A familiar twinge tugged on my senses. It was Nero. He was here.
Still groggy from the Venom, I forced myself to concentrate and calm my nerves. I focused my magic into a sharp, telekinetic point. It shot out from my body, breaking through the chains. They crumbled and rained to the floor in tiny metal slivers.
I slid down the wall, landing in a crouch. One leg gave out under me, and my knee slammed against the hard, unforgiving floor. I rose slowly, cursing the idiot who’d thought it was clever to cover the floors of a torture chamber with glossy, slippery marble. I stumbled, staggering in my steps as I moved toward my sisters’ cells.
But Tessa and Gin weren’t there. Soulslayer must have taken them away for testing while I’d been busy blacking out. I had to find them and get them out of here, but as I took off running toward the sliding doors, the walls around me exploded.
29
Empress of Heaven and Hell
Streaks of red and orange light flickered before my eyes. I blinked, trying to clear my blurred vision. As the world slowly faded back into focus, I realized those streaks of light were flames dancing in the air. They fell so slowly, they almost seemed suspended in the air.
I reached out to touch them, and my fingers brushed up against a transparent layer, like an invisible shell. I’d surrounded my body with a telekinetic magic barrier to protect myself from the falling roof. It had been an automatic defense, something driven by instinct rather than conscious thought.
The nearby flames and particles of debris from the explosion were caught in the barrier, floating within that defensive invisible shell like a school of fish. My skin glowed, my elemental magic resisting the extreme heat.
Outside my safety bubble, things didn’t look good. Fires raged, and the walls were crumbling. My telekinetic barrier was all that was holding up the roof. If it went down, so would the roof. All that marble and gold and stone would collapse on top of me. That was, if the fires didn’t burn me alive first.
Leda.
I couldn’t see Nero, but I could feel he was so close. I drew on our connection, on the magic that linked us together. Just knowing he was there gave me the resolve to bear the pain of my failing magic.
I coughed. The smoke was slowly suffocating me. Something stung my arm. I slapped it. When I looked down, I saw it was not a bug; it was a clump of burning ash that had burnt me. It had made it through a small hole in my barrier. I forced the hole closed.
A flicker of movement drew my eyes across the room. Soulslayer. The dark angel was stuck in the room too. He was also holding up the swirling storm of fire and debris. We were two bright points in the darkness, like two stars in space, masses swirling around each of us.
“Where are my sisters?” I demanded.
“Trapped back there.” He indicated the collapsed corridor behind him.
“We have to get them out.”
He scoffed at my words. “Why would I risk myself for two girls?”
“Because you can’t let those two girls die. You are hellbent on using their magic.”
“That’s not worth my life.”
It was like talking to a wall. “Would Sonja agree?” I asked him.
“I’m a dark angel,” he said proudly. “We are priceless. Do you have any idea how much work and magic goes into creating one of us? Sonja would not have me risk my life to save two little girls, no matter how curious their magic might be. Especially not now, at a time of crisis, when we are under attack. And when you, her prized pet, is trying to escape.”
I changed tactics. “So you’ve given up. The Legion is attacking, and you’re running away scared. You’ve admitted defeat, that you’re no match for the Legion. You’re letting two unique magic users slip between your fingers.”
Soulslayer frowned at me. “Sonja told me of your silver tongue, of your siren’s song. It won’t work. You won’t trick me into risking my life to save those brats.”
“I guess that’s the difference between the Dark Force and the Legion. The Dark Force is nothing but a bunch of cowards. Just like you. That’s the real reason you left the Legion. You couldn’t cut it.”
The dark angel’s eyes narrowed. “You aren’t worth all this trouble,” he hissed viciously. “If you weren’t Sonja’s prize, I’d kill you where you stand.”
“Help me save my sisters. You can kill me later.” I was working my magic around him, trying to get into his head.
He shook himself, brushing off my magic attack. “I don’t have to kill you.” A dark smile curled his lips. “You are weak.”
His words just echoed what I was thinking myself. My magic was cracking under the strain. I’d put everything I had into holding back the debris, and it wasn’t even close to enough. That was why my siren magic hadn’t worked on him. I didn’t have enough magic to spare.
“Your magic will fail,” he said. “I need only stand here and watch the building kill you. How will you die? Will the fire burn you? Will the smoke suffocate you? Will the rocks crush you?”
His eyes shone with vicious delight as he contemplated the possible causes of my impending death, just as he’d enjoyed torturing me in the arena.
And now he was trying to kill my sisters too. Gin would survive, just to be killed again and again. And Soulslayer would revel in it all.
He was sick.
Rage flashed through my body, burning hotter than the fire in the room. No, I wouldn’t let that psychopath win. I refused to give him the satisfaction of dancing over our graves. Tiny fireflies of magic ignited around my shield.
The dark angel considered me with a bored expression. “Try not to burn yourself, sweetheart.”
The flames around me burned hotter, funneling into a pillar of fire that hit the dark angel’s barrier like a battering ram. The nearly-transparent shield shook. I caught debris in my psychic net and slingshot the pieces at him. Chunks of stone streaked across the room like bullets. They popped against his barrier, then went out.
“Rage will only get you so far. You’re weak,” Soulslayer sneered, but his jaw was tight with concentration.
I didn’t stop hitting him with magic. Pieces of debris came at him from all corners of the room, adding to my bombardment.
The dark angel fought back. Burning debris shot at me like a school of fish, flowing as one continuous river. Streamers of rock and metal crashed against my shield. Most of them sizzled out, but a few broke through small holes in my defenses, slashing my skin. I hardly even felt the pain. At this moment, I knew only the fight: my defenses and my attack.
I formed a few debris streams of my own. My streams and his collided in a clash of fire and stone as we each tried to make it past the other’s defenses. Fire burned my skin. I slapped out the flames on my body and kept fighting.
The ceiling groaned. Heavy chunks of rock crashed down on us, each flicker against my magic shield like a punch to the head. The back wall split open, revealing Gin and Tessa. I extended my barrier around their huddled bodies, protecting them from the fire and debris.
Once the shield was secure around them, I took a closer look at them. They were dirty and covered in scratches, but they didn’t appear seriously wounded. And at least Gin had some clothes on now. Tessa was still wearing the magic-jamming bracelets that prevented her from teleporting.
Soulslayer charged at me, pushing me out of his way as he bolted for the exit. The force of his magic collapsed the area around me and my sisters. The psychopath was leaving us all here to die to save his skin.
I jumped out, shouting, “You coward!”
I drew in the power currents sizzling from the walls, weaving them into a magic whip. I swung my lightning lasso and latched it around the dark angel’s ankle. I yanked him back across the room.