She stared at him, a mixture of regret and desire etched on her face. “Gray, come with me. We could do so much together.”
How could she reach out one hand toward him while stabbing me with the other? So Ivy did have a thing for Gray! But why’d she never tell me? The realization was bittersweet.
“Come with you where? Why are you attacking Emmie?” He looked back and forth between us.
At my name, all softness vanished from her expression. “Because she deserves it!” She threw another bolt of purple ice at me.
Was Ivy using Dark Magic? But she was a Water Magical.
“If I have to repeat myself again,” the man interrupted, “I shall be most displeased.” He glared at Ivy, and I shivered even though it wasn’t even directed at me.
Ivy refused to take her scorching gaze off me.
“I didn’t go through all the trouble of collecting that insipid Delegate Mastiff to have you spoil my plan before I can collect my prize.”
I looked to see if Neil was still safe. At least for the moment, he was. But when I turned back, the man was staring at me.
“What did you do to my dad?” Gray screamed. He hurled one of the shards of broken ice at him. “Give him back!”
The man chuckled and swatted the ice away like it was an annoying insect. A spark jumped from his hand, turning the ice into powder that drifted harmlessly to the ground.
That’s what we were to him. Little insects he could swat away. A horrible feeling settled in the pit of my stomach.
“What have you done to him?” Gray’s agonized yell sliced through the room.
“Nothing too terrible. Well, he doesn’t think so, anyway.” He smirked, “In fact, he doesn’t do a lot of thinking at all, now.”
“Shut up!” Gray charged at the man, shooting out a bolt of his own dark lightning.
“Gray, no!” I screamed. “Don’t use Dark Magic!” But it was no use.
Gray stalked toward him, hurling dark energy.
“Gray, the Dark Magic will feed on your negative energy and make it more twisted. It’s too dangerous!”
Deaf to my pleadings, he continued his attack. He didn’t have much control, so the bolts often ricocheted around the room.
Ivy gave a twisted smile of satisfaction before turning back to me. “He’s much more powerful than anyone gives him credit for.”
I shook my head. “Dark Magic’s too dangerous. It could change him. Destroy him.”
“Maybe change isn’t such a bad thing once in a while.” She took a threatening step toward me. “I changed, and look how much stronger I am.” Water gathered in her hand before hardening into a dark icicle. She twirled it between her fingers.
“What’s wrong with you, Ivy?”
“Me? What’s wrong with me? Oh, that’s rich.” She laughed, a cruel, unfamiliar sound I’d never heard before. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m better than I’ve ever been. Damon showed me the true power of Dark Magic, and it helped me realize what a fool I’ve been all these years.”
“How can you use Dark Magic? You’re a Water Magical.” Even with everything going on around me, my brain refused to let go of that tiny fact.
“He showed me ways to use magic you can’t even begin to comprehend. Oh, wait.” She laughed harshly again, and I flinched at the sound. “You never understood magic from the beginning.”
“This isn’t you,” I argued. “The Ivy I know isn’t cruel.”
“Cruel?” Her glare was as dangerous as her earlier attacks. “You’re the cruel one! For years you’ve been abusing Gray’s feelings for you.”
“What are you talking about?” I shouted back.
“Gray!” Her voice turned shrill. “He’s been in love with you for years, and you never even gave him the time of day!” She fired off a succession of balls of ice. “But you were too obsessed with his stupid brother to notice his feelings.”
“You’re wrong,” I countered breathlessly. “Gray doesn’t think of me like that.” He would’ve told me if he did. I dodged her attacks, my self-defense classes finally paying off.
“I would’ve given him everything.” She threw projectiles at me with every other word. “But he never—ever—even considered me an option, because of you.” She flung the accusation at me like another weapon. But, unlike the icicle, it struck home.
That wasn’t my best friend anymore, but who was she?
Exhaustion trickled through my body, taunting gravity. With each attack I dodged, it increased, adding weight to my fatigued muscles.
