Page 103 of A Sword of Ice
Shula’s heartwas caught in her throat, and she feared her magic would sputter to its death. She tried to focus, calling on a darker, more dangerous part of herself. She’d made the connection eventually. Every time she’d been able to melt iron had been under extreme duress.
She called forth that familiar pain now.
She let her memories invade. Of her life before. Of her Papa, of Mama. Of the soldiers catching Shula as fire danced from between her fingertips. The way her parents had stood up to them.
Shula could still feel her mother’s cold fingers gripping her forearm and shoving her through a hole in the gate on the reservation. She remembered her clothes and arms snagging against the thin, iron fibers, making her bleed. She remembered turning and watching her Papa jump in front of the soldier with his hands up to stop him.
She remembered the blade he took to his shoulder, the hilt of the sword that came down against her mother’s head just as she screamed at Shula to run.
Those memories overpowered almost everything inside her, coming to the front of her mind until it felt like she was in that moment again. A barefoot child, afraid, her heart pounding as she ran. She’d been a short, skinny girl for her age and had easily hid from the soldiers. It had been her mistake to circle back and watch them haul her parents off to a camp.
Feet bleeding as they scraped against rocks, sticks, and gravel with every pounding step she took, Shula’s tears didn’t stop flowing as her parents were tried as traitors and pulled through the gates for hiding a magical Fae.
All hope she’d had of their survival had died as their screams had pierced the sky that night. They’d been shoved into a door, and then the heat was an overwhelming force until their screams of agony became the echoed memories of a terrifying song, and ash rained from the sky and clung to Shula’s body.
The last touch her parents would ever give her.
In hindsight, it was a morbid thought.
But everything about that day had been morbid.
And that’s what she summoned to her as she stepped from the shadows with her Fae companions at her back. She summoned the one truth she hadn’t yet given them, given Iona. Her friend had been honest about her feelings, had tried to give Shula hope that her own parents might still be alive. Little did she know thatthatparticular hope was a dead thing. Because Shula had watched them die that day.
Her companions made their way towards the gate of the camp, and Shula imagined it to be the same entryway that opened the doors to her parents’ deaths. Her fire raged. It enveloped her in its fury and shot out with licking trails against the ground until it crawled up and consumed the iron gate.
The iron was oppressive, but not as oppressed as the Fae, and her own memories melted the thing off its hinges. She channeled every bit of pain she’d felt then, her arms rising until she felt consumed with it herself.
The rusted gate turned red, dripping from the top down like lava squirting out of a volcano. She could hear humans shouting from a distance, the whoosh of arrows and ice magic, but the roaring in her ears grew louder until it was a deafening force.
And all she knew was fire.
Fire and melting iron.
* * *
Iron pooled against the ground,a hot river that made the very earth look like it was bleeding.
Iona cut through Shula’s line of vision, their magic warring against one another for a fragment of a moment before Shula’s magic pulled back into her. Iona bent, her arms poised in front of her, fingers spread wide. Ice struck from inside her and covered the ground to cool the heated earth.
A moment later, they were running towards the entrance. Arrows flew and Iona ignored the pulsing discomfort of iron to create a canopy above their heads. The flying weapons struck, splintering against the strength of her magic. There were shouts and rushing footsteps, the clattering of metal uniforms, a horde of humans appeared.
Then the battle began.
Her sword formed against her palm, the force jarring against steel with every swing of her arms against her enemies. Humans fell around her, one after the other in heaps of scattered and frozen limbs, charred flesh, and screaming pain.
It wasn’t quick. The battle waged on. When one human fell, another materialized as if born of smoke. Determination was the only thing keeping Iona on her feet. She couldn’t make out her companions around her, but she got glimpses of them, flashes of hair and flying magic.
She whirled with her sword in hand, cutting through a human’s exposed neck. Her gaze snagged against Weylyn, fighting his way through humans. His laughter rang out, manic and vicious, above the screams of the dying. With a swift raise of his sword, he sliced through armor and skin, the entrails of a human dangling from his blade, swaying with the wind like a chime that brought good luck. Blood splattered against his face, staining his white teeth. He resembled a rabid animal, a devil from legends of terror.
Despite the direness of their situation, Iona found herself rolling her eyes at the crazy Fae while she fought through the melee. Bodies dropped left and right, blood flew, and from the chaos, an enormous human charged at her. He was easily the same size as Julius and strong for his race.
He barreled into her. Their swords clanged together, the force so great that her weapon shattered in crystal shards.
She gritted her teeth, then cried out as his hilt came crashing down against her. The iron had her weakened, and she slid against the ground, falling on her ass away from him. The human loomed, prowling towards her. His arm raised and the sword came swinging down.
With a cry, she whipped her hand out, a new sword forming and blocking his weapon inches from her face.
Her heart pounded up to her throat, her every muscle screaming with fury. Her limbs shook, his strength pressing her back, back…
