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The impact never came.
Instead, something hot and unfamiliar, but equally empowering, burst like a dam inside her. It felt as though her blood burned and her skin tingled. Each breath was electric, each beat of her heart like thunder in her ears. She felt a little dizzy for a second.
The sound of a hard, heavy thud, like a solid body hitting compacted dirt, drew her attention from her self-examination. Rochelle realized only then that she hadn’t been cut. That something had repelled her attacker completely.
She spotted him on his back in the middle of the roadway, arms splayed, sword more than a foot from his open hand. He was groaning as if he were in pain.
Rochelle looked around, searching for the explanation, and found the mother gaping up at her with astonished eyes.
“Y-youcanuse magic,” the mother said.
Chapter Two
Rochelle gaped down at the brightly glowing magical circle centered beneath her feet. Long, narrow ovals occupied the bulk of the circle, giving it the illusion of flower petals spiraling out from the tips of the star in the center. The dual-tipped, seven-pointed star in the center. Writing that looked like runes was staggered along the outer ring at regular intervals. The overall shape very much resembled what she remembered of the magical circles from the anime, and the few circles she’d seen since coming to Corast. But this one was hers.
That was impossible. It had to be impossible. How couldshedo magic?
A strained, angry groan from the roadway grounded her panicking mind. Those questions, however ultimately important, didn’t yet matter. What mattered was figuring out how she could use her newfound power to her advantage. To keep herself, and as many others as possible, alive.
Rochelle studied the warrior she’d apparently knocked back but not unconscious. Without having proper training, there was no way she could use her magic to heal the girl still bleeding just feet away. But she couldn’t run off in search of help—if there even was any to be found—and leave this monster with them. There was no doubt in her mind he would kill them. If he was functional.
An image popped into her mind. She had no idea if she could do it. But she hadn’t thought she had any magic, either, so it seemed worth a try. Rochelle walked closer to him, watching as he planted his hands on the dirt road and struggled to push himself upright.
He leveled a glare at her as she neared. “Traitorous wr—”
“Lie still,” Rochelle said. She focused on envisioning the road arching up to latch onto his legs, trapping him from the knees down, pinning him in place. It was still a little jarring when the hard-packed dirt and rock split apart and reared up, doing precisely that.
He let out a shout, falling backward once more, arms flailing. Curses spewed from his mouth as he attempted to twist and claw at the rock. But she’d injured him, she suspected, when she’d sent him flying, because every time he attempted to twist and squirm pain overtook his expression and he changed tactics.
Rochelle angled around him, then, and lifted his sword from the dirt. She didn’t want to leave him too close to it. Instead, she walked back to the wide-eyed mother and set the weapon beside her. “I’m going to look for a healer,” she said. “Use this if you need to defend yourself while I’m gone. I swear, I’ll come back.”
More tears rolled down the mother’s cheeks. “Thank you. Thank you.”
Rochelle offered the best smile she could before turning and running away, past the still-shouting-and-cursing foreign warrior. She ran farther away from the ever-encroaching series of building fires and their heavy smoke plumes. Except, she realized quickly, there was only so far away from the fires she could get. It wasn’t just the market street that had been targeted. Or perhaps the targets hadn’t been so organized at all.
Her feet faltered when she realized Corast’s revered meditation altar had also been destroyed. The open-air structure was half-demolished, the surrounding seasonal garden hacked up and set aflame. She’d never been overly religious in her old world, but she knew what that space meant to her new neighbors. It even hurt her to see the once-pristine stone altar that way.
Rochelle balled her fists at her sides and kept moving. Smoke was everywhere now, covering the village as far as she could see and making it harder to breathe. Every now and then she caught glimpses of movement, or thought she heard crying, but she never found a source. She never found another person as she continued toward Corast Hall, where the village held seasonal celebrations and every important meeting. It seemed as logical a place to search for help as any.
She could see the roof of the Hall when she heard something that made her stop in her tracks. Rochelle turned to look down the side street she’d been passing, anxiety twisting her heart.
Two more Zrynian warriors, nearly identical in size and clothing, stood in the middle of the road. On either side of them was a small pile of mangled, bleeding flesh … bodies. Those were bodies, heaped together. Hacked up. Unrecognizable. A tuft of brown hair caught in a breeze, tugging upward, but something like the stub of an arm was tossed over where the head surely had to be, preventing Rochelle from seeing the person’s face. She couldn’t see a single face, aside from the profiles of the men standing over them. Their hands gripped bladed weapons that still dripped with blood.
Her stomach rolled at the repulsive sight, but indignant anger surged within her simultaneously. “Stop!” The word tore from her in a scream as one of the warriors raised his double-sided axe as if to strike again.
Both monsters turned her way. The one with the shorter, serrated blade and crooked nose tilted his head as he eyed her up and down. “You would dare interfere? You, disloyal wench?” He sneered and held his dagger toward her, angled sideways so the smoke-filtered sun glinted off the bloodied blade. “You even allowed these filthy, magic-loving harlots to infect you!”
Something between a laugh and a grunt alerted Rochelle to another presence coming up behind her, from her left. The direction she’d been headed. But even as she adjusted to see the newcomer, he was speaking, and it was clear his words were not for her. “That may be the first time anyone’s called me a harlot. It’s almost funny.” Except there was no amusement in his strong, smooth tone. No amusement lightened his face as his striking—glowing, even—green eyes narrowed into a glare. He was tall, easily over six feet, with a full head of somewhat wild jet-black hair, including sweeping bangs that tickled his brow line. Somehow, he looked both gorgeous and deadly.
Rochelle was sure she hadn’t seen him around Corast before. He was too clean and crisp—too immediately impressive—to blend into the background. But she was struck by the sense of having seen himsomewhere. It was distracting.
“Another one, huh?”
Rochelle didn’t recognize the voice, but when she looked, she realized it was the axe-wielder who’d spoken.
He stepped closer, coming around the pile of corpses. “What, you think it’s a fair fight, now that there’s two of you?” He rolled his neck and twirled his axe until the pommel landed in his other palm, giving him a two-handed grip.
Beside him, his companion slid a foot back in the dirt and dropped into a crouch, preparing for a fight.
