by Jessica Gunn
Relief.
That was when a third explosion went off, much larger than the first two. I was sent flying through the air, losing grip of Shawn’s hand, and landed with a hard thwack against the marble floor. Stars danced along my vision, which narrowed with every passing second. My lungs seized, unable to take in fresh air.
A shadow loomed over me, bent down next to me. It took my hand and whispered, “Don’t worry. We’ll get you out of here.”
I closed my eyes as darkness pulled me into unconsciousness and trusted Ben’s words. He’d been relieved to see me.
He’d get me home.
Chapter 4
KRYSTIN
I lay on something soft. Comfort, for the first time in too long. I hadn’t slept on anything remotely resembling a cushion or pillow since I’d burnt up the mattress in my cell. But this comfort wrapped around me lovingly, cocooning me on all sides.
I kept my eyes shut, enjoying the lavish feeling of relative safety. Anything this soft, this comfortable, had to be safe. Whatever reality awaited me outside of this comfy darkness could wait.
My back went rigid. Reality. An attack. Shawn’s face. Ben’s relief. Then darkness.
What’d happened? Slowly, I peeled open my eyelids to sunlight filtering through sheer, decorative curtains. And froze.
Our house had black-out curtains on every window.
My brow furrowed, breath hitching. Where had they brought me?
I sat up and looked around the room, a small, simple space with beige walls, no other furniture but an empty writing desk and a bookshelf filled with books with worn, dark red and blue spines.
“What the…?”
This wasn’t our house. Why had they finally rescued me after three long months?
“Ben?” I called, inching my way to the edge of the queen bed. “Ben, are you there?”
When no one answered, I swung my legs off the bed and padded to the door of the bedroom. I still wore my prison outfit, a now-charred off-white jumpsuit, the ends of which had been frayed by flame. The tips of my fingers were red and a black dust had etched underneath each fingernail. And my ankle… a tattoo I’d almost forgotten about now showed thanks to my burned uniform. A snowflake that did nothing but mock me.
I looked down into the empty hall lined with various modern art paintings. Not the team’s house. Not Mom’s house. Where am I?
“Don’t panic.”
I swung around, my heart in my throat. Standing behind me, hands in his pockets, was… “Giyano.”
He wore dark slacks, a dark red sweater, and a relatively new gash down one side of his handsome face. His jaw hadn’t seen a razor in a few days and, when he stood straight, he favored one foot over the other. And his aura, it burned like a flame in the wind all around him. A deep red with the scent of cinnamon. “Don’t panic, Krystin. I will explain everything.”
But my heart rate had already tripled within seconds, banging a double-time beat in my wrists and chest. My hearing became muffled, as though my ears had been stuffed with cotton.
“I don’t understand. My team—”
He lifted a bandaged hand from his pocket and held it in the air. “Don’t make any sudden movements. I learned earlier that you’ve… acquired magik you can’t control.”
I chuckled darkly. “‘Acquired,’ really? That’s what you’re calling it? You used me.”
Giyano lowered his hand. “No, I saved you. You were going crazy in that prison and you likely would have burned the whole thing to the ground, knowing the power of your magik before it was changed. You’re not in control.”
“The team saved me.”
“They tried. Unfortunately for them, they were caught when doing so. But when they attacked, they temporarily took down the magiks surrounding Ether Circle Prison and I was finally able to teleport in. To get you.”
My heart skipped a beat, and I hated it for it. “You were coming.”
He lifted a brow. “You knew?”
I showed him my hand, his mark still glowing red. “It’s been doing that for three months now. We knew that it’s a tracking spell. The Ether Head Circle didn’t seem to care.”
“They were likely too busy trying to keep you from burning their guards,” Giyano said, his bandaged hand curling into a fist. “I don’t know what she did to you, or how. I’m sorry, Krystin.”
My eyes narrowed. “Is this your magik?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Why’d Kinder do this?”
“I don’t think she wants you dead, if that’s what you’re asking.”
