Fire shot through my chest, and the dragon within me screamed in agony.
Of all the things, why had they taken my angelic magic?
The clouds churned in the sky above. My foggy mind drifted. Different clouds appeared, clouds from a day centuries ago. I was either hallucinating or dead.
Ancient memories overtook my mind as I drifted out of consciousness. I was no longer lying on this gods-forsaken chunk of ice, but bleeding in the hard dirt, the last fragments of my soul barely clinging to my mortal body. My enemies lay strewn around me. Carnage. A massacre. I’d fought like a madman, but in the end, they’d brought me down.
I turned my head and choked as blood seeped from the corners of my mouth. My city still stood. That was all that mattered. They had hated me here, ostracized me for being a FireSoul. But in the end, I’d been able to save them. Save the kind few, amongst the bad.
It was a worthy death.
“You must decide,” a voice boomed overhead. Though this was just a memory, it was as clear as the day it had happened.
My head rolled back to the heavens. The radiant angel loomed over me, pestering me with his questions.
Would he not let me die in peace? Bring an end to my dark and corrupt life?
A second angel joined his side. “We have asked you for the last time. Either rise and join our ranks as one of the angels or release your mortal coil and depart for the netherworld. You must choose.”
I tried to speak, but the only sound was a rasping gurgle.
The first angel knelt. “You are a brave warrior and strong of spirit to fight your inner dragon for so long. The path of the angels is not kind, one of arduous toil and heartbreak. If you are not strong enough to watch the world tear itself apart, then you should pass on to the next world. The choice is yours.”
They were too radiant to look at, and I had to avert my eyes.
“Let us leave him, Nathaniel,” the second angel said.
“Choose,” the angel commanded.
The dragon in my soul screamed with fury. This didn’t have to be the end. There was something more it needed, that it craved, and I hadn’t yet found it.
So be it.
Pain wracked my body as I rolled to my front, slumping face first in the bloody soil. I shoved myself upward but collapsed to my knees. My chest heaved as I rammed my blade into the barren soil and pushed myself up, standing straight and proud before the assembled angels.
“Choose.” Nathaniel’s word echoed across time like he was standing before me now.
I had chosen life on that day, long ago. That last spark of my soul had dragged me to my feet, and I had become a being of light. An angel.
Choose. Nathaniel’s voice resounded in my mind.
It had been a choice. The Watchers had done nothing to make me an angel. I had made myself.
A desperate hope tugged at me.
Could they have truly taken my angelic power away?
The djinn had laughed when I’d wished to no longer be a FireSoul. He’d said that no magic in heaven or on earth could change what I was—and I was an angel, as much as I was a FireSoul.
I hadn’t given up on that dusty battlefield all those years ago, and I wouldn’t give up now. Neve was up there, somewhere in the sky. The only person who mattered. The thing my dragon had craved for centuries on end. And she was fighting for her life.
Agony lanced my soul. I wouldn’t let her down. I would protect. I would defend. I had risen once before, and I would do it again.
Rolling onto my side, I growled as I shoved myself to my knees, rejecting failure. Rejecting death.
And with that act of defiance, my angelic powers awoke.
Magic roared through me, fire in my veins. My bones snapped together, and my wounds shut with bursts of flame. I shoved the spear through my body and out my back, wincing as my flesh knit itself together.
I was an angel, reborn. I looked to the sky. Neve was up there. Her spirit called to me, pulling on my soul. A high-tension cable. A chain that could never be broken.
I searched for Matthias with my dragon sense. He was far from her—but closing in impossibly fast.
Anger poured through me like wildfire—flames of an unquenchable thirst. I would protect her, no matter the cost.
Power surged through me, and I roared at the heavens as pain wracked my body and a pair of burning wings ripped free from my back.
I was no longer an angel of light or dark, but of fire and vengeance.
And my vengeance would not be denied. I leapt into the sky.
Neve
The hurricane tightened around us like a noose.
