Page 88 of Magic Betrayed

For a few moments, no one even blinked. They all just stared as if they couldn’t quite believe what they’d seen, and then everyone moved at once.

I’ll give them this—these bounty hunters weren’t quitters. In the space of a breath, they zeroed in on Ethan as the primary threat and went after him with everything they had.

The bear simply charged. The drus shifted his focus, and as he did so, the roots around my feet loosened slightly. It wasn’t enough for me to escape, but the sudden loss of support caught me off guard and I fell, even as more roots erupted from the ground where the fire elemental had disappeared.

The fae woman shielded her body in blue and stepped forward, both of her hands crackling with magic. And the goblin… To be honest, I had no idea what his magic might be, but he, too, moved towards Ethan, the four of them converging on his position with deadly intent.

Time seemed to slow. Each step they took was an eternity—their progress lit by the glow of the bonfires and marked by the rhythm of blood pounding in my ears. I genuinely didn’t know what Ethan would do. How, or even whether he would respond. And as I watched, unable to stop or interfere with what was happening, I caught a glimpse of his face—of the agony written there by years of unending struggle against magic that had taken over his body—and I wondered for an instant whether he might choose to accept the death that confronted him. To give in to the voices that whispered he would never find hope. Never find a solution or acceptance in this world.

And in that same moment…

I suddenly understood why Kes had stayed. I knew why she’d been willing to sacrifice so much in spite of the kidnapping, in spite of the enmity, and in spite of the risk.

Because Ethan, too, deserved hope. Deserved a home. Deserved to have a family who would never abandon or betray him. Deserved someone who would fight with him and for him against the demons that raged unchecked within his own mind and body.

Maybe I had no idea how to defeat them, either. But I knew their voices. I knew the weapons they wielded and the damage they could inflict. So if at the end of this day we were all still standing… If he chose hope…

I would choose it with him.

But only if I survived. And to do that, I needed to get further away from this fight. But with my feet still bound…

I strained once more against the roots, but they held firm, even as the ground rumbled ominously beneath me. I would have to cut them. Somehow, I gathered enough will and desperation to form a blade of fae magic and begin to hack at the roots, but they were tough and tenacious, and I was shaking with adrenaline.

And then my fragile focus was shattered. With a hungry roar, the bonfires the bounty hunters had set around the house suddenly flared skyward, soaring twenty feet or more and illuminating every detail of the scene as clear as day. The four mercenaries stood poised to crush the slender form of Ethan, who awaited them relaxed and unafraid. Almost unaware. He neither crouched nor bent, nor even lifted his hands.

He only raised his chin, closed his eyes…

…and summoned a tornado from the clear night sky.

I watched in horrified awe as the narrow, twisting, seething column of wind materialized around him. Somehow it left his body untouched as it raged and howled, pulling in dust and debris from the surroundings until I could no longer see him standing there, unmoving in the midst of the terror he’d created.

The bounty hunters never stood a chance. The bear shifter and the goblin were a few feet away and were instantly picked up by the vortex. The last I heard of them was a panicked cry that was quickly drowned out by the roar of the wind.

The fae tried to reverse course, but she wasn’t fast enough. She, too, was swept up and disappeared, leaving only the drus, who had anchored himself to the ground with roots.

Perhaps it would have worked against an ordinary windstorm. But against the power of Ethan’s air magic? This last line of defense served only as a prison to hold him when the winds turned even the smallest bits of debris into airborne projectiles. Just like his companions, the drus’s screams cut off abruptly, and then there was no sound but the hungry roar of the storm as I crouched as low as I could, staring my own death in the face.

For a moment, I thought I heard a new roar, blending with the sound of the wind, but it was faint, and I chose to ignore it as I found myself suddenly freed from the drus’s magic.

The instant the roots released me, I flattened myself to the ground, my arms curled over my head for protection. Our enemies were gone, but Ethan seemed unaware that there was no further need for defense. The storm continued to rage, and as I watched, the tornado visibly widened. If this didn’t stop, it would eventually take the entire house with it.

I had to reach him. Had to somehow convince him that there was no more danger… only the risk of his own magic flaring out of control. But I couldn’t even see him now, and I could hear nothing over the churn and howl of the unnatural storm.

And yet, I had to try something, so I screamed his name and began to crawl forward.

I was too late.

The winds surged, and then I was spinning. Flying. Unable to tell up from down, battered by who even knew what as I screamed in terror so visceral that I nearly blacked out. At least, I thought I was screaming, but the winds were so loud that I couldn’t even hear myself.

It wasn’t how I ever thought I would die. I’d left so much undone. So many of the people I loved were still in danger.

But I’d tried. I’d given it everything I had, and that, at least, was worth something.

If only I’d had a chance…

I felt a tremendous jolt. Something popped, and my mouth filled with the warm, coppery tang of blood, but I wasn’t spinning anymore. I was rising. Floating. As if an enormous hand was lifting me into the air, making me feel like I was going to throw up. Maybe this was what it felt like to die.

Raine.

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