I charged a few paces toward him. “I’m asking you why she slammed half a dozen types of magik into my system, resulting in me having fire and air-elemental abilities.”
Giyano held his ground, unfazed even as my fingers warmed with flames. “I think that part was an accident, caused by whoever healed you and how.”
I looked down at my hands, willing the fire to disappear. It didn’t. “I just want the flames to stop.”
“Then snuff them out,” he said. “It’s that simple.”
“Do you see my outfit?” I pointed down at my frayed pants. “I’ve set everything on fire. Everything. I can’t control this magik.”
Ether magik was smooth, naturally flowing. It was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. But this elemental power, it was raw. Unforgiving. Driven by strong emotions, of which I had plenty. Anger. Betrayal. Guilt and shame.
The flames grew in proportion to my thoughts, spiraling above my palms like tiny torches.
“Stop thinking, Krystin,” Giyano said. “Breathe. Calm your mind.”
“How about when you’ve been used by a demon, slammed full of magik, then left to rot in a jail cell for three months for something you’re not guilty for, then you tell me to calm the hell down.”
His eyes narrowed. “Do you want my help with this or not?”
“I never said I wanted anything from you.” Not verbally, anyway.
“Then why haven’t you teleported home yet?” He gestured to the house at large. “You’re not my prisoner, and we’re still on the normal plane of existence.”
The flames around my hands died down a little, as opposed to my growing curiosity. “Where are we, then?”
“Maine,” Giyano answered as he trailed to the closest window and pulled open the curtain. A rush of bright white sun and blue ocean greeted me. “On the coast.”
Maine. How normal. How human.
I backpedaled, picking up speed as I backed down the hall and into a larger living space. A single couch next to another bookshelf was all that was in the room. Where was the team? They had been there, breaking me out of prison, hadn’t they? Maybe that entire interrogation had never happened—just another hallucination.
“I need to get out of here.” I scrambled around the room, searching for any more clues that might exist. If Giyano was telling the truth, then there shouldn’t be magik barring my exit or any teleportante out.
Giyano strolled down the hall and joined me in the living room, his face a mask of calm. “The door’s in the kitchen, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
I froze. “No, you know what? I’m not. Why did you take me here?” Turning on him, I put my hands on my hips. “You were MIA for that final fight with Kinder. The building we were in? It nearly leveled the entire street when it came down because the cianza couldn’t handle that many people on it. Demons, Hunters, witches. Shawn and me. And her. Lot of good your magik in my system did me then, huh?”
“I’m surprised Cianza Boston didn’t explode,” he said coolly.
“Where were you?”
Giyano looked off to the side and it took me a moment to realize he meant to draw attention to the side of his face. “Kinder had taken me somewhere… unpleasant. I was otherwise occupied.”
“Getting your face torn apart? That’s great.”
He leveled me with a look, the shock of his burgundy eyes sending a chill down my spine to my t
oes. How easy it’d become to forget his true nature. “By that point, I’d done all I could do. Nothing can save you from what Kinder did. All of that magik. My focus was on keeping you balanced.”
My fists balled at my sides. “Why? I’m so tired of this game, Giyano.”
“Your magik is volatile to cianzas by nature. You’re good, Krystin. By blood, by association. A witch. A Hunter. The Daughter of Alzan. But your other half? Shawn’s half-demon by a fate not of his own choosing. You needed to balance each other out if you had any hope of saving Alzan—a desire we both share.”
“So you pump me with dark magik and then stay hidden while Kinder nearly sinks all of New England?”
“Like I said, I was occupied.”
I nodded. “Right. So was I—in jail. Why’d you suddenly show up to save me?”
His lips pressed together into a thin line. “It wasn’t meant to take as long as it did. For that, I apologize. I wanted to take you away from Ether Circle Prison for the same reason I mixed my magik with yours.”
“And that is?”
“To protect you,” he said, his eyes shining with genuine concern. It caught me off guard.
