and jealousy, rejected by both my magic and my mom—”
“And yet here my magic is!” he hollered once more, cracking the whip and sending it toward me.
But I grabbed it, even as it burned the skin on my hands. “Your magic? You have no magic! You’re a thief!” I screamed, yanking it from him and whipping it right across his face. “You murderer!”
I wanted to slice him in half. Blinded by my rage, I didn’t realize Adelaide was behind me until it was too late, the vines wrapping around my neck and yanking me back to the earth. I reached up to my neck, ripping them off, only to be bitten again by his damn snakes, on my arms, my neck, my legs, causing me to buckle to my knees. The poison, boiling my blood from the inside out.
“Enough, Jericho!” said my Uncle Axel, and it was only then that was I able to see as he walked toward me, my circle behind him, protecting him…the other elders coming as well, trying to burn it all.
He grabbed my chin, whispering to me, “You have always taken the worst after your parents. Soft-hearted like your mother. She pitied vampires and wanted to save them. And arrogant like your father, believing he could do it all just because he was born blessed with so much magic. Their magic was wasted on them as it is you. Where is the book?”
“When the era of weeping and darkness is upon us, she will uplift the sun in one hand and then crush night with the other.” I smiled, leaning forward to him. “The night is you, Uncle.”
His eyes widened as he took in the truth.
The magic swirled in my hands, the restraints and ties on me gone in an instant as I blew a hole through his heart.
“Axel!” Mrs. Reyes screamed, rushing to me, all of them coming to me.
