by Jordan Rivet
“Are you insane?” Dara hissed.
“You have to do it now,” Siv said. “Only the person in bondage can break it and only with a huge amount of force. You have to use the Fire and Watermight together.”
“This isn’t going to work.”
“You’re stronger than her,” Siv said. “Don’t let her keep hold of you.”
Dara stared at him incredulously. He stared right back. He knew she could do it. Dara was tough. She had never backed down from a fight. She had to do it to save herself.
The Watermight fight raged around them. Bits of power flew their way. Siv hoped it would be enough for Dara to use. Droplets of the silvery substance slid over her skin. Had she gotten any into her system? He held her tighter.
Wyla’s non-magic bodyguards had recovered from the latest wave. They advanced toward Khrillin’s men, steel bared. The Waterworkers were focused on Wyla. Vulnerable.
That was when Kres March uttered his battle cry. The pen fighters leapt into the fray. They fought to keep the guards away from Khrillin’s Workers, allowing them to focus on fending off Wyla. And they’d brought backup. Siv saw Dellario the Darting Death darting amongst the combatants. The Rockeater of Soole took a stand in front of Latch while he fought with the Watermight. Even the Pendarkan Panviper was there, getting his gangly behind kicked by one of Wyla’s guards. Siv could hardly believe it. Where had all these pen fighters come from? And why were they risking death on his account?
Another wave of canal water drenched them, carrying blood and slime along with the Watermight. Siv pulled Dara farther from the action. He sat down in the mud and pulled her onto his lap. They had their own fight to worry about.
But Dara still wasn’t doing anything. She stared at Siv with an expression bordering on catatonia. He hoped he hadn’t gone too far with the whole taking her by surprise thing.
“Dara,” he said. She shook herself, and their eyes locked. “You can do it. Fire and Watermight together—and find the edge. That’s the key.”
She grimaced, her eyes burning into his. He put a hand on her cheek, ran his fingers through her golden hair. He wished he could help her with this fight somehow.
Suddenly, a silver-white film slid over her eyes, so opaque that he couldn’t see her irises anymore. Then the Firebulb in his other hand winked out. Yes! The Everlight was next. Dara quivered like a leaf. Siv held her as she drew in the Fire he had brought her bit by bit. Her body grew warmer, like a living ember in his arms. He pulled her closer, trying to lend her whatever strength he could.
Her right arm went cold under his hand. The contrast between the ice in her arm and the Fire in her body was so shocking that he almost let go. But he’d never do that, not for as long as he drew breath. Dara had given up so much for him. He may not be able to fight Wyla directly, but he would help Dara fight her—and win.
But Dara’s arm remained cold and stiff.
Siv tore his gaze away from Dara’s to survey the battlefield. The pen fighters were gaining the upper hand against the bodyguards, some dueling within the ruined walls of the courtyard itself. But the true battle was the one being fought with Watermight. Latch had taken cover in the canal along with the Rockeater. He stood waist deep in the water, filling things with ice to make them explode left and right. He looked positively gleeful. But Khrillin’s Waterworkers were being pushed back once more, and too many lay still in the mud. Wyla drove the survivors before her, wrapped in towering wrath. She was even more powerful than Siv had realized. How could she hold her own against so many at once?
Dara began shaking uncontrollably on his lap. She was still staring at him through those moon-white eyes, but the ice in her arm hadn’t thawed at all. If anything, it had grown colder. He kissed her forehead, smearing the mud and water that coated them both. He whispered encouragement in her ear, the words barely coherent. She had to fight it. They would all die if she didn’t break through somehow.
Wyla directed a massive torrent of Watermight from within her ruined walls. Silver power rushed around them, thunderous as a waterfall. Siv held on to Dara as the storm tried to rip them apart. The non-magic fighters took cover from the flood behind fallen chunks of stone. Then Wyla lifted the canal boat on the wave of silver power and hurled it at the enemy Waterworkers, forcing two to dive out of the way and crushing two others.
