by Jessica Gunn
“Almost there,” Kinder purred as we approached Jaffrin’s door at the end of the hall.
“Finally, he’ll get what he deserves,” I hissed.
Kinder laughed. “Good to see at least that genuine side of you right now. I knew you weren’t as blinded by the Fire Circle as you pretended to be.”
“Jaffrin is a bastard.”
“And a liar,” Kinder said. “But that’s something for another day.”
I shook my head and picked up my pace into a jog as I made my way down the hall. Avery, the leader of Jaffrin’s top team, ran out of Dacher’s office with the rest of his team in tow. They formed a barrier near the end of the hall, protecting Jaffrin and his second-in-command, Dacher.
“Stop,” Avery said as his scared eyes searched mine. “What are you doing?” He drew a sword from a sheath on his back and fell into a battle-ready stance.
“Ending it all,” I said.
He squinted, then his eyes went wide. “Kinder.”
“Hello again, Hunter,” she cooed, waving to him.
Avery’s gaze returned to me. “If she’s making you do this, tell me, Krystin. Otherwise, I have to take you out too.”
I smirked, considering him. “As if you could.”
A clicking sound echoed from behind Avery, then four pistols appeared over his shoulders. Right. His team was one of the few that fought with cowards’ weapons instead of the traditional ones.
Avery adjusted his grip on his sword, as if wishing for a gun himself. I scared him that badly? Good.
“Your weapons don’t pose the threat you wish,” Kinder said. More Hunters fell in behind her, surrounding us. She turned to me. “Act, Krystin. You have to get to the stone.”
Her words warmed something inside of me again, a wooden fire in the middle of winter calling me home. Home to the only person who understood exactly how I felt.
My fingers twitched, white-hot flames dripping off of them. I swung a leg back so I could easily see both ends of the hallway and then—
The first shots rang out, a barrage of loud bangs firing from Avery’s team. I threw up a fire-wall between us, eating the bullets before they reached me or Kinder, who jumped into the fray with the Hunters down the hall.
Magik flew, both mine and the Hunters’, but smoking out Avery’s team was easy as long as I kept the wall of fire between us. I pushed them backward until Avery forced them into Dacher’s office and shut the door.
Placing my hands on the wooden door, I pulsed fire magik into the panes over and over again, but a golden wave of ether magik fell over the surface, protecting it from my attack.
“Dammit,” I shouted, banging on the wood.
“Focus!” Kinder shouted.
I turned and found her tangling with the Hunters. She’d managed to get a set of weapons from them and was trading blow for blow. A swipe of a sword, a slash of a knife. Now that I watched her fight from a distance, I could see how fast she moved, how agile she was. It wasn’t a power, per se, but a practiced sort of muscle memory that seemed to allow Kinder to move much faster, dodge more attacks, than anyone I’d ever met, demons included.
Maybe that’s what immortality did to you. Right now, immortality didn’t sound so bad.
I raised my hands and pushed them outward, sending a current of air down the hall. It coned around Kinder but pushed back all the Hunters she was fighting. She laughed as they fell, but not before grabbing one of the few magik-users in the group by the neck.
“Thanks for the pick-me-up,” she said to the Hunter as she collected his magik. The Hunter’s eyes flashed white as he winced in pain. Kinder dropped him to the ground, then walked toward me, palm lifted up. A tiny sphere of ether spun there. “An ether-shaper. Convenient.”
“Let’s go,” I growled.
Kinder only grinned.
With Avery’s team locked inside of Dacher’s office, likely evacuating him to safety, that left only one target on this floor: Jaffrin and the stone inside his office.
I continued down the hall, Kinder behind me. Jaffrin’s office door wasn’t shut. My eyes narrowed as I peered inside. “Nobody’s home.”
Kinder’s brow furrowed, but she walked in ahead of me. “Then let’s take what we came here for and go. It is the most important thing.”
I nodded, then followed behind her. As soon as we were both inside, the door slammed shut behind us and Jaffrin melted into sight out of nowhere.
His eyes narrowed in on me, a knife in his hand. “You have one chance to prove you’re just under her control, Krystin. Give me a sign. Even if it’s not verbal.”
