Page 100 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
“Better get used to it, Allie,” Orion said. “A lot of innocent people will die soon.”
“Stop it!”
“We need to incapacitate her,” Orion said. “She’ll be a handful if she’s awake.”
The figure was almost at the edge of the trees as Orion raised a reeking rag to my face. Whatever pungent liquid dripped from it would surely knock me out and make me pliable.
Something wild snapped inside of me.
My spine stiffened against the rock, two stubborn beings locked together. In the distance, a light rushed toward the clearing.
“The gods see what you’re doing,” I screamed, gaze slashing to the sky. Let the stars be witnesses to my anguish. “May the wind carry your worthless souls for eternity, so you will find no peace in any lifetime.”
No sooner had the curse words escaped me that my body began to burn.
A tremor slashed through the air, shaking the shadows.
All the misery, all the grief, all the disappointment blistered into raging anger.
Andpower.
The wind screamed right alongside me, hissing through the trees.
My insides unstitch themselves as a great surge of power coursed through me. The well which had been dry and dormant spilled over.
My entire being ignited.
True Protectorate blue tendrils shot out of me. They raced toward the masked figures, hunting them down.
The tendrils caught them in their unstoppable hold and flooded their bodies, until blue light shone from behind the mask in soundless screams.
Then they turned to ash, just like the one before had. Their masks plunked on the ground just as unceremoniously.
The well within me closed back up, as if it had never opened. It left an empty coldness behind.
As the light receded back into me, I slumped against the rock, spent beyond coherent thought. Orion’s hand was the only thing keeping me upright.
It seemed my powers still couldn’t bear to kill him.
“You still have magic,” Orion whispered. Even in my half-waking state, I heard the fear in his words.
I licked my lips, struggling to raise my head.
But raise it I did.
Let him see what he was doing.
Let him seeme.
“You carried me on your shoulders,” I murmured, meeting his stare once more.
For a moment, not even a breath, he hesitated.
His brown eyes warmed and widened with worry, slashing from his hand to my neck, as if he couldn’t believe what he was doing.
But the moment vanished as fast as it appeared.
Orion blinked and he was once again a beast.
