Page 99 of Mantle

I pushed through it. I even accepted the resistance and essentially went around it, making my power circle it, rather than trying to tear through it.

And it fucking worked, that warmth rising and then evolving to uncontainable heat as it rose and strengthened, as I summoned what was mine, refusing to allow what wasn’t to deny it and keep it down.

The manacles shattered as it exploded out of me, the poisoned spikes ripping from my flesh in the process and making me grunt at the sharp pain.

Pain.

I looked out at Ketheron, his eyes shining with hope as he saw what I’d managed to do, while Corvin was distracted uttering another monologue at him that he wasn’t even listening to, his full attention on me.

I winked at Ketheron.

And the misunderstood sweetheart winked back with a strained smile through his agony.

I thrust my arms out, touching the Hellfire directly.

But as it seared my skin, I invokedCorsecus,my silver power swirling around me, growing more violent and encompassing by the moment and tearing into the Hellfire, not just beating it back this time, but actually destroying it, bit by bit.

Corvin did notice then. “No!” he screamed. “Not possible!”

He lunged at Ketheron, driving Valkrith into his gut.

“Stop!” I cried, as Ketheron’s bloodcurdling scream echoed hauntingly off the walls.

Corvin ripped it out, then watched with sadistic glee as Ketheron’s eyes turned white.

Expressionless.

He stopped struggling.

He looked away from me.

And then he addressed Corvin, “What do you wish of me, my lord?”

“Yes, good boy. Very good.”

I pushed through the rest of the Hellfire and strode toward them, droppingCorsecusand shoving my hand through the dome confining Ketheron.

“Don’t touch him!” Corvin yelled, rather frantically and desperately for him.

I thrust a bolt of my silver fire at the son of a bitch and he shrieked and dropped the sword as my blow propelled him across the lab and into the disgusting pods, decimating them in one brutal impact.

As he landed, stunned amid the wreckage, I went to Ketheron.

But he had me jolting as the chains suddenly dematerialized and then he was springing to his feet and snatching up the sword.

He stood there staring at me for several moments.

My gut twisted as there wasn’t anything there now.

He was… gone.

Corvin had stripped that away from him.

“You know the first place to strike at!” Corvin called over, pushing to his feet. “Go now. Make them fear you, broken god.”

“Don’t do this. You’re better than that, better than him.”

He thrust his hand out and grasped my throat, then hauled me off the floor. “Pretty angel.” He snarled in my face. “Bad angel.”

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