She gathered more water and nailed me in the chest with a ball of water so large, it was like a giant boulder that knocked me onto my back.
Pain shattered through my left side. My breath was trapped in my lungs.
“Emmie!” Gray took his gaze off Damon.
“No!” Ivy screamed.
Damon blasted Gray with a dark lightning bolt.
“Gray!” Ivy and I screamed at the same time.
“You promised you wouldn’t hurt him!” Tears ran down Ivy’s face, and she held one of his hands.
No! Heart racing, body aching, I forced my legs to carry me to him. My chest throbbed, but I made it to his side. Gray! My legs gave out. He couldn’t…Pain snaked around my heart. With shaking hands, I cradled his head in my lap and stroked his pale face.
His breathing was shallow. Why hurt Gray? He was nothing but goodness.
“I lied.” Damon smirked. “I have no use for a Light Magical.”
Ivy let out an angry, guttural scream and threw a huge bolt of ice at him. But instead of aiming for his chest like I expected, she aimed it toward his feet. When it hit the ground, it encased his feet, temporarily immobilizing him.
“You dare defy me, little girl?”
Ivy ignored his irate voice and turned toward Gray again.
My rapid, panicked breaths contrasted sharply with the slow rise and of Gray’s chest.
Gray...He was dying. My cheerful, optimistic Gray. “Don’t leave me!”
Ivy collapsed on her knees next to him and cradled his hand gently in hers. When she turned her gaze on me, it was colder than any of her ice magic. “This is your fault.”
“My fault?” I cried. “You’re the one who let that man in here, and now Gray’s dying because of it!”
Ivy’s words from the first day of school came back to me. “You know he would never expect you to deck him like that. He’d be on his back before he knew what had happened.”
She was right. I had to strike while she wasn’t expecting it.
I reached across Gray and grabbed the collar of her shirt. At the same moment I pulled her toward me, I jabbed my elbow into her temple.
She collapsed on top of Gray.
“I’m sorry, Ivy.” Tears trickled down my face while I pushed Ivy off Gray and held my hands to his chest.
Earlier had been easier; with Gray using Dark Magic, he’d practically sucked it out of me. I’d have to figure out how to feed it to him.
Light glowed from the tips of my fingers and flowed into him. Yes, go!
My head grew stuffy and heavy. The light flowing from me turned feeble.
I shook my head to sharpen my focus. I needed to keep my hands on Gray. I’d never be able to forgive myself if I failed at this moment.
“Ah, ah, ah. Can’t have you doing that.” Damon’s voice came from above me. A hand wrapped around my arm and wrenched me away.
I gasped in shock as much as pain as he yanked me to my feet. How’d he get there so fast?
My connection with Gray severed. Had I given him enough energy? Just a moment longer. I tried to yank free, but the room spun around me, and I collapsed onto my knees.
He ignored my attempts to get away. “I can’t have you hurting yourself.”
I shrunk from him, and my pulse pounded through me while my breath froze.
Neil was on the floor, inching toward Gray. When he saw me looking at him, he held a finger to his lips.
“Why?” I de
manded, trying to distract Damon. “Why c-can’t I get hurt? You didn’t come for me.”
He let go, and I fell on the library’s hard floor. I guess I gave Gray too much energy, but was it enough for him to heal himself?
“Oh, didn’t I?” His chillingly certain voice shattered my confidence.
Thoughts of the missing girls flashed through my mind, and I scooted backward on the ground, desperate to put some distance between us.
He ignored my weak efforts and stalked toward me with a predatory gleam in his eyes.
“But last time, you c-came for Neil.” I flinched at the quaver in my voice.
“Last time I thought he was the prize—the prodigy everyone raves about. I simply had to have him. Indeed, he proved stronger than even I expected. I hadn’t planned on using that Crystal before, but he really gave me no choice.” He shook his head as if he regretted the waste. “But now I know better.” His smile widened, sending flickers of fear racing through me. “Even I had no idea the kind of treasure I’d find when I cracked open Mastiff’s mind. He proved much more diverting than I expected. I had hoped to have a matching set, father and son, but that doesn’t matter anymore. Now I’ve found a much more valuable piece.” He took the final step separating us before kneeling, making him eye level with me.
