The Hunter and the Mage (The Raven and the Dove #2) - Kaitlyn Davis Page 0,86

was the look in his hazel eyes, laced with lightning despite his rigid stance. He was controlled but not broken, composed but not contained. He was exactly what she yearned to be.

They lined up to fight, and she turned toward Malek. "I have no weapon."

"You are the weapon, Lyana." His smile was as charged as the air after a storm, electric enough to make her feathers prickle. "Your magic is the only weapon you'll ever need."

With a gulp, she brought her spirit eyes to the surface, letting the world dissolve into a rainbow, as though a fine layer of colorful dust were sprinkled across every surface. Thrumming between the elements and alive in each human heart was the same golden spark now glittering along her fingertips. Still, without her daggers she felt naked. Distantly, she knew the metal was more a liability than a defense. Jacinta could easily send them shooting for her heart. But they were a comfort, a shield. They made her feel unstoppable, and even if the sensation were false, it was something her magic had yet to achieve.

"But with a sword—"

"No."

"A dagger—"

"No."

"A—"

"Viktor."

A gust of wind barreled across the field and slammed into her chest. She was on her back before she knew what happened, rolling across the sand. Digging her fingers into the ground, she searched for a handhold, some way to fight. The claw marks mocked her as the wind dragged her back. She pumped her wings, but the air slid through her feathers, the clipped ends making them useless. She couldn't fly. She couldn't stand. She could barely hang on. How in the world was she supposed to fight?

"Your magic, Lyana!"

Healing was the only magic she knew, the only magic she trusted. The wind pressed against her and swirled around her, glittering with yellow aero'kine magic and something else, buttery swirls marking the elements themselves, a color only her eyes could see. Lyana tried to see deeper, into the spirit connecting the elements together. She tried to hold it, to stop it, to turn it, but the sky had a spirit like hers, wild and free, not meant