A spark of something, desperation maybe, ignited in my throat. My mouth moved, lips trying to form words, but I wasn’t conscious to what they might be. My eyes squinted and opened, my breath coming in shallow gasps.
Kinder placed a hand on the small of my back, though I doubted Jaffrin saw the action. “She’s not under anyone’s control anymore, are you, Krystin?”
My breath evened, determination settling in my gut. Centering me. Get the stone. I was too far in to stop now.
“No.” I reeled back my hand and sent a wave of fire flying at Jaffrin’s face. It wasn’t as personal as a knife or my hands, but it would have to do to kill the man who’d controlled me for most of my life.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a stone, holding it before him like a shield. The flames wrapped around him, starting from the stone, and instead of burning him, my fire leapt to the walls and nearby door. The wood cracked beneath the heat and fire, smoke rising almost instantly.
Kinder launched herself past me, attacking Jaffrin with her fists. They traded blows, Jaffrin weaving and dodging around everything but the first attack. He was a good fighter, better than I’d given him credit for, but Kinder’s relentless barrage of fists left me no opening to help her out.
I watched as both of them landed blows on each other, their faces and knuckles bloodying. Neither slowed down or used magik.
“The stone!” Kinder called as she landed another attack that snapped Jaffrin’s head back against the nearest wall. He stumbled, dazed, and fell to his knees. “Get the stone.”
I turned, looking at Jaffrin’s desk. Behind it was the safe, the one I’d seen every time I’d come into his office. Every time he’d scolded me or given me orders. I’d never given the unassuming oak box a second glance. It was so small, a foot by maybe two. I’d always assumed it was where he kept his personal effects, never once thinking it was a magikal safe.
“Krystin, don’t! It’s not what you—”
A hard smack cut off Jaffrin’s words. “The stone, Krystin.”
I nodded and made my way toward the safe. My fingers brushed the outside wooden edge, smooth and ancient. It had no writing on it and no hard edges. Just smoothed-over corners. A handprint had been indented into the wood on the front face. I reached for it with my right hand, praying that whatever magik locking this safe would allow me inside.
“Don’t! It’ll kill you!” Jaffrin shouted. Another smack of a punch echoed across the room. “Krystin.”
I turned in time to see Kinder lift Jaffrin up by his throat, tiny ropes of ether wrapping around his hands, arms, and legs. He couldn’t move even if he tried—unless he had actual magik, not just parlor tricks.
“Are you telling the truth?” Kinder growled at him.
“Y-Yes,” he said through gritted teeth as he wrapped hands around her arm. “What’s inside—it needs to be… protected.”
Kinder’s eyes narrowed. “And only you can open it?”
“Forget him, Kinder,” I said. “I’ll be fine. The Powers wouldn’t let him lock something away that I couldn’t get to. Especially if it’s the stone I think it is. They can’t risk killing me.”
Jaffrin’s eyes widened. “Not—it’s not—”
Kinder’s hand squeezed tighter. “Are you the only person who can open it?”
Jaffrin stared her down for long moments, but as his face paled, so must have his r
esolve. He nodded solemnly.
Kinder smirked. “Good.”
She reached with her free hand for the knife at her side and dropped Jaffrin at the same time. In the next instant, she lifted one of his arms and sliced off his hand. Blood spurted from the wound and Jaffrin screamed, clutching his arm to his chest.
Kinder scooped up the hand and tossed it at me. I caught it, but it slid around in my grip from all the blood.
“What the fuck?” I shouted, disgust running coursing through me. My stomach roiled, twisting around itself as bile rose in my throat.
“The safe, Krystin. Now.”
My panic settled behind determination again, by that need to please Kinder thanks to her borrowed magik. I gripped Jaffrin’s hand tight and pressed the bloody appendage to the safe’s lock. A swirling bright light emerged from his hand and the safe clicked open, the door disappearing all together.
I dropped his hand to the floor as soon as the stone was in sight, sitting there in the middle of the safe. “It’s here.”
