Page 106 of Rose and Shadows
I nodded.
“All right,” she said, calling her purple Dark Fae power to either palm, her shadows also swirling around her. “I’ll create a distraction, buy you some time, and draw their attention to stop this madness at the same time.”
My urge to have her stay back was intense.
But she wasn’t a thing to shield. She was her own powerful person, a warrior. She was to become a mother also. More than ever she needed to know she could protect all that she held dear, that she wouldn’t be sidelined either, that her power was enough.
And of course it was. It always had been. I’d known that from the moment she’d rescued me from the Celestial Plane during the Severance.
“Go,” I told her.
She nuzzled against me for a moment and we breathed one another in, then she used her swirling shadows to pass through the barrier functioning as both a ward and an illusion that ensured what lay within wasn’t perceptible to most—except Celestial-touched beings like me and those with illusion magic capabilities like Velra. And, of course, Sylas, with his learned ability to see through illusions after the tragedy of Glasswake Massacre.
I fought to focus to call my power very carefully, as siphoning other Celestial magic was a complex and delicate feat.
That focus was hard to come by as I watched Velra walking across the sand toward the heart of the nightmare within, her shadows swirling around her, her palms upturned with her flaming purple power, and her frost crackling along the path she walked, sweeping forward two feet ahead of her in a protective move.
“And here I thought my big, bad brother was the depraved one in the family,” her voice rang out.
As she’d predicted, it did jar her parents, both of them swinging their heads in her direction and stilling.
She pushed on, walking across the sand, and looking between them. “Looks like the two of you take the cake there, huh? Quite the disgusting accomplishment.”
Lavra ripped the vampire female from between her legs and rose to her feet.
With a snap of her fingers, everything stilled—the cruel games, the twisted revelry… all movement of their minions.
My muscles locked, my white power that I’d called to both of my upturned palms flickered unsteadily, as all eyes were on her.
The attention of almost forty enemy hostiles.
All focused on the woman I loved so very dearly.
The terror for her was undercut all of a sudden as Velra sent a stream of her purple power to the magically pouring ice beingused to constantly snuff out the victimized dragon’s flame beside Lavra.
It shattered the magic entirely and the dragon was released, gasping and spluttering, and collapsing with relief on the sand.
Still in a state of danger, yet at least no longer suffering under such torment.
Arvent kicked his heels into the dragon he was riding and touched down on the beach upon the poor being, barreling over to Velra.
“Disgraced spawn,” he seethed as he forced the dragon to a stop just three feet from Velra—just outside the range of the frost lining the sand in front of her protectively. “How dare you come where we are?”
Velra maintained a steady gaze. “The disgrace is all yours.”
I smiled to myself.Well done indeed, little shadow.
My power stabilized, and I began carefully forming concentric circles of swirling white magic levitating before either palm, wherein I would then use them to draw the Celestial power present in the mind-meddling taking place into the center points of each and hold it there until it could be released somewhere more permanent.
“She’s come for punishment,” Lavra spoke, sauntering over, her dress brushing the sand. “For the shame she’s visited upon our name.” She hissed. “For killing our dear, beautiful son. We know. We know it had to have been you!” She swept her hand in a sudden arc at Velra, slicing her cheek open with her gray magic.
Velra hissed, her head snapping to the side, but her footing remaining steady.
The urge to forgo our strategy and move in instantly was indeed overwhelming.
But then all would be lost.
Our chances of confiscating this Celestial magic.
