Page 155 of The Cerulean Sister
The four of them seem to ignite at once, firing bolts of light and giant orbs of energy out of their hands toward us.
But I am ready. I cast a long line, wrapping around the bolt, crushing and strangling it before the elder sends another.
My tendrils snake up the floor to their feet, snagging one by the ankles and throwing her across the room.
Another elder yelps but pushes back as Selene shoots a puff of air toward her, enough to bring down a giant Frithian tree.
"Ferren, at your right!" Calliape calls out from somewhere in the chaos.
When I look to her, she is reappearing from folding the distance and snatching an elder who hid behind the others from across the room.
Calliape holds her on the ground, bracing and waiting for me to strike. But then she screams as the elder burns the skin on her arm with a flaming grip.
I dispatch a sharp, furious beam without remorse, the spike ripping through the old woman, rendering her limp and slack-jawed.
Calliape folds the distance again to get away from the onslaught between both sides.
I block another orb of light, shielding both Selene and me, letting it bounce off and dissipate, but I can feel my throat scratching and closing like one of them is attempting to choke me.
I touch my neck with my palm, feeling the vibration of divine gifts there.
They cannot penetrate my shield now, so one of them is focusing in on me, sending silk strands, manifesting within my body to choke me so they can finish the others.
The elder is strong, very gifted, but I reach in with my own green tendril, feeding it down until I pluck out her weak string and flick it to the side.
With that, the fragile framed elder runs off farther into the temple, leaving her sister priestesses to fight us alone. She has nothing to offer in this fight anymore, so now she is cowering away to find Crixa.
But as if she reached her destination, she lets out a terrible blood-chilling scream, her voice cracking with age and despair.
The scream is so loud, I can hear it over Selene’s gift that deafens the space with wind.
My gifts waver as I listen to the shrieking elder priestess wail and exclaim to . . . someone, demanding to know what they have done.
The last elder fighting us holds out both her palms, bracing with her own shield of light against mine, fighting for control.
"Go! I can hold it!" Selene's wind rushes over the sides of the wall of light, deafening and relentless.
The moment I let go, their gifts collide into each other, clashing in an ear-popping boom.
The fabric on the walls rips and falls in tatters, only to be swept up and pinned to the wall as Selene changes the angle, directing her force.
Again, I hear the deafening voice of the elder in a far-off room shouting, wildly pressing for answers. "What have you done? What have you done?"
But this time, a second scream from a familiar voice rings out with it.
Chapter
Forty-One
Calliape follows me deeper into the temple, beckoned by the distorted screaming. A short corridor opens up to another sitting room, empty and untouched. Above a domed ceiling with beautifully draped fabric, windows let in the nearly absent light of the eclipsed sky.
There are at least three attaching rooms dotting the outer perimeter. My eyes land on each of them, but I am unsure of which to commit to.
"Calliape, which—" A crash cuts off my question. It echoes up into the chamber of the ceiling, directing our attention to the farthest exit.
Calliape clamps her hand down on my shoulder and without hesitation launches us forward, as far as her gift will allow in the unfamiliar setting.
With my next inhale, we stand in the doorway of another sitting room, a disheveled, eerie version of the perfectly put together space we were in previously.
