Page 23 of House of the Raven
He pushed to his feet, espiritu thrumming again and light glowing all around him. With practiced ease, he launched an attack. I didn’t have the sense to be afraid. I only had the certainty that he couldn’t hurt me, or my father, or my sister. He had ended Mother’s life, but that would be his last evil deed.
“Be gone and die,” I said simply.
A surge of warmth emanated from my chest and coursed down the length of my arm. With swiftness surpassing even the sorcerer’s, radiant espiritu burst from my fingertips. In an instant, as if he were nothing but a moth caught in a flame, a fiery whoosh enveloped him, consuming him in the blink of an eye.
All at once, the warmth left me, and I collapsed to the floor, the world around me fading to nothing. After that day, there was a white streak in my hair that forever reminds me of what I lost.
“This will be the last mistake you make, you asshole, because this time I’ll make sure you never return.” Even if I have to strangle him with my bare hands, I will make sure this bastardo never threatens my family again.
I vaguely wonder if Guardia Bastien will interfere—given that he’s supposed to watch over me—but he does not. And it isn’t cowardice. His expression looks as impassive as ever, no fear has entered it. Instead, he only seems… curious.
Shaking my head, I dismiss my quick assessment of him and focus on the real problem. The monster in front of me. I expect thatwarmth that enveloped me all those years ago to return as I square my shoulders and plant my feet next to Father.
“I’m counting on you to do your best. We have a score to settle,” Orys’s eerie voice speaks from the depth of the blinding glow. It reverberates through the room, along the thrumming of his espiritu. “It has taken me this long to recover and confront you again. Give me all you’ve got.”
I clench my fists. “You will pay for what you did to my mother and for stealing my sister’s free will.”
“Amira Plumanegra is here of her own volition,” the sorcerer assures me.
No. That’s impossible. I shake my head, determined not to believe a word he says.
“I ordered you to get out of here, Valeria,” Father says.
“I stopped him before. I will stop him now.” I feel confident even as the empowering warmth in my chest remains conspicuously absent.
“No, you won’t.” Father sounds certain as if he knows something I don’t, but in years past, he’s maintained he has no idea how I defeated Orys.
“How did I destroy that bad sorcerer, Father?” I asked him more than once.
“I don’t know how it happened, amor. Maybe you inherited some espiritu from your mother, after all, but if you did, it’s gone now.”
“What if it’s just sleeping inside me?” I wondered more than once, but Father never gave any credit to that idea.
And at this moment, that is what I’m counting on. The mere possibility that I have some dormant espiritu inside me demands that I confront Orys. Not Father. He would certainly die while I may have a chance to survive. I have to believe it even if in the twelve years since Mother’s death not a hint of espiritu has graced the tips of my fingers.
I take a deep breath, willing the essence of my very soul to strike Orys down. I don’t want him to simply disappear like the last time. This time,I want his lifeless body on the floor, his vacant gaze fixed on the ceiling. I want to personally shovel dirt over his dead carcass.
I thrust a hand forward.
Orys lunges to one side and rolls over one shoulder, but it’s all for nothing because my hand remains frustratingly normal. No light emanates from it. No espiritu delivers the killing blow I yearn to see.
The sorcerer stretches to his full height and the light that conceals him falls away. I gasp, horror seizing my breath. His once-handsome countenance is now grotesquely disfigured, appearing as if it is sculpted from melted wax. His mouth droops in a downward line, and his eyelids look like thin, crumpled parchment.
His gaze falls to my chest.
“I told you,” Amira says.
Orys’s destroyed mouth stretches into a grimace of satisfaction. “I had to see for myself.”
Next, he lifts a hand and beckons toward my chest.
As if this is some sort of signal, Guardia Bastien steps forward and unsheathes his rapier with azing. It seems he gave me the benefit of the doubt and patiently witnessed my ineffectual move, but seeing as all I did was wiggle my fingers at the sorcerer, Guardia Bastien has decided to act.
Raising his weapon, he quickly advances on Orys, then hacks down as if to split the male in two. Orys is quicker, however, and when he weaves his fingers and thrusts his hands forward, actual espiritu pours from them in a blinding torrent. The magic strikes Guardia Bastien squarely in the chest and sends him flying against the wall. He crumples like a marionette and doesn’t get back up.
Father takes my hand, pulls me, and tucks me behind his back. Slowly, he starts backing away from the sorcerer and Amira.
“There is no escape, Father,” my sister says. “Your time is over.”
