Page 56 of Cry of the Damned
Never.
I would never do that. I would rather die than miss this opportunity. I’d rather risk it all and rely on my wolves to heal me. Maybe there were some wounds from which it would be impossible to come back from, no matter my triad’s help, but for all those who had suffered at the hands of countless magistrates, for my friends who had died right here while I did nothing, I would risk my life.
My soul.
As Kall, Maki, and Novuk took away the last of the electrical assault from me, I aimed one hand at Novus’s middle and the other one at the hand holding the dagger. I struck like a viper. My right hand, claws springing at the tips, digging into the wound in the magistrate’s stomach, and the other taking hold of her wrist.
I was fast, but so was she, fast enough to press the dagger harder and slice it across my neck, inflicting a deep wound.
It all seemed to happen at once. The sharp pain in my neck. My right hand dipping it into the warmth of her wound as sticky blood coated my fingers. Novus’s dagger clattering to the stone ground as I managed to push her hand away. The raw scream that came out of her as I twisted my claws inside her.
But worst of all, the dizzying sensation of blood flowing freely down my neck. Desperately, I pressed my free hand around my throat and rolled away from Novus. An instant later, panic and healing power traveled down the tetrad bond, flooding me.
The flow of blood lessened somewhat, but not fast enough. I felt my strength waning quickly. My knees and arms trembled as I crawled away.
Sheela!Kall called down the bond, and I knew that if he could, he would be right there next to me, but he was fighting his own fight, his own wounds. Maki and Novuk also clamored for my name, but there was nothing they could do besides lend me their own fading strength.
“You, bitch!” Novus growled behind me, then dropped on top of me.
Bracing one knee against my crotch, she pushed me forward until my face was hovering above the bubbling spring.
“You will drown now,” Novus spat. “This death was always in your cards.”
CHAPTER 21
AsNovuspressedahand to the back of my head and tried to push me face-first into the infected hot spring, I braced my hands against the edge and pushed back with what little strength I had left. My arms trembled. I stared in horror at the milky water, my face only inches away from it. Blood from my neck trickled into the stream and hissed, turning the water pink.
I clenched my teeth, shoving as hard as I could, but my strength was quickly draining away along with my blood. I was not healing fast enough.
Shift, Kall’s voice called desperately in my head.Shift, Sheela!
I tried. I reached for my magic, but it didn’t respond. In fact, it seemed to refuse.
I can’t, I called out desperately.Help me!
But I knew they couldn’t. They were fighting for their own lives, already lending me their strength, but it wasn’t enough.
Novus leaned on me harder. My face dropped to a hand’s breadth from the water. Steam rose, heating my face, filling my nostrils with the noxious fumes of sulfur and whatever else Bethel’s spell had produced.
Bethel…
Her prophecy was wrong. I wasn’t meant to bring down the Academy. I wasn’t meant to turn it into ashes.
How could I burn the Academy when I couldn’t even defeat Novus or save myself? When I couldn’t shift? I didn’t even have that kind of magic. Bethel was the only one capable of producing fire. I’d done it while I’d been in Rob’s body, but it had been his witch magic I’d tapped into. I’d sensed it inside of him, as well as I could sense my own. It had felt similar…
So similar.
What if…
I reached for my magic again. It was there like before, but this time, it didn’t fight me. Instead, it rose like a tide, ready to be used the way it was intended to be used atthismoment.
And that was when I understood the inevitability of Bethel’s augury.
I really was the one, though it wasn’t only me. It was also Kall, Maki, and Novuk as they lent me their own magical power. It was still flowing into me, trying to heal me, even as they fought their own battles.
Without hesitation, I took hold of the power and drew on it, except this time I channeled it through a different path, the path I had learned while I was a host in Rob’s body.
Fire exploded out of me, a wild creature shaped like a wolf.