Holding back the last of the attackers with a solid wall of water, Wyla turned, victorious. Her face went dark when she saw Siv holding Dara on his lap. Her apprentice shook with power, with both powers, making no move to help in the battle. She must know what was going on at last.
Dara screamed then. No. Not now. The pain in her voice cut Siv deep—deeper than anything save his father’s death. She screamed as if her arm was not only being frozen, but sliced into tiny pieces. And there was nothing Siv could do about it.
Well, almost nothing. He couldn’t fight with magic, but he could still fight. No one would hurt the woman he loved anymore. He let Dara slide to the muddy ground, placing the last of the Firesticks in her palm, and launched himself toward Wyla. He drew his knife as he ran, knowing it wouldn’t do any good, his other fist swinging. That wouldn’t be enough either. He was already dead. But he would fight with everything he had left to give Dara more time.
The first attack slammed into him. He hit the ground hard, his back sliding ten feet through the mud before he came to a stop. He was on his feet a second later, running at Wyla again. This time, ice blades cut toward him, spinning like wheels. He ducked some, taking cuts from the ones he couldn’t avoid.
He got within two feet of Wyla before the Watermight knocked him off his feet again.
He climbed up, blood spurting from his wounds, and attacked again.
Ice daggers. Torrents of water forcing into his lungs. Waves falling like mountains. Every time he attacked, Wyla threw him back. His blood mixed with the water. His pain was a distant thud at the back of his brain. The only thing he heard was Dara screaming. He thought he heard his name in the cry.
He lurched to his feet for another attack.
Wyla was angry now. She’d have killed him in the first instant if she weren’t still trying to keep Khrillin’s Waterworkers from entering her manor through the ruined walls. But she’d have killed Dara if he weren’t still trying to stick a thorn in her side. Either that, or she was toying with them both, inflicting maximum pain to teach them a lesson before the end.
He lunged again, knowing it was his last chance. He couldn’t win this fight. But as he launched himself forward, a patch of earth exploded directly beneath Wyla’s feet, ice filling the debris. She hissed and stepped back. Silently thanking Latch for the distraction, Siv hurled himself into her.
They hit the mud with a splash. Siv had lost his knife, so he pummeled Wyla with his fists. She would recover any second. She’d send an ice blade through his heart or sweep him off her with a wave. But with every strike, he bought Dara extra seconds. She had to break free. He just had to give her a little more time.
Then something smashed into his head, and the world went black.
32.
The Bond
COLORS swirled across Dara’s vision. Silver-white and gold. Flashes of black and emerald and cerulean and bronze. The pain was excruciating. An agonizing panic rattled her, made it hard to think. And then there was the fury. Wyla was going to win. Pure, gold rage exploded in Dara at the thought. She wouldn’t let that happen. Wouldn’t let the surprise or the fear or the confusion defeat her.
She had to break the bond. The moment Siv said it, she knew it was the only way they’d both get out of this alive. They were already too far into this fight. She was angry with him for surprising her, but he was also the only thing holding her together. She needed him to work this magic. Needed him to help her break free.
She started drawing in the Fire he had brought her, but she was still a tangle of rage and fear. He meant to surprise her, the way they’d been surprised before. He meant to put himself in danger, the wa
y he’d been in danger before. But she wasn’t ready. She didn’t know how to work this kind of magic. Last time had been self-preservation, a wave of pure force exploding out of her. How could she use that to break Wyla’s bond without destroying herself in the process?
Siv believed provoking her would help, but that didn’t mean she could do this. Her skills were inadequate. She hadn’t trained enough. It was impossible.
Focus, Dara. She’d mixed Fire and Watermight in her body once before. It had been a breakthrough, but she hadn’t come close to mastering it. She struggled for balance, for control—and failed.
The two powers tore through her body. She felt like a piece of fabric being picked apart at the seams during a violent storm. If she let go of a single thread, the wind would rip her asunder.
She tried to remember Siv’s words. Something about finding an edge.
She flailed, still riding that wave of power, searching for something to grab. This wasn’t working. Focus!
