by Leia Stone
I would be the death of Ardan if it was the last thing I did. Even if I died in the act, I vowed to leave Earth without his evil presence.
I took all of this will, this might, and I pushed. I pushed so freaking hard that the yellow bands holding me snapped. Ardan’s eyes widened as flames began to lick up the thighs of his pants. If I burned with him, then so be it.
He blinked out of existence then, stopping the fire from engulfing him but also freeing me. I jumped up and the green, orange, and purple swirl of magic that had been leaving me slammed back into my body, causing the syrupy yellow spell to fall away too. My fire had been snuffed out, but at least I was free. I didn’t intend on letting them get the drop on me again.
I ran my magic along the ground to where the truth witch stood, stunned, and lashed out again. Flames ignited him, and in a panic he screamed, patting his pants down as he ran, colliding with the barn doors and bursting them open. But not before catching the corner of the door on fire. Wasting no time, I ran to where my staff had fallen and wrapped my fingers around it just as a ball of purple magic arced through the air and slammed into my stomach.
The breath went out of me. It felt like I’d never get oxygen again. Heat saturated my body, sweat falling down my face, but thank God I didn’t catch fire.
I spun about in an awkward half crouch to see Ardan, free of my flames, standing ten feet away from me, purple fire in his hands, eyes alight with pride.
“It seems I got enough of your magic, I don’t need you anymore. This should be fun.”
The flames that had lit the barn door on fire licked up to the wall, catching the dry wood instantly. I was trapped and that mofo had some of my power to use against me.
I didn’t bother talking to him. I had nothing to say. I only wanted to kill him. I thrust out with my staff, blasting a bolt of purple magic into him. He hadn’t been expecting it and it slammed into his right shoulder, tearing a deep gash, crimson blood seeping from the wound. I didn’t wait for the next hit, I reacted like Isaac taught me, like the Earth was urging me. Pulling on my druid master, I felt for my connection to him; he was here, within my heart, always. The Earth had linked our powers and I was going to use that to my advantage. Bringing my staff down hard, I stared at where Ardan was standing, and sure enough the earth sank, grabbing hold of his ankles, pinning him into place.
I stepped towards him, staff pointed at his chest, ready to finish him off. The barn was getting smoky; I’d need to leave soon or burn alive. He threw his good arm out and a gust of wind picked me up, tossing me sideways. I sailed across the barn, trying to keep the grip on my weapon, unable to do anything but brace myself as I slammed through the closed barn doors, tearing gashes into my bare arms. Landing hard on the rough ground outside, I heard a snap, and then a sharp pain in my side told me I’d just broken a rib.
Before I could even get up, Ardan poofed over me, holding purple fire in his hand, blood dripping from his injured shoulder. He opened the palm of his good hand, pointing it right at my chest. A gust of wind so strong it made my lips peel back pinned me in place. I couldn’t even move my arms to fight back or protect my face.
This was why Isaac had always said it would take the two of us to defeat him. Ardan was as quick as the wind! Stronger than a tornado, and now he could throw purple fire! I was so screwed.
Just when I’d resolved myself to die at the hands of this maniac by my own fire, I saw a streak of black in the sky, coming up over the burning barn.
Logan.
His wings blocked out the sun for a second and I looked up to see that Nadine was riding him, Sophie’s harpoon gun gripped tightly in her hands. Relief crashed through me at the sight of my best friend alive and well.
Ardan’s wind magic cut off as he spun, to see what had blocked out the sun, but it was too late. Nadine had fired. The arrow sank into the meat of his abdomen. He cried out, losing the purple fire magic in his hand. I kicked out, free of his wind trap, and my heel connected with his groin. He keeled forward, rolling over me and to the side, hands gripped on the shaft of the arrow protruding out of his stomach. Just then, the ground started to shake. I looked up to see Isaac coming around the barn with Keegan, Eva, and Danny.
