Page 178 of Love & Heart Braking

He didn’t mean a phoenix. He didn’t mean that Austin and the Lanarays should fly.

I held my palms face up and warmth filled me at the familiar weight of my bow. But that warmth was replaced by darkness and hate, by emptiness and ice, as I called Venus’s second gift.

And as I settled the metal arrow against the nock thing, a curious contentment filled me. Because my bow was already swinging the tip to Smolder Cineres. Since the arrow arrived, I’d feared becoming the judge. The judge of whether someone deserved to feel love or not. That responsibility had been more than I could bear.

But the manual on Venus’s power was wrong on that count.

I should have seen it. I didn’t decide when people could love, did I? No, their love was preordained, and I simply opened them to it. This was true with anti-love too. Venus’s power had judged the people below, and I was just the conduit to enforcing her magic. I was the executioner for her joy and for her pain.

Pink magic burst from deep within, surging down my arms and into the bow. It spiraled around the metal arrow, and in a voice that I hadn’t known could come from me, I spoke in a voice that halted the anarchy below. “Smolder Cineres, Acribus Cineres, Mistress Cineres, Master Hucs, Bortyss Hucs, Li Boquit, Smandry Blum, Yezla Plorex, Lrad Opifi, Master Dethnel,” the names poured from my mouth in the voice that wasn’t mine. A distant part of me couldn’t understand how I was speaking the names of people I’d never met nor heard mentioned—Blum and Plorex, Utatio and Arbinto, Doquu and Ripps, Opifi and Boquit. I listed members of the top four families I had no knowledge about too. That I couldn’t possibly know. The list pouring from my lips trailed off into nothing, and new words rose from within me while those below remained absolutely mute. “Each of you has been found lacking. That which you have spurned shall forsake you. That which you took for granted shall be granted to you no longer. Exist cold. Exist alone. For thine hearts are no longer yours to hold.”

My arms lifted with the bow controlled by the goddess’s power. I drew back my arm, and her magic rushed from me as I released the metal arrow into the sky.

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The metal arrow shot up like black lightning and exploded. The fragments shot in every direction, and as I fell from the cage, body limp, I watched some of the fragments connect with their targets.

Smolder Cineres.

Bortyss Hucs.

His father.

Li Boquit.

Right now, every single patriarch and matriarch of the twelve families was falling to the ground, where they didn’t move.

I hadn’t fallen into the hover charm, and I was powerless to do anything about my fall. Far too tired. Drained of magic.

Of energy.

A roar filled my ears. Strong arms caught me, and my head lolled as I looked into blue eyes.

“Thank you.” I sighed up at my berserker.

We were right at the bottom of the amphitheater now. How the hell would we ever get out? The stairs were flooded by panicked guests desperate to escape my magic.

My magic.

Devereaux leaped over the tiers with me in tow, down to the cobblestones below.

“What are you doing? We need to go the other way.”

“Now,” he ordered in a savage voice.

Vera extended her arms, and my hair floated as she called on her stored magic. She clapped her hands together and a ripple of hot air burst from her, moving with the speed of a siren and the force of a kraken.

Nothing happened.

No one stopped.

But then a distant rumble pricked at my ears. The rumble grew.

“What is that?” I asked Devereaux, gripping the tatters of his shirt and jacket.

He looked down, and his fangs gleamed. “She destroyed the protections on the estate. Help is here. Hold on tight, sweetheart.” Devereaux raised his head. “Austin. The tower.”

The pale phoenix nodded, and fire filled his eyes for an instant before molten blue fire erupted from his chest, bolting directly for a tower. The fiery inferno licked the stone walls, and I watched as the very stone begin to drip. The flames weaved through the windows, and I knew that anyone caught inside had to be dead.

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