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“Yes.”
Nodding, his pretentious smirk returned. “Prove it.”
“What do I get if I try?”
Humor returned to Raithian’s features. “You get to go back toher. I will let you go.”
His promise was sketchy as all hell, but I had no other option. I couldn’t fight him with magic, and even if I used my spear and warrior skills to fight him, I’d needed a Dragon’s help to escape him the last two times. Unfortunately, Venom was as good as gone under his control right now.
The Warlock King was smart, I had to give him that. Thanks to Tharion breaking away from his hold, he’d learned that it wasn’t enough to freeze them, he had to knock them fully unconscious instead.
“I don’t know if I can do it again,” I admitted to both of us. “It was the first time and unexpected, like something stronger than me had taken over. I wouldn’t know how—”
“Heal me, or your precious little princess will receive the pieces of your dismembered body as her upcoming birthday gift,” he seethed, his sphere glowing in response from where the staff still stood—several feet behind him. Extending his arm, he opened his hand and caught the staff the second it flew to him, pointing it at Venom. “He will die too,” Raithian vowed.
Forcing a steeling breath into the deepest part of my being, I lifted my right hand, slowly placing it over the sliced open skin of his face. Raithian’s feet touched the ground, and his weapon lowered to let me do my thing.
“If you try anything at all, I will—”
“I understand,” I growled through gritted teeth, not too fond of being threatened.
The muscles of my jaw tightened as I closed my eyes, and I tried to mimic what I had done to my father’s painting, but after a few seconds, nothing happened.
“I’m waiting, boy,” Raithian seethed.
“I am trying,” I barked.
“Try harder!”
Closing my eyes again, I placed my left hand on his head too, anger coursing through me. It irked me to no end, life on the line or not, that I was doing this for him. Wrong. I wasn’t doing this for him, I was doing this for my people. For the woman I loved, because I had to get back to her by any means necessary.
Of course, I had no idea if Raithian would keep his word and let me go, but I had to at least try.
That time, I fixated on the bastard’s untarnished face, like it had been before I attacked him in the mindscape. Conjuring the image into my mind’s eye, I recalled everything that happened in theHall of the Forgotten, trying to catch the burning feeling that consumed me with the destruction of my dad’s portrait. Not the pain of losing something else of him, but the fiery sensation it had transformed into with the pain. The birth of my magic.
A tingling of heat began to stir in my core, and holding on to that, I urged it to grow, hoping it would work. Unlike before, the feeling no longer scorched me as it grew. It was warm, yes, but surprisingly pleasant. Empowering. Focusing with all my might on it, I willed it to expand until my chest fully thrived with it.
The sensation rushed down my arms as it had the first time, possessing every cell in my body. The golden glow illuminated the darkness behind my eyelids and my eyes snapped open to find my vision completely engulfed by the light.
A loud, gasping breath escaped Raithian’s throat when the magic burst out of my fingertips and into his being. His entire body tensed, spine straightening, and his head tilted back as though a sharp current was flowing through him. My golden light engulfed his eyes.
Gold lines rushed over his skin, slithering along the wounds, and outlining the planes of his face. Magic threads formed between the edges of the carved flesh, pulling it together and absorbing the swollen, blood red marks that scarred it. Seeing the last thread become whole, fully erasing the damage as though it had never happened, I yanked my hands from him.
It was done. I had healed him.
Frantically, I tried to blink the glow away, but the golden hue that had captured my vision wouldn’t recede. Everything around me swayed and shimmered under its influence, making me dizzy. The feeling reminded me of my first night in the market, when I’d used the Dragon’s night vision, but this was far greater than that. It was that feeling but on steroids.
Lifting both hands to my eyes, I rubbed them harshly, stabbing pain reaching my eyeballs. Except, when I blinked them open once more, the golden light was still there.
What was happening?
“Your magic…” the Warlock King whispered. “It’s like nothing I have ever tasted.”
Tasted???WTF.
My tinged gaze flew towards him to find a strange look on his face while the green light flickered in his eyes, making him seem dazed. Slowly, he blinked, like he was high or something.
“It is far stronger than I imagined,” he added, licking his lips as though he’d savored something delicious.
