Page 69 of Of Flames and Crows

Mae lowered her brows at Roman.

Confusion swamped him when she cast a crimson air helmet around his head. “What—what are you doing?!”

“Try not to die.”

She pressed a hand to his chest and blasted him out of the sphere a second before it disintegrated.

Roman choked as he whooshed rapidly backward through the water, Mae and the fox’s figures shrinking in the distance.

Detonations boomed in his ears. He looked around wildly and saw Mae’s friends engage the Dark Council sorcerers and witches attacking them from within their own black-magic bubbles. His pulse stuttered.

Several of the people fighting on Mae’s side were Fire Magic users. Powerful ones at that.

Roman fisted his hands where he floated, feeling weak and helpless at not being able to aid them. A disturbance above him drew his gaze. His eyes widened.

A dark orb was arrowing down toward him. It was Oscar’s.

The sorcerer looked pissed enough to kill him from where he levitated inside a corrupt sphere with his lynx familiar.

Roman tried to swim out of the path of the attack.

It followed his movements.

The orb was five feet from striking him when someone blocked it.

Shock jolted Roman as he stared at the figure with the spear and the crow glaring at Oscar from within one of Mae’s red spheres. A bright light blazed from their eyes and hummed around them.

That’s—that’s white magic! Like in the ley lines!

Another figure appeared, two black swords in hand and a tiger with dazzling scarlet pupils at his side. Roman swallowed at the red energy shimmering around the blond man and his familiar.

It was magic unlike any he’d ever felt before.

No! It—it kinda resembles Mae’s!

A fierce battle started between Oscar and the two men.

The resulting eddies swept Roman farther away. He startled and started swimming for the distant surface, steering clear of the warring sorcerers and witches around him.

A slipstream caught him when he was halfway to the top.

Panic choked Roman as the current tugged him toward the darkness at the bottom of the dungeon. He struggled valiantly, the muscles in his arms and legs burning as he fought the undertow. His vision swam.

He was running out of oxygen.

Roman’s labored breathing echoed the drumming of blood in his ears as he sank to the bottom of the cave. His body touched the ground moments later. Inky spots bloomed across his sight as he slowly settled on his back. His chest grew impossibly tight.

He lifted a hand weakly toward the blurry shapes far above him.

Don’t…leave me…here…

His oxygen ran out. Shudders shook him as he started to asphyxiate, the red bubble around his head the only thing stopping him from drowning as well. His eyelids fluttered closed.

Fangs gently scraped his neck. Something picked him up by the neckline of his shirt and dragged him from the bottom of the abyss. A warm hand grasped his wrist seconds later. He was tugged into someone’s hold.

Fingers pinched his nose. Then a mouth covered his and blew air into his starving lungs at the same time that the bubble around his head vanished.

Roman’s fading consciousness flared to life. So did his magic.

---