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Rage and sorrow warred within me, grief nearly choking me with its intensity.
But even as he spoke, the snapping sounds grew louder, more insistent. Suddenly, my weight was too much for the sabotaged equipment to bear. With a final, sickening snap, the mushroom hook gave way, and I plummeted through the air.
"¡Carmen, aguas!” Santiago shouted, his voice cracking with fear. I could see in his eyes that he knew the gravity of my situation.
But there was nothing I could do. As I plummeted toward the jagged rocks below, time seemed to slow down. Each beat hammered against my ribs like a desperate plea to go back and undo this terrible mistake. At that moment, I decided.
The game was no longer just about winning or losing.
It was about vengeance. I would kill Isaac for real next time.
Closing my eyes and keeping my limbs close, I braced myself for the inevitable impact. When it came, the pain was blinding, white-hot daggers shooting through my entire body as my back collided with the unforgiving terrain. A guttural scream tore from my lips, the raw agony reverberating throughout the desolate landscape.
"¡Carmen!" Santiago's voice broke through the haze of pain as he scrambled down to my side, his eyes wide with horror. "No te muevas, por favor."
He never called me much of anything, but I thought of Magda when he called me Carmen. That was seconds before I sank into my consciousness. I grasped for the golden magic, biting my thumb, but I was tired.
The depth of power I'd felt the other night was gone, vanished. I was dying.
I felt as though I was sinking into the earth, and a new power rose from under the ground. More rumbles shook my broken body, and the heat scalding me through the dirt seeped into my skin.
My skin was gold, but my magic was weak. Everything was painful and oversensitive to the sunlight, the air. Pain blossomed all around me. I was going to go into hibernation, and I would probably die. My lungs filled with blood, my heart aching with the need for air. Blood dripped from my crushed arm.
I tasted molten iron.
I let my bloody hand fall to the ground, my whole body relaxing as the magic dripped off me.
The rumbling beneath us intensified, and a horrible groaning sound, like the movement of an enormous stone, came around us. It was a constant presence in my skull, like a voice continually muttering. It grew so loud that I wanted to cover my ears but couldn't move.
Santiago yelled, but the rumbling and groaning drowned out all other sounds. My body stitched itself together, but I could barely stay awake. I barely registered how my partner tried to move me before Santiago fell back.
He knew better than most that my blood burned.
A pressure built up inside me, expanding and bubbling until my eyes finally opened. Blood and water, sweat and fear, ash and dirt. I felt them all with sharp detail.
The air above us was black.
Chapter29
Marvel And Horror
The ground shuddered beneath me, jolting my broken body in agonizing ways. Panic set in as I struggled to breathe, each inhale feeling like a knife stabbing into my chest. Instinctively, I tried to crawl away from the impending danger, but my limbs refused to cooperate.
The sky above us cracked like a broken mirror, shards of sunlight splintering through the thick, bruise-colored clouds that had filled the sky. This wasn't supposed to happen.
The power pushed against my insides, begging to be let out.
As the last remnants of pain retreated into memory, the ground beneath me trembled with a deepening growl. I saw the once-dormant volcano, La Dama, roaring to life. Vapor billowed and intermingled with an angry sky, painting it in shades of despair.
"El volcán,” I gasped. Santiago's light brown eyes met mine, a flicker of determination igniting within them.
The pain from my broken rib momentarily eased, and I jolted. "Santiago."
"Shh, I'm here. I'm trying to move you," he was panting heavily. My legs felt as though they were encased in molten iron, but I fought against the urge to black out. Something was wrong. I wasn't healing correctly.
The air thickened, the heat searing my lungs with each desperate gasp. I fought back tears, struggling to blink away the air that stung my eyes.
Suddenly, the healing started up again, powerful and strong. It was as though the Key Bearer had reached out and touched my very soul, amplifying my magic and making it more potent than ever before.