A strange sense of lethargy stole over me. I leaned away and shook my head to wake myself up. “What do you mean? What did Howie t-t-tell you?” I just needed to keep him talking until help arrived.
“You really have no idea, do you?” He leered at me and leaned forward until we were almost face to face. “You have no idea who you really are.”
I choked out a strangled whisper. “Who am I?”
Damon reached toward me. Josh’s story about the terrible, dirty magic that had invaded Celia’s mind made my blood run cold.
“No.” It took an alarming amount of effort to tear my gaze from his.
Neil had reached Gray and placed a hand on his chest, much like I had done. The dark circles under his eyes deepened. Was he transferring his energy?
No! Neil’s energy was too precious. He didn’t have enough to give away. The Arresting Crystal already took too much.
“Look at me,” Damon coaxed.
My eyes were drawn back to his. I got lost in their oddly familiar brown color, but the purple ring around them jarred me awake. I shook my head and closed my eyes.
“Why have you been kidnapping people?” I forced my eyes open again since the only thing worse than facing the manic expression on his face was not being able to see the threat right in front of me.
“At first, I searched for the lost princess. There was a pleasurable hint of irony in the idea of using Andar’s beloved princess to tear down society as we know it.”
He was mad. I tried to swallow my choking fear.
“But it became so much more than that.”
“More?” I whispered.
“More than simply destroying Andar. We need to rebuild it.” He stroked the side of my face.
My whole body shuddered in revulsion at his touch.
“Did you know Dark Magic feeds off dark energy?”
I stared at his chin, unwilling to look away but not wanting to risk eye contact again.
“Everyone was more than willing to play along. The more girls I kidnapped, the more people panicked, and the stronger I became.” His mouth formed a fond smile.
“Once my magic got strong enough and I realized what I could do with it, I didn’t see any reason to stop at kidnapping girls. After all, an army of teenage girls doesn’t seem like the best way to wage war on the country, don’t you think? It seems almost disrespectful, somehow.”
My breath hitched at his words. Wage war on the country?
“So I decided to take delegates. It has been all too easy since I took out the king and queen. The board has been mine to control. Their feeble attempts at protecting the country weren’t doing much good, anyway. They’ll serve a much greater purpose, working for me. Well, for us.” His smile turned predatory, and my heart pounded even harder.
I was about to suffocate on my own terror. “Us?” I whispered.
His hand grabbed my chin, forcing my gaze to meet his. “Yes, we will do great things together.” The promise was laced with a threat that would’ve left me gasping, but my whole body was heavy.
Desperately, I recalled Henry’s words about protecting my mind. I cleared all the thoughts from my head and built a wall, but the purple smoke knocked it over easily until it invaded every inch of my consciousness.
“What a delight you are.” His laughter echoed painfully, but I couldn’t tell if it was in my head or not. “But it’s too little and far too late for that.”
Dark purple smoke engulfed me. I opened my mouth to scream and froze. The scream died away while icy dread washed over me. Something cold and dark burrowed inside my head. I faintly remembered Josh’s words about a magical parasite. I wanted to shudder in disgust and scream, but my body was no longer my own.
“Emmie! Don’t let him in!” Neil’s desperate, far away voice was almost enough to pull me back to myself, but the thick purple smoke swallowed his voice and smothered my resistance.
The numbing fog cleared, and I could see clearly again. I could no longer feel the nasty presence in my head. I stood. Except something was wrong. I didn’t intend to stand.
“Emmie,” Neil pleaded, still slumped on the floor. “Emmie, look at me.” His hand was no longer on Gray’s chest. Did that mean Gray would be fine? I couldn’t bear losing them both. I couldn’t even bear losing one of them.
Are you okay? I wanted to say, but what came out of my mouth was “You really are a pest, aren’t you?” It sounded like me, but much more confident and savage.