If we allowed Ardan to concentrate and regain his mental control, he would just disappear. No. This was ending now. I couldn’t live one more second sharing space with this douchebag on Earth. I popped up onto my knees, ignoring the pain in my ribs, and raised my staff, coming down hard with the gold stake, puncturing his thigh. He cried out and thunder crackled overhead as a great gust of wind picked up, tossing my hair all around.
Isaac ran at us, and midway slammed his staffs into the earth again. Ardan’s feet sank four inches into the earth. That’s when the lightning started. How a man who could control wind, also controlled lightning I had no idea. Seemed like it should be a fire druid thing, but lightning arced from the sky and licked the ground a mere few feet from where I knelt.
The barn was on fire, Logan was landing, and everyone was running to take cover. It was like a nightmare. The only thing I could do was push my fear down and block everything out. I extracted my staff from Ardan’s leg just as he somehow found the strength to burst from his dirt restraints and rise up, creepily as if the wind were pushing him from behind. He hovered a few inches above the ground before slamming back down. He looked weak, too weak to keep up this charade for much longer. Lightning came down again, and this time I thrust my staff up to catch it, for fear it would zap my head. The lightning connected with the staff’s crystal, sending a jolt of power into my hands. It was hot, really hot, but I didn’t dare let go.
Isaac stood behind Ardan, staked his two staffs down, arm’s length apart, and the arc of lightning from my crystal joined with his, effectively trapping Ardan inside of a triangle of live electricity. Ardan’s eyes widened. I could tell from the look on his face he was trapped, unable to disappear like he usually did. Whether it was because he was too hurt, or the electricity messed with his powers, I didn’t care.
Isaac screamed over the sound of the wind. “Your time of torturing the skyborn is over!”
The wind picked up harder and I felt myself being lifted upright, almost taken up into the air with the strength of it. Isaac’s feet were firmly planted six inches into the earth. He was basically a tree. I felt for my connection to Isaac’s power and did the same, pulling the earth power into me. I felt my feet drop into the soil, anchored so that the wind would not blow me away.
Ardan pointed at me. “The skyborn took everything from me! The queen, your mother! Our entire land was wiped away because of their love for a stupid frail race!”
In that moment, with spittle and blood coming from his mouth, even the anger in his voice, he looked like an honest-to-god demon.
Isaac shook his head. “No! You could not let a queen love a deserving people. You are the one that took Faery from us. You waged war until it was nothing but ashes!”
The entire time Isaac and Ardan had been talking, I’d been using my deep connection with the Earth to send my magic forward, through the channel of the ground, seeking out Ardan’s feet. His lies had enraged me, and so I did what Isaac had counseled me to do. I used that anger and rage and I called up my fire magic. I pulled more than I ever had before. As soon as I felt that Earth connection with Ardan’s feet, I pushed it, through the earth and up into the space he was occupying. Flames, glorious and all consuming shot out. In a second, six feet of fire erupted from the soles of his feet and engulfed his entire body. His scream was horrifying. The wind and lightning storm immediately cut out as his power began to fail. He tried to use his wind power to snuff the flames, but that only fed them, made them waver left and right. Isaac and I pulled our staffs out at the same time, cutting off the triangle of electricity, and took a step back so that he wouldn’t burn us, or our weapons.
Ardan dropped to his knees and started flickering in and out, blinking out of existence, trying to do anything to save his life. The wi
nd was blowing again, trying to regain power.
A presence came up behind me and I instinctively knew it was Logan. He carried a Glock in his hands. He pointed it at Ardan’s head and looked at me.
I nodded. I wasn’t a monster. I didn’t want him to suffer… too much. I just wanted him gone. I turned my head as Logan unloaded the weapon into the evil druid. The thud as his body hit the ground would probably haunt my dreams forever. I called back the fire, willing it to cease, and looked back to see that the flames had indeed stopped burning. Curled in the fetal position, sunk halfway into the earth, was the monster of all monsters. Dead.
A resounding crack echoed throughout the valley and the birds flew from their trees.
I looked up to Isaac for an explanation. He was staring at Ardan. “His power over this land, over his druids, is broken.”
Well, thank God for that.
I turned to walk away. I wanted to leave this awful place. Then Logan’s hand came out and gripped my upper arm.