“Protect me?”
Giyano nodded, then leaned against a nearby wall. “The Ether Head Circle has plans beyond Alzan. I fear for your power. Your future.”
Kinder had said almost the same exact thing. “So what? I figured that from the start, just from Jaffrin and the Fire Circle instead.”
“Your power, as you might have guessed by now, is tied to cianzas by very peculiar magik,” Giyano said. “I don’t know for certain, but I’m worried the Powers might try to weaponize that for their fight against Darkness. For whatever the final conflict between our peoples might be.”
“So you stole me from the leaders of the Hunter Circles to… play house with you?”
Because that made sense. I mean, yeah, the entire time I’d been imprisoned I’d wanted Giyano to save me. I was fairly sure it was going to happen, given the way my hand was glowing around his mark, and the fact that my magik, for some reason, mirrored his. But he’d only come when my team had, and now I no longer knew where anything stood.
I swallowed the heavy feeling in the back of my throat and made eye contact with my father’s murderer. “Why do you keep saving me?”
Giyano pushed off of the wall. “Because your role in this war will save the world. You’re more powerful than they know, which means you need more training and balancing than anyone I’ve ever known.”
Silence hung at the end of his words, as if he’d left something else unsaid. As the quiet, easy moments marched on, I realized what that something was.
“Except for Ashbel,” I said. “Because he had the Power.”
Giyano looked away. “He didn’t accept his magik, but he did fear what he was as an Ember witch. Of what it meant when good and evil came together. The volatile nature of our magiks intertwining, connecting, warping. Ashbel knew that was why cianzas were bad places to settle on, why he hated both sides of this war. But he made me promise…”
Giyano shook his head. “Before he passed, Ashbel had a vision of Alzan. Of the final conflict. And what he saw in combination with what I knew from what my father and I had found as archaeologists, it was enough to make me stay at Lady Azar’s side. To pretend to be her lapdog. To pretend to follow orders.”
“Except for kidnapping Riley,” I said, eyes narrowing. How possible was it that this sob story was true? Ashbel was real, that I knew thanks to visions I’d had about Giyano’s former life. But the rest? “You stole Ben’s son and then helped them keep Riley hostage for two and a half years.”
Giyano’s stare settled on mine, his eyes like the last smoldering coals of a fire. “Where I could watch him. Protect him, like I had Ashbel.”
“Until he died.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.
“Yes, as you love pointing out. Although that was neither of our faults. Lady Azar hated that I took even the smallest chance of reaching Alzan away from her.”
According to Giyano, Ashbel had almost been to the age where the Power settled and disappeared in a human body when he’d found him. And by the time Lady Azar had found out too, she hadn’t had enough time to collect magik and wait until All Hallows’ Eve like she had with Riley.
“Sorry,” I said softly. And I was, for him having lost his love. But my fists soon curled again. He’d taken away people I’d cared about too. “So you saved me to keep me out of the Ether Head Circle’s clutches and pumped dark magik into me to stabilize my own magik? But then you isolated me from other members of the Powers when I need to be near them to complete the prophecy—something you yourself also want?”
Giyano blinked. “Yes.”
My eyes narrowed and I took a step toward him. “Then why did you kill my father?” Rage bubbled beneath the surface. Giyano had saved me but killed him—when arguably I wouldn’t have ever needed saving if Giyano had never murdered my father in the first place.
Giyano’s mouth thinned and for the briefest, most fleeting of moments, I saw something akin to regret touch his eyes. It was replaced by a hard stare in the next moment. “I knew about your destiny because of Ashbel. The Power hasn’t been seen in thousands of years, and because of him, we, Darkness, knew it was returning. And then I heard of the Daughter being born—one half of the pair who’d save Alzan from certain destruction.” He laughed. “It’s funny because I’d dreamed of foiling Lady Azar’s plans for hundreds of years. Only then did I see how I needed to be here to help you. So I rejoined Shadow Crest.”