Neil’s eyes widened in shock. He struggled to sit up, but he could barely lift his head.
Without my permission, my hands reached out in front of me. “I’m growing tired of our little game, Mastiff. It’s time to end this.” I watched in complete disbelief as my hands glowed.
I could sense what my body was about to do a second before it actually did it. No! I screamed inside my own head as my hands threw out a shield of energy so bright and dangerous, the entire room lit up.
When the room returned to normal, I barely recognized the library. The librarian’s desk had split in two. Dark scars cracked one side while the other was in flames. The floor looked like it was drizzled with diamonds reflecting the fire. Shelves leaned haphazardly against each other, ready to collapse. Books lay in untidy heaps on the floor, loose pages scattered like a trail of destruction. The floors and walls were scored with scars. But worst of all, Ivy, Gray, and Neil’s bodies lay flung across the room like broken dolls.
“Yes, this will do nicely,” my voice purred.
“Come,” Damon said.
I walked into the night behind hi, a prisoner in my own body. Behind me, I left the only true family I’d ever known, all of them wounded and possibly dying. All I could do was pray for someone to find them quickly.
Sneak Peek
Unleashed Magic Preview
I wasn’t expecting to die yet, but if that was what it was like, I suppose it wasn’t so bad—a trickle of warmth poured directly into my soul. But when I tried to move, fire flashed through my veins.
Maybe I wasn’t ready for death after all.
My magic responded lethargically as I tried to heal. It sludged through my veins, like the time I fell out of my third floor bedroom window when I was seven, oozing slowly. Why was my magic so exhausted? Wait...If I still had magic, then I must still be alive.
I tried to open my eyes, but they might as well have been sealed shut with the gummy sap I used back in Grade Five to stick Lukas to his chair. If it weren’t for the fact that it felt like Neil was using his Fire Magic on my insides, I would’ve grinned.
The grip on my hand tightened and a rush of sunlight crashed through me, working my magic into a frenzy as it fed off the borrowed light. Was Elsi
e using her Light Magic on me?
A bolt of pain ricocheted through my body. I opened my mouth and a scream escaped as a whimper.
“You’re hurting him!” On my other side, Neil’s voice cracked.
It was like fizzers were going off inside my body as my Light Magic struggled to merge with Elsie’s, but a dark, foreign force battled it like an invader. It wasn’t normal. A rush of fear swept through me.
“My Light Magic would never hurt him. It’s healing him.” Elsie’s voice was soothing, but her too-tight grip on my hand betrayed her nerves.
“Maybe you’re doing something wrong?” Neil gripped my other hand, his fingers crushing mine.
The excruciating battle raging inside me drowned out their words. Another shot of pain tore through, a crescendo of pain that started from Elsie’s hand and spread outward. I sucked in a breath and imagined the scene around me to distract myself from the pain. Neil’s hair would be sticking up from running his hand through it so many times. It was what he always did when he was worried.
“The last time this happened, he was in a coma for a day and a half. I don’t think you need to worry. It hasn’t been that long.” Elsie’s voice came off sharp, something that happened only when she was anxious.
“My brother was fighting a mad man, got hit by dark magic, and is unconscious for the second time this cycle. Don’t tell me I don’t need to worry.” Neil had never spoken to a teacher that way.
Elsie’s grip on my hand tightened. “Let’s give it some more time. It’s hard to know how his body will react because this isn’t a normal situation, but I’ll try to use more Light Magic on him.”
“Stop.” I wanted to shout, but it came out as a hoarse whisper. My back arched at the sudden onslaught of light and the immediate backlash of pain as the darkness tried to fight it off.
My Light Magic grew stronger, feeding off Elsie’s magic until, together, they swept over the Dark Magic like the powerful tide from the Sea of Northeterre and overpowered whatever was inside me. I went limp and let out a shuddering breath.
Unleashed Magic (The Chronicles of Andar Book 1) Page 23