Whirling back to Ardan’s body, I saw a thick tendril of green magic rising up from the chest of the druid and making its way to me.
Logan’s eyes met mine. “Take it back, Sloane. Take back all of the power he stole from us.”
Tears filled my eyes and I had to force down a sob, I realized that the green magic coming towards me was all of the skyborn he’d killed. Casey’s mom, my dad, all of their magic he’d greedily taken in an effort to kill off what he deemed a weak race.
I stepped into the river of green, breathing it in through my nostrils, feeling the rush as it hit my system. I didn’t even realize I was shifting until my dragon had fully transformed. I stood there on all fours, wings spanned out behind me, breathing in the green magic of my fallen kin, and the power that washed over me was indescribable. My dragon was much stronger and at less of a threat of being overwhelmed by my druid magic. I’d somehow found a peaceful place between my necklace, my staff, and anchoring my energy to the Earth, where I could be both dragon shifter and druid—earthbound and skyborn.
Nothing would ever take my mate bond from Logan.
Once I’d absorbed all of the magic I could, my dragon shifted back to my human form. My clothes were ripped to shit, so Logan took off his shirt and gave it to me, and I pulled it over my head.
“You did it,” Logan said, sounding almost dumbfounded. He just stared at the corpse that the Earth was absorbing.
“We all did it,” I corrected him, and then looked in the direction of the castle. “Did we lose anyone? How are Isabella and Marcos?”
Logan frowned. “We lost a few of the newer pack members, Jon, Tori and Kevin. Isabella and Marcos are fine.”
I guess it wasn’t possible to have no deaths in a battle like this, but it still killed me to hear we’d lost people even if I hadn’t been very close to them.
I spun around and my eyes fell on Nadine. “I’m so glad you’re okay!” I ran to her and took her into a hug.
“Alright, thanks for flashing me,” Danny moaned behind me. “Now I really need a vacation.”
I laughed, turning around with a smile. At the same time Keegan threw me a pair of sweatpants from his backpack. A good shifter alpha always carried extra clothes. As I slipped into them, I was about to retort something funny to Danny when I noticed Isaac just beyond him. He hadn’t moved from his spot near Ardan’s body. He was swaying, leaning on his staff, a pool of blood at his feet.
“Isaac!” The cry ripped from my throat as I made quick strides to meet him.
He fell into my arms the moment I got there and I lowered him to the ground, rolling him over to assess where the blood was coming from. When I peeked over his shoulder, I saw the back of his shirt was soaked with blood around his lower back.
“He was hurt at the castle. Looked like he got stabbed but said he was fine,” Keegan said, standing over us with a frown.
My hands were shaking as I pulled up his shirt. When blood spurted from a three-inch gash I sobbed and pressed my hand to the wound in order to staunch it.
“You ran all the way here with that injury!” I yelled at him, tears running down my face. He’d freaking just stood there holding the lightning with me to helped kill Ardan, all while he was bleeding to death!
He was staring at the cloudy sky, a smile on his face. “I had to come help you. It was my life’s purpose. Now I’ve done what I was meant to do.”
“Shut up!” I screamed at him, tears and snot running down my face as I ugly cried at the thought of losing Isaac. He was like a father to me. “You’re not dying, so stop saying goodbye!”
I looked around frantically for trees, but there were none in the immediate vicinity. We were in a freaking endless valley of green grassy hills and rocky beaches. The only tree line I could see was over a mile away, back at the castle. I couldn’t drag a bleeding half dying man a mile. I also wasn’t sure I could do a tree healing on him, because I would need his power to pull from to do it, and he was so weak.
“Eva! Heal him. Help me!” I looked at the witch.
She was frozen, standing horror-stricken at the sight of Isaac on the ground, in a pool of blood. He was pale and ashen, which was saying a lot about a dark-skinned man.
“I … my magic won’t … the dragon scales are for magical injuries and—”
“Eva! I don’t give a shit what you think you know,” I snapped at the sorceress. “I am asking you to try. Don’t just stand there and watch him die!”