“And killed my father.”
Giyano nodded. “I need to get you away from Cianza Boston. Your parents were living downtown and didn’t yet know what you were or what you’d one day be. So I killed him.”
The admission, said so nonchalantly and without remorse, chilled me to the bone. “Just like that?” I blinked back tears I hadn’t noticed were building. “You killed him to get me to move?”
“And to claim a space near Lady Azar once again when I told her I’d taken you away from the cianza, away from the Fire Circle.”
Tears fell, but I ignored them, pressing on. “Yeah, well, that didn’t end up working out in your favor, did it?” I shook my head. “Is that all I am to you people? A fucking chess piece to push around at your leisure?”
“I assure you that’s not the case, not for me.”
I threw out my hand, swiping it across the air in front of me, belatedly forgetting telekinesis wasn’t a power I wielded anymore. Instead, a large wave of fire followed my movement, gaining in size with every inch. Giyano reached up and snatched the fire from me, circling it in front of him as more poured out from my magik.
Then he tossed it back at me.
Eyes narrowed, I caught it, spinning it in the air. “What the hell?”
His lips twisted into an almost-smirk. “Aside from the fact that I refuse to let you burn my house down, I wanted to see if you could take what you gave out.”
“Screw you,” I snapped, throwing the fire back at him with all I had. The rage inside me, the burning inferno, billowed higher. My father had died for this demon’s ego and nothing more.
My magik thrummed this close to Giyano’s, even more now that we shared the same type of magik. But rather than continue this game of back and forth, Giyano ripped the fire from the air, swung it around him, and kept moving it until the flames had burned out completely.
“Enough,” he said. “You need to return to your team and tell them what you’ve learned.”
“Are you kidding me? Why the hell did you take me from them, then?”
“Need I remind you the Ether Circle caught them in the act?” Giyano asked. “They would have locked them up alongside you for interfering in your trial.”
“No trial,” I snapped. “I was there for life.”
Giyano nodded. “And now you’re free, with the knowledge that they want to weaponize your magik.”
“Using cianzas. What else aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing you’re ready for yet,” Giyano said. “I need to collect more information as well as… settle a disagreement.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Sounds legit.”
Giyano pointed to the new wound along the side of his face. “Lazy Azar might still be without magik, but that doesn’t stop her from using blades. And she’s… angry with me right now at best.”
“And at worst?”
“She was nonplussed about me arriving by her mother’s hand.”
I swallowed hard. We didn’t know how long it’d take for Nate’s asanak ether-shaper move to wear off. He’d hit Kinder with the soul-cleaving magik, too, at the Hydron operation. That Lady Azar was still recovering after four months gave me hope we wouldn’t see Kinder again anytime soon. That meant Riley was safe. For now.
“Go,” Giyano said. “Your team needs to know of the dangers within the Circles.”
I rolled my eyes. “Assuming the team will take me back.”
“They will. The dangers are everywhere. Farther spread than you know.”
“And yet you won’t tell me.”
His gaze caught mine, holding me there for a long moment. For what he’d done, I hated him. It’d be impossible not to. But Giyano had gotten me out of Ether Circle Prison, so that had to count for something. Puppet or not.
I was tired of being everyone’s puppet.
Chapter 5
BEN
We watched from the back of the grand hall as Jaffrin, front and center beside others, got completely verbally dressed down by the Chairmen and Command of the Ether Head Circle. Two of their Hunters stood beside Shawn, Rachel, and me, watching our every breath. I’d known this was a bad idea. To sneak into their prison and rescue someone they’d accused of and arrested for treason was dumb as shit. But Krystin was innocent, and she didn’t deserve any of this.
Except Krystin was the one missing now, and we hadn’t seen who’d taken her. If anyone. It was altogether possible that, once free of those manacles and the chair they’d been attached to, that Krystin had hightailed it out of there to freedom. Far from the prison and far from the Circles as a whole.