The wind screamed in my ears and ripped chunks of ice from the ground. Shattered fragments spun around us like a cloud of daggers.
Neither angel nor demon could fly.
Rhiannon screamed as she slipped and slid across the ice, but Nathaniel was at her side in a second. He rammed his blade into the ground as an anchor and summoned a golden shield from the ether, raising it over their heads to block the deadly onslaught of ice shards.
Ethan dropped down beside them, and more angels landed nearby. Anchoring themselves with their blades, they raised their shields to create a glinting wall of gold in the face of the storm.
Splinters of ice whipped toward me like spears, but I deflected them with an explosion of wind.
An angel ran for me, but I shook my head. I wouldn’t cower before the djinn. I could hear his laughter in the thunder. His hubris. He sickened me, and I wouldn’t let him take what was mine.
And the sky was mine. The wind was mine.
I spoke the name of the storm and felt power surge through my veins. Then with a gust, my body was no more. I was a cyclone amidst the hurricane.
I poured my anger into the wind. The djinn’s magic spun around me, so I spun the other way, grinding against his power like a wheel against a blade. I would grind him into nothing.
My power swelled and pushed outward, creating a calm around my allies. I pushed harder as the djinn shoved back, and the island shook and shattered as we battered against each other.
The djinn howled and released a barrage of lightning bolts through the sky, but they meant nothing to me. I was a storm. The only thing that mattered was which of us was stronger and would remain.
I had no mercy for him. Damian had given him his freedom once, and he’d used it to rampage. He’d abducted Rhiannon. And now he served Matthias with a hatred for all beings.
He had a truly twisted heart. And I would tear it apart.
Ethan shouted as demons flooded out of the gateway like a plague of rats. He hadn’t been able to finish breaking the spell.
Nathaniel and the angels formed a wall, swinging their blades with deadly efficiency as demon corpses dropped to the ground below, smoke rising from their cuts and severed limbs. Time pulsed as Rhiannon slowed the monsters and aided the strikes of the angels, but I knew if I did nothing more, they’d soon be overrun.
Thunder cracked and ice exploded as the djinn launched bolts of lightning into the fray. One of the angels screamed and plunged from the sky—a haunting noise that I would never forget.
Rage consumed me. It was time to destroy. “Spark, I need your fire!”
I’m here.
The sprite appeared for a single moment, then disappeared as his magic flowed through me, like when we’d fought the hydra. We were one, and our magic was one.
I turned the winds to flame, and thunder boomed as a firestorm erupted around me. The flying chunks of ice burst into steam, and the island began to melt below. The conflagration roared and spread, feeding on the djinn’s magic, devouring his power.
He screamed, and I felt the hurricane weaken. And then it ceased.
The djinn fled across the sky.
Spark’s voice flickered in my mind like a sputtering candle. Finish him. I’ve got a little juice left.
I released the cyclone of fire, and the flames flickered into the sky. I became myself again and flew afte
r the bastard who had begun it all, who’d captured my friend, and who’d tried to kill me again and again. But I’d defeated his windstorm, and I would defeat him. I was stronger.
Fueled by Spark’s power, I shot through the air like a flaming comet and slammed into the djinn with my dagger drawn. I poured the rest of Spark’s magic through the blade as it sunk into him. He howled, and I felt Spark’s presence vanish as he departed back to the Realm of Fire to recharge.
But it was enough.
Flames burst from the djinn’s eyes, and he dissolved into a plume of black smoke.
I gasped. It was over.
My body shook as wave after wave of exhaustion overtook me. The gateway was far away, but I could see my friends battling for their lives against the demon horde.
My heart sank. One down, ten thousand to go.
I turned to go back, but a cold voice cut into my back like a knife. A spell of binding.
Matthias.
25
Neve
I spun.
Matthias dropped from the sky on the back of a black firedrake with burning wings.