For a second, she sensed a change. What was it? A shift in the power? A tug on her arm. There was something there. Something like an edge in her arm.
But the swirl of the two powers made it impossible to concentrate. She needed to isolate them. What had it been? Watermight in her gut and Fire in her blood? Or was it the other way around? She couldn’t do this. The power was spinning out of control.
Suddenly, she became aware of something warm and solid at her back. Beneath her. Surrounding her. Something holding her tight. Holding her together. Siv. He pulled her onto his lap, wrapped his body tight around hers. He spoke to her, the words lost in the howl of the power.
She felt that edge again, scraping at her senses like a fingernail on her skin. She reached for it, straining against a cyclone of fear.
There! She found the edge, prodded at it, first with her mind, then with a bit of Fire. This sent pain through her arm so intense, she almost passed out. She tried Watermight next, choking more of it down whenever it drenched her. She nudged the edge in her arm with Watermight, and it moved. This hurt too, but less than the Fire had. She could work with this. The Watermight had some effect, but it wasn’t strong enough. Maybe if she used the Fire to make the Watermight push harder? Could she twirl them together somehow and try again?
Before she could do anything, blistering cold burst through her arm. Pain on top of pain. It was in her bones, in her soul. The tenuous control she’d achieved evaporated. She was vaguely aware she was screaming.
Then she felt a shift, as if the ground had tipped under her. She blinked, trying to clear her vision and figure out what was happening around her. She couldn’t see more than shapes in the blizzard. Chaos. Cold and damp beneath her.
Siv had set her down. The anchor that kept her steady as she worked at the bond was gone. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, trying to see through the swirling madness of color and blackness and light.
A figure moved through the confusion, barely more than an outline. She knew it was Siv as surely as she knew her own name. He launched himself into a roaring column of silver-white light. Wyla herself appeared as a pure blaze of power to Dara’s silver-lined eyes. She screamed, knowing it was too late, knowing he could never stand against all that power.
Siv flew backward, away from the tornado. He couldn’t do anything against Wyla with that much power!
But Siv got right back up again and lunged forward for another attack. Dara screamed, long and loud, the sound trapped within her brain. He couldn’t fight this. He was going to die.
She couldn’t let this happen, but she couldn’t move. Her arm felt as heavy as if it were made of iron. The bond held her down in the mud, not yet breaking the bone but not allowing her to rise.
Siv threw himself forward again. He wasn’t going to give up. He would keep attacking until Wyla killed him.
Dara screamed his name and hurled everything she had at the iron weight in her arm. Once again, she nearly passed out from the pain. But she fought against the darkness, fought against the silver-white Might and the blazing Fire and the raging pain.
Blood ran down Siv’s body. He threw himself toward Wyla again.
Idiot. He was going to get himself killed. He was fighting a power far greater than he could possibly understand. It was stupid and brave, and she loved him for it. She loved him with a fierceness and desperation far beyond anything she could comprehend. She loved him more than the power, more than the power, more than the whirl of confusion and pain turning her brain and her body into mush. He was fighting for her. He was hurling his life down for her.
Dara could no longer think, no longer process. So she held onto that wave of love and passion and fury and fear and focused it on the edge in her arm. She sent every ounce of it into that bond, into the shackle Wyla had placed on her. Wyla wanted to turn her into her father, wanted to use her and use Siv to further her own aims no matter who got hurt in the process. Dara wouldn’t let her do that, and she wouldn’t let her kill Siv.
The bond in Dara’s arm moved. She pushed harder against it, knowing she might shatter her dueling arm after all.
Siv attacked Wyla yet again. He swung his fists, trying to defeat one of the most powerful magic wielders on the continent with flesh and blood and bone.
Dara fought. The pain made her delirious. She was sure the intensity would sweep her under at any moment. Silver-white coated her eyes, then pitch-black, then gold. She saw her father, blazing with power. She saw Zage Lorrid, standing up to take in the Fire when she couldn’t control it. She saw her mother, bitter and proud and filled with sadness so intense, it cut her to shreds. She saw Siv, standing and fighting when all was lost. She saw Vine and Rid, felt them as if they were laying hands on her shoulders and telling her to keep fighting. Telling her to take control.
