Page 121 of A Dance With Fire
Ryker wanted time?Shula would give him all the time he needed.
They came from all sides, whirring, unforgiving machines. The ground shook from the force of their stomping steps, and as they approached, Shula could feel a rush through her whole body, igniting her blood. For a single moment, all earlier weakness was replaced with adrenaline. It was a feeling that built low in her gut and spread, a strange energy that burned every inch of her body.
It built and built, a protective force rising. And it gave her no other choice but to unleash it.
She screamed as the magic within her exploded, enveloping the charging machines in a terror of flames. Hitting iron, her fire burned green with the heat, sending sparks flying across the sky like fireworks.
The iron monsters pushed against the fire, but Shula pushed harder. These monsters were human creations, meant to destroy them. Whether they’d been created with that sole purpose or if Mana had somehow evolved within them, it didn’t matter.
Because Mana lived within Shula, too, and she intended to use it. She had friends, if her kidnappers could even be called that. Whatever they were, she was going to defend them, knowing she was the only one who could.
The power inside responded in kind.
It exploded against iron, burning so hotly that the metal melted. Using so much force nearly brought Shula to her knees. She could hear shouting, though it sounded far away. Her ears popped, and she barely tasted the blood dropping from her nose to her cracked lips.
Darkness started to settle into the corners of her vision.
Then she was yanked backwards, her feet giving out from under her. Her head whipped to the side in time to see Clay pulling her back and Uric, standing and bloody, a portal glowing behind him. Julius had Ryker thrown over his shoulder, and Valerio was pushing his way through the portal with Weylyn. Julius followed, and then Clay was pushing her forward, and she was swallowed up by the maelstrom.
* * *
Shula’s facericocheted off the dirt, and she tasted it and blood on her teeth. Her heart pounded against the earth, and she felt the scrape of her nails against the ground as she pushed herself up. Inhaling a deep breath into her lungs, she was met with fresh air and only the smallest tinge of iron.
She got to her knees, inhaling the taste of unpolluted air and looked around. Clay, Julius, and Weylyn were pushing to their feet, Valerio was helping Uric, whose face was now a latticework of wrinkles, into a sitting position, and Ryker lay immobile on the ground.
His name tore from Shula’s lips, and without realizing what she was doing, she flung herself over his body, fingers pressing against his scarred skin to feel for a pulse.
“Ryker…” Her voice shook and so did her hands when she reached up to push his long hair away from his face.
Seeing him laying immobile on the ground made something in her chest fracture. It was an inexplicable sensation with no name, no beginning, and no end. Yet it was there, as prominent as the rapid beating of her heart and the magic in her veins.
“Wake up.”
The silence seemed to pulse around them, around this very moment. Shula could feel everyone’s gazes on them, taking in Ryker, their ears taking in every faint beat of his heart.
“You don’t get to just save that asshole’s life and die on us!” Shula demanded, feeling tears sting at the back of her eyes.
He was demanding, cruel, and spit words always laced with poison. He had secrets that he refused to expose even while ripping her own from her chest. He was as imperfect as the scars that marred his skin. And yet he was a healing force. He pushed Shula to do better and be better, not because he wanted her on their side for the war—he’d made it clear that he didn’t—but because he genuinely believed in her.
He was perhaps the first.
She wasn’t ready to let that go.
His pulse was a soft beat beneath his skin; he was alive, breathing, yet he didn’t wake. Shula felt a tugging at her arms as someone tried to pull her off of him but she refused to let go. He would wake up.He would.
She waited with bated breath until Ryker’s eyes slowly fluttered opened, and his chest expanded in a single, painful inhalation before falling into a steady rhythm.
“Thank Mana.” Shula dropped her forehead to his chest and looked back up at him.
His eyes were on her, soft, while his thick brows pulled together. The next moment, his palm enveloped her cheek, and he swiped away the blood on her face with the pad of his thumb.
“You’re hurt,” he said in his guttural voice.
Shula choked on a laugh. “You can’t heal everyone.” When the tips of his fingers started to emit the softest light, Shula pushed his hand down to his chest. “No. You have done enough.”
“I can’t leave you injured,” he argued.
“Will you stop with your stupid, reckless, impulsive need to heal everyone?” she spat, annoyed because he’d nearly died healing Uric for the good of the whole group. Did he have a death wish and didn’t care what happened, or how much energy he pulled from deep within himself? He’d live his life morphed in scars by the thousand and absorb the pain until he died if they let him. It wasn’t sacrifice. It was stupidity. “Not everyone needs to be healed.”