Panic speared my heart as I dodged a jet of fire. I tried to planes-walk away, but the chains of his binding spell had already wrapped around me like a noose, anchoring me to this realm. Agonizing pain tore through my chest as the spell tightened like a vice grip. My ribs felt like they were going to crack like matchsticks.
I ducked away from the drake’s massive talons and twisted underneath, shooting it with a blast of wind. But the creature was over a hundred feet long, my magic was practically useless, and I was beyond exhausted.
Anger shook my body. I wouldn’t go this way. The sky was still mine.
Summoning all my reserves of power, I flew as fast as I could toward the tower. It was probably filled with a ton of demons, but the firedrake couldn’t follow me in there, and it was my primary concern right now. As well as the bastard casting spells from its back, of course.
A burst of flame arced across my body, and I screamed as I rolled right. The drake was almost on me, and its jaws snapped inches from my head.
Fates be damned, was he trying to kill me or capture me?
Pain erupted through my legs as the creature’s tail crashed into me. Both, it seemed.
I dove down to avoid another jet of fire, but for all my effort, I couldn’t shake them. The words of Matthias’s spell wrapped around me. It siphoned my magic and used the power to bind me, so the bonds grew stronger as I grew weaker.
I knew exactly how it worked—I’d used it to bind the djinn. And unfortunately, Matthias was far more experienced than I’d been.
I strained to get ahead, but the firedrake was too fast, and the invisible chains strengthened, link by link.
The monster’s tail lashed at me again with its poisoned barb. I dodged but spun out of control. It was on me in a second. A massive claw closed around my waist, and I screamed as the wind burst from my lungs.
Fighting for consciousness, I summoned my khanjar and sank it into the drake’s massive claw again and again, but it was useless. I was a mosquito. The claws tightened as its searing blood poured over me. The bastard had me.
I blasted the enormous beast with wind to no avail.
Matthias hadn’t stopped chanting. I could barely hear his voice above the roar of the wind, but I didn’t need to hear the spell to know that it was working just as he’d planned.
A translucent collar formed around my throat, and horror flooded my veins. It was almost done. If only I had Spark’s fire magic right now. I’d blow myself to smithereens if it meant escaping Matthias’s bonds.
A black spear flew across my field of vision and rammed into the side of the drake. The beast roared as ice magic crackled over its scales.
Damian dropped out of the sky, an avenging angel with burning eyes and wings.
My gods. What in the fates had happened to Damian?
Joy cascaded through my heart, and then agony as the drake crushed me in its claws. I gasped in pain as several of my ribs cracked. Gods make it end.
Damian was a blur.
He soared through the air, and with one savage stroke of his burning blade, he sliced through the monster’s foot. Black blood sprayed across me, scalding my flesh, but the claw released, and I plummeted through the sky.
The monster’s screech ripped through the air behind me like shattering glass.
A burst of hail exploded from Damian’s hands and blasted Matthias off the back of his mount.
Matthias howled in pain, and the spell broke.
Holy fates. I was free.
Rage surged through me like a churning river. Pulling my khanjar from the ether, I shot forward for the kill, but the drake wheeled and slammed its wing into me like a shield. I tried to scream but the pain from my ribs was too much, and I doubled over. The dagger flew from my hand and disappeared as I spun head over heels. This was not helping matters.
Gritting my teeth against the gods awful pain, I pulled out of the spin in time to see Damian dive for Matthias, ice spear raised for the kill.
Then the vicious barb of the drake’s tail dug into his back and wrenched him into the sky. The enormous monster’s head shot out and clamped down on Damian’s legs.
Damian roared with a primal rage and rammed the spear into the monster’s eye. Flames billowed from its mouth, but its grip on Damian didn’t release as they plummeted downward through the sky.
Shock cascaded over me like a tidal wave.
“Planes-walk!” I screamed as I dove after them, channeling my power to make my voice boom through the air.
