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“Vorikaz.”
Arluin flings the remnants of his shield toward me. I have no chance to escape.
Obsidian chains wrap around me. Their grip tightens, squeezing the life from my chest. I can’t feel even the slightest trace of magic in the air. Nor can I feel the aether in my blood.
Being cut off from my magic is as jarring as losing my sense of taste or touch.
Arluin paces toward my father, who is barely back on his feet and is significantly weakened from the shadow bolt.
Restrained by these obsidian chains, there is nothing I can do to save him.
“Ignira,” my father hisses, fueling his spell with all the magic he can gather. Deep lines of strain contort his brow.
“Rivus!”
Arluin meets my father’s attack with a bolt of darkness. The two forces of magic collide, and their impact is so great it tears through the air. Wind slams into me. If not for the chains holding me firmly in place, the gale would likely throw me from the Aether Tower.
Both spells annihilate each other. But the attack cost my father much more strength.
He sways in the wind. His energy is so spent he struggles to keep himself upright.
Yet he fights on.
“Gelu’gladis!”He spins aether into ice magic and draws it out into a frozen sword. Blade first, he launches it at Arluin.
“Arisga!” A force of darkness rushes from Arluin’s fingers, and it slings the sword aside. It clatters onto the stone and shatters into tiny fragments of ice.
“Zadvuk!”
Dark magic hurls at my father, taking the shape of an enormous hand. Shadowy fingers close around his throat.
My father chokes as the phantom hand lifts him by several feet and squeezes the air from his lungs. He tears at the spectral fingers strangling him and desperately tries to free himself. His eyes bulge from their sockets, and life drains out of him.
Though my father tries to draw on his magic, only tiny wisps of aether form—not enough to interrupt the shadowy hand.
Arluin squeezes his fist tighter. The spell chokes my father more forcefully.
He stalks nearer and raises his dagger. The gnarled blade glistens in the pallid moonlight.
“Father!” I shriek, battling my restraints. But struggling tightens the chains. They dig in so deeply that I fear my ribcage will fracture.
If only I could do something. If only I were not so helpless.
I squeeze my eyes shut and fight the dark magic which suppresses the aether in my blood. No matter how hard I try, I’m unable to sense even the faintest trace of my magic.
“Father!” I cry again. My voice falters, despair suffocating me.
My father’s blood-shot eyes flicker toward me. He chokes out something which sounds like my name. His crystalline staff tumbles from his fingers. It rolls across the stone and halts at my feet. If only I could retrieve it. Maybe then I could use it to save him.
But I can’t move. I can’t do anything. Except watch.
Arluin stops before my father. He regards his dagger and twirls it in his fingers. Scorn contorts his lips. “Enjoy an afterlife of servitude, Telric.”
Then he plunges the dagger through my father’s heart.
I scream.
I scream so loudly my throat emits no sound.