She visibly shook herself, snapping out of it, and a look of determination crossed over her. “Logan, give me a scale! Danny, rev up your magic. I’m going to need your help.”
I sighed in relief that she was going to try. She then pointed to me. “I’m not doing this all by myself. Talk to the Earth or whatever, and find a way to heal him without a tree.”
Shit. She’d basically spat my words back at me, but she was right. If she was going to figure out a way to heal him without knowing how, then I could do the same.
I looked down at the druid’s arresting honey-colored eyes, and I remembered how I’d drawn them right after my dream. It was like I knew this man would become a big part of my life.
“Help me. Tell me what to do,” I whispered to him, holding tightly to his bleeding wound.
He blinked slowly, breathing shallowly. “If it’s my time, the Earth will take me, and I’m okay with that.”
I growled, “That’s not what I asked you, Isaac!” I burst into tears again, unable to control my emotions.
He reached up slowly and wiped them away. “Nothing really ever dies, for through the Earth all is reborn.” His arm suddenly went limp as he lost consciousness.
“Isaac!” Eva yelled frantically, as she burst forward with Logan’s scale between her fingers.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. I was ruminating on his words. Through the Earth, all is reborn.
Yes.
Eva flipped Isaac over with a grunt and gestured for me to move my hand off of the wound. When I did, she held the scale over the deep open gash.
“Burn the scale,” she instructed, and I saw Danny move into view with a glowing geometric yellow shape between his hands. The pack was starting up the hill, towards the barn fire. Soon they would see Isaac’s limp form.
I’d burnt Logan’s scale for Rufus’ spell and it had fixed my wand, so maybe she was onto something. I grabbed the tip of my staff, since my necklace was currently on the floor of the burning barn, and funneled my magic through it into my palm, igniting a small amount of purple fire there. Eva dropped the scale into my palm, where it immediately turned to ash.
“Now shake it off over the wound,” she instructed.
I cut off the flames and poured the cinder ashes into the open wound just as Danny threw an intricate yellow geometric pattern over it. Eva then chanted and flooded his body with yellow magic. It laced over his body tightly like a cocoon, and I could see the edges of his wound starting to knit together before my eyes. Hope burst open in my chest.
Through the Earth, all is reborn.
I nodded. “Give me some space,” I asked, and everyone stepped back. Reaching over, I took my staff in one hand and one of Isaac’s staffs in my other. Purple and orange magic immediately started arcing out of the crystals the moment I touched them. With a groan, I popped up onto my knees. Isaac’s limp form was curled on his side, resting against my thighs. I staked both staffs behind him so that I was creating a tunnel over him. I dug with my toes hard into the earth and anchored my energy.
Then I set my intention. I intended to fully heal this man. I refused to get any more tattoos or mourn any more deaths. I would heal him. Eva had once told me that a fire druid’s magic was akin to a full-blooded sorcerer’s. Well, I wasn’t fully trained, but I was motivated, and I was my mother’s daughter.
Mother Earth, help me heal him, I begged silently. Then I said another prayer to my own mother, if she was out there, or was one with the Earth, asking her if she could help me save him.
The Earth responded, pulsing at my knees, then my toes. The staffs suddenly went crazy, lighting up and pulsing like strobe lights. I vaguely heard Logan call my name, but I tuned it all out. I focused on that pulsing, the Earth’s heartbeat, beating into Isaac through me. An orange and purple magical shell wrapped around Isaac, and that’s when the grass started to die.
Take what he needs from me if you have to, I told Mother Earth.
A ring of once lush green grass was turning brown and growing outward. I prayed that meant it was working. I was suddenly overcome with exhaustion. My legs felt weak and my ribs hurt with each breath, but I didn’t let up. I wouldn’t until Isaac was conscious and moving.
‘Sloane!’ Logan shouted, using our bond.
‘It’s working,’ I told him excitedly, pulling more and more magic from myself, going into the very depths of where it hid.
‘You’re swaying, like you’re about to fall over,’ he shouted through the thick magic that surrounded me.