“Krystin, please,” Jaffrin begged, pain twisting his features as he rocked back and forth, his words practically being puked out of his mouth. “You don’t understand.”
I whipped around, thrusting a finger at the air. “No, you don’t understand, Jaffrin! You’ve controlled me my entire life. Controlled the flow of information about this fucking prophecy. But now Shawn and I know the truth: you had the keys to our magik all along. And now you and the Ether Head Circle want to weaponize it.” I turned back toward the safe and reached for the stone. “Well, too fucking bad. Game’s over.”
My fingers wrapped around the stone of frozen magik. It seemed to hum beneath my skin as I pried it from its resting place. The hum ran up my arm to my spine, an ecstasy I hadn’t felt since Giyano’s magik had ridden over me months ago. The power inside this stone sang to me, for me, as the stone started to glow bright and pure as sunlight. Like the magik I’d once seen inside of Shawn.
Like Alzanian magik.
Something solid smashed into my side, knocking the stone from my hand. Pain burst along my hip as I fell into one of Jaffrin’s filing cabinets. The pain shot up my spine, crinkling as it went. My vision blurred, narrowing.
Kinder stood above me, the stone in her hand, and laughed. “I never said the stone would be yours, dear one.” She knelt down before me as I lay there, trying to see past the pain turning my vision into a kaleidoscope. “You see, at the end of the day, you’re still a Fire Circle Hunter.” She lifted her free hand and touched it to the side of my face. “You may have a destiny to save Alzan, but you clearly lack the resolve and power to do so. You fall for trickery and dishonesty at the hands of false allies. And you will always be an ignorant Fire Circle Hunter.”
I squinted my eyes as my vision cleared. “You played me.” Of course she did.
Kinder’s hand warmed as the heat from my body slipped from me. “Not in so many words. You needed to see the truth, so I gave it to you. Now,” she said as her fingers dug into my cheek, “I will borrow a bit of your power and this stone, and I will fulfill your destiny for you. You’ll never have to hear about the prophecy you hate so much ever again.” She grinned slowly, evilly. “And now you’ll be free from the Fire Circle as well.”
My magik seeped out of me and into Kinder, but it wasn’t like the other times. She pulled on my magik slowly, taking the barest amount. And as she did so, the stone in her hand glowed brighter. The stone meant for Shawn or me, or both of us if only one survived. The stone we needed in order to unlock…
Oh, god. She was going to unlock the Alzanian magik within herself, using parts of mine. And then she’d go to Alzan ahead of her daughter. She’d win.
And she’d tip the power balance at Cianza Alzan in the process.
I locked eyes with her, betrayal stinging me from the inside out, and said, “How could you?”
That’s when the door to Jaffrin’s office burst open and my team filed in.
Chapter 26
BEN
A body fell immediately to my feet, as if they’d been resting against the door. Jaffrin stared up at me, his chest and arm bloody. And his hand— Oh, god. His hand had been cut off.
“Ben,” he uttered, looking to the other side of the room.
There I saw Kinder bent over Krystin, a hand on her face and a shiny stone in her hand.
“Are you kidding me?” Shawn shouted as he shoved me aside and ran into the room, nothing but a knife to fight with.
I dashed in behind him, though I had no idea what had him so worried. Rachel dropped to Jaffrin’s side and encased his wound in water. “Go,” I told her. “Get to a hospital.”
“This whole place needs one,” Nate said as he crouched and formed a massive, swirling block of ether in front of him. He shot out tendrils that wrapped around Krystin and Kinder.
Kinder stood and swiped the ether vines away from her body even as Shawn lunged for her. His hands wrapped around Kinder’s neck while she was temporarily stunned. She cried out as the stone slipped from her grasp.
“No!” Krystin called, reaching for it. But neither she nor her magik were quick enough. It shattered against the ground, shards dispersing across the floor.
“Fuck!” Shawn screamed. He squeezed tighter on Kinder’s neck, but she flung him off like he was nothing more than a bug. He landed on the ground, skidding against a bookshelf.
