Page 16 of Firedrake Betrayal
My mind is a jumbled, twisted mass of fears I struggle to see through.
The fear is winning.
Fear of things getting worse and of not being strong enough to protect myself or the life growing inside me.
Fear I will trust again and be betrayed again.
But I did something in my dream when an incubus tried to feed on me. I protected myself. I amnotweak. There’s no way Dominik would be free if I hadn’t used my powers to remove his chain.
So remove this door and get out of here, Jade.
I think of the thin, almost ghostlike blue strands wound around his chain. Of the knots and the tangles, the way my mind knew instinctively which strand to pull and which to push.
I didn’t use hands and fingers. It was all in my mind.
No.
It wasmagic.
Kaidas are masters of spirit, Dominik told me.
“Unless he was lying about that,” I breathe, kicking myself for not having seen how things would go. I should have pushed harder to know why he bit me. I should have spent the time in the cell ignoring him.
No. I should have listened to Dad when he argued against freeing Dominik.
I let go of my anger and refocus on the door.
It sure beats kicking it until I break a toe.
I will myself into the state I was in, in the cell, to force whatever thing I did back in Atticus’s cell to happen again.
My head pounds with all the effort I’m exerting until I have to stop.
Force.
For a person used to cowering from situations and people, I default to force a lot and it never works.
“If brute force never works, try something else,” I breathe.
I think about how I felt back in the cell. Panicked. I was terrified the drugged smoke Atticus was pumping into our cell would knock us all out, and I’d wake up being dissected by a chainsaw on a metal table.
Nope. Not helping to focus, Jade.
I shake the horrifying thought loose, and I try again.
The smoke was filling the cell. It made me tired and sluggish and slow. I kept trying to use Dominik’s shoulder as a cushion. A mistake, I know that now. He is never touching me again when I get out of here.
I was tired. Dominik kept shaking me.
Right when I stopped using force, stopped trying at all, the blue, translucent ribbons were just… there.
I lean into that moment.
They felt… wispy. Like cold smoke. And they danced away from me at first. It’s only when I stopped reaching for them that I saw the pattern.
My eyes open, though I didn’t will them to.
The door is still there in front of my face. Still locked. A big, black metal door trapping me inside a room filled with gold.