I hated to leave, but it was our only choice. Closing my eyes, I drew on my bond with Spark and imagined the Realm of Fire because that’s where Damian would be.
The cosmos spun around me, then my body jerked as Matthias’s spell wrapped around me, pulling me back from the brink of escape.
My heart wrenched as I saw the drake spiraling down with Damian. He hadn’t planes-walked.
And just like that, they disappeared.
I whirled around, clutching my throbbing ribs and reaching for the transport charm in my pocket.
Matthias hovered in the air ahead, a look of triumph on his face. With the flick of his hand, he tore the charm from my grasp and flung it through the air.
“You asshole!” I screamed, unleashing a jet of wind. He snapped his wings and easily darted away.
Smiling, he held up his enchanted bottle and beckoned with his hand.
I strained against his bonds and flew wildly though the air, but he followed easily. I could barely breathe from the broken ribs, and my magic was nearly exhausted.
”Spark! I need you now!” I cried.
Trying.
His voice was far away. He hadn’t yet recovered his magic. I choked back tears, desperately looking for a way out. My stomach churned. There was only one exit from this realm—the portal to hell.
Could I get through?
Matthias’s spell tightened.
It was an insane plan, but it was my only chance to get away. Even if I couldn’t, Rhiannon was there. The angels were there.
I hoped.
I could barely make out the magical gateway flickering on the far side of the tower. Ethan had almost broken the spell. I prayed it would hold a little longer and dove past the Searing Citadel.
Something heavy slammed into my side, and pain rocketed through my broken ribs. I dropped in an uncontrolled spiral and nausea overwhelmed me. Then my body jerked to a sudden halt as a cold iron chain wrapped around my leg.
Shit, no.
It was one of the chains that anchored the Searing Citadel to the floating island of ice. Before I could react, it yanked me back, reeling me in toward the tower, obeying Matthias’s will.
I was a fish, hooked on a line.
I surged upward, my muscles straining to get away. The iron chain vibrated under the tension, and I groaned as I desperately tried to pull it free.
Matthias used his
magic to wrench another anchor chain from the ice. It shot upward and wrapped around my left leg. Then a third.
I struggled against the ice-cold iron, but the chains pulled me down toward the tower. Toward Matthias.
I looked wildly around for Damian, but he hadn’t returned. I was so close to the portal. My friends were there. Nathaniel stood amidst a ring of smoking demon corpses. He fought like a man possessed, keeping them off Ethan. Rhiannon was at his side.
I screamed for help, but my words didn’t carry. Overrun with demons, none of them looked up.
My body quaked with pain and anger. I wouldn’t be bound.
Summoning the last of my strength, I called a bolt of lightning from the clouds, attacking the stone where the chains were anchored. Thunder cracked, and chunks of obsidian exploded outward. The chain broke free, but another leapt up to take its place.
Matthias didn’t stop chanting his binding spell. With each word, my power drained away. Fatigue rolled over me, but I kept fighting. I couldn’t hear his incantation, but I knew the words by heart. He’d taught them to me, and I’d used them to bind the djinn.
The irony consumed me as smoke trailed off my skin and downward into Matthias’s bottle.
This was exactly what I’d done to the djinn.
The thing I’d feared most in the world, I’d done to another of my kind. The djinn was a monster. A kidnapper. A destroyer. But after what I’d done to him, wasn’t I?
Was this some kind of sick balance of fate?
I fought against the chains as desperation tore into me. “I wish that I couldn’t be bound!”
Nothing happened. No magic sparked within me. Of course, it wouldn’t—I couldn’t grant myself wishes. Besides, I was too drained to grant one anyway.
But I had to try.
Matthias’s spell vibrated through my body. Each word chipped away a piece of my freedom, a fragment of my soul.
In a blinding fury, I screamed the words back at Matthias, pouring bitterness and irony into each syllable, as if repeating them gave me any kind of power.
Broken Skies (Dragon's Gift: The Storm Book 4) Page 16