I formed a lightning sword between my hands and dove for Kinder. Nate joined the fray behind me as a wave of fire descended, halting my charge. I jumped back to avoid the flames, grabbing Nate’s shoulder to keep him out of the way, keeping the lightning sword raised in my other hand.
Krystin stood before us, a white-hot blaze whipping around her like a giant bonfire. “You’re not killing either of us.”
My eyes narrowed. “It’s me, Krystin. It’s Ben. Snap out of it.”
She smiled. “There’s nothing to snap out of. This isn’t like before.”
It sure as hell looked like it. Kinder had had her on the ground, a hand against her cheek. Transferring magik from Krystin or into her, I didn’t know. I was also sure it didn’t totally matter. If Zanka’s magik was persuasion and Kinder had control of Krystin because she’d stolen his power, was it possible Krystin didn’t know what she was doing at all?
The flames around Krystin’s form whipped higher, fully encapsulating her. “Leave, Ben.”
I lifted my lightning sword in one hand and readied a ball of lightning in the other as Nate broke off to fight Kinder with Shawn. “This isn’t you. She’s got you under her control, Krystin. She wanted that stone and she got it.”
Krystin’s gaze dropped to the shattered remains on the ground and for a brief moment, sadness, true despair, flashed across her eyes. As if she were suddenly aware of what she was doing and hadn’t meant for any of it to happen. But then her jaw set hard and she turned back to me. “All of the Fire Circle will pay for this.”
She launched the flames right at my face.
A teleportante formed in front of me and Rachel threw up a wall of water in the instant she appeared. But Krystin’s flames were hot—too hot—and the water turned into steam. Rachel held on, plugging the holes with new water, somehow able to keep Krystin at bay.
Fire leapt through the holes in the wall left behind, flying onto Rachel. She cried out, wincing as she tried to keep the wall up, but it dropped when she did. I caught her before she hit the ground.
“No!” I roared, holding her. I patted out the small flames that danced along her arms. “Rachel?” She passed out in my arms, unconscious. I glared up at Krystin. “We’re done. You’re done.”
She looked at me like I was the saddest excuse for a Hunter on the entire planet. “Took you long enough to figure that one out. You’ve never been too bright, Sparky.”
Krystin lunged for Rachel and me. I teleported us out of the way, dropping Rachel by Jaffrin, and spun back toward Krystin with my lightning sword held high. I wasn’t sure what’d happene
d to her or if this was really Krystin, but this was over. And when this fight ended, I’d personally escort Krystin back to Ether Circle Prison.
Krystin formed a blue-flamed sword in her hands and lunged. The impact of our elemental swords shot a pulse of energy through the room that knocked the others onto their sides. But Krystin and I somehow stood our ground despite my feet sliding out from under me. Still, I pressed hard against her blade, the tip of it coming within inches of her face.
“Surrender,” I said through gritted teeth.
She grinned at me. “Never, Sparky. It’s not that easy to kill me.” Her flame-sword turned white at the tip and… melted the lightning off of mine. I barely had time to think before her sword split mine in two.
I jumped out of range and pulled more lightning around me like a shield. A shield that might not even protect me from Krystin and her insane magikal fire. But fire didn’t look like that, an emerging rainbow of colors. It’s like her magik was made from something else entirely.
Kinder’s loud cackle rose above the sounds of battle. She shoved Nate and Shawn off and backed away, continuing to laugh. “It is done! The Fire Circle will end tonight!” Then she teleported out of the room, disappearing.
“No!” I shouted. She’d gotten away. Again. The lightning around me growing double in strength. Strikes snapped off the shield like a storm, zapping furniture and light fixtures alike. The lights above us flickered with the energy.
“Eyes on the prize, Ben,” Krystin said as she leapt with her sword once more.
I dodged, lifting up a nearby chair to shield myself. Her magik sword slid easily through the wood, sending splinters shooting out like shrapnel. Pain spread up my arm as pieces lodged themselves into my skin.
Nate shot an ether shield that enveloped Krystin, temporarily disabling her. She banged against the shield, but it didn’t crack or fall. For now.
“Let me out!” she shouted.
“No,” said Nate, peering up at her. His eyes narrowed. “Something’s wrong.”