Suddenly, one of Dara’s father’s sayings came to her: You are my flesh and blood and Fire. It was a statement of allegiance, a statement of loyalty deeper and wider than magic and ambition. It was the kind of loyalty she and Siv had shown each other again and again. It was blood. It was Fire. It was love.
Dara pushed against her bond with the Watermight, lending it strength with the Fire, focusing with all her training, then letting it go in a powerful torrent of love for Siv.
There was a terrific crack. Instead of pain, Dara felt the most delicious warmth in her arm, like the first days of summer. She flexed her fingers as her vision cleared. Watermight dripped from her fingertips and disappeared into the earth. She was free. It had worked.
She clenched her hand into a fist and got to her feet.
The chaos of the Watermight battle had ended. The attackers had retreated from Wyla, but the woman herself was on the ground. She looked winded but conscious. Siv lay crumpled beside her, dripping with blood, unmoving.
Dara advanced on Wyla, clutching for more Watermight. Plenty of the power drenched the ground around her. The Waterworkers had provided a distraction, but they’d also given Dara what she needed to make her final stand. She called the Watermight to her—and it answered, flowing obediently to her hands. It still pricked like needles, but she forced it through her skin anyway.
Dara stood over Wyla, hardly daring to look at Siv. She didn’t know whether he still lived. She couldn’t face the answer yet.
Wyla’s lip was bleeding, and she looked more furious than Dara thought possible. Her pitch-black rage would have sent Dara running mere months ago. Now Wyla was on the ground—and Dara held the power.
But she didn’t want to kill Wyla. She had never wanted to kill her. Wyla had taken her in and taught her to be powerful. Dara had been willing to see out her bargain and repay Wyla for her help. But Wyla hadn’t honored the agreement. She would have kept the bond on Dara’s arm forever. And she had sent Siln to his death for the sake of her experiments. She had lorded her power over her subordinates, knowing she could play with their lives—and dispose of them if she wished.
Well, now Dara was in control, and Wyla knew it. Fear laced the rag
e in her eyes. Dara had expected a fight, but Wyla only stared at her, waiting for something.
Then Dara realized the truth: Wyla was terrified. She had seen Dara’s Fire and Watermight combination kill her best fighter. She knew Dara was capable of destroying her with this dangerous new mix of powers. So she didn’t attack, waiting for Dara to make the first move.
Dara held out a hand.
Wyla stared at it, disbelieving.
“Let me help you up,” Dara said.
“You’ve won.” Wyla didn’t take Dara’s hand. “You’re free from your bond.”
“You tricked me,” Dara said. “But you also helped me. I won’t hurt you, but I’ve repaid my debt.”
“And now you’ll go straight to Khrillin with what I taught you,” Wyla said. “I’m not stupid. I don’t know how you coordinated this attack, but I know who’s behind it. Tell him to beware. I won’t relinquish any ground. If he thinks he can use your power against me, he is sorely mistaken.”
“I’m not working for Khrillin,” Dara said.
Wyla scoffed. “You may think so, but you’re a fool to trust him. He is a dangerous man—almost as dangerous as me.”
“I’m leaving Pendark,” Dara said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You are too naïve, child,” Wyla said. “You will regret this day.”
“I don’t want to be your enemy,” Dara said. “But I can’t be your slave either. I have responsibilities back in Vertigon.”
“Go, then. Take your fallen king.” Wyla nodded at Siv. Dara’s heart did a painful flop at the sight of his prone, bleeding form. “But you are not ready. This power you’ve claimed will overwhelm you. Mark my words. You still have a lot to learn about being a Wielder.”
“I know I do,” Dara said, “but power isn’t everything.”
“Touching. Very touching,” said a voice behind her. “I must agree with Wyla on this point, though. You don’t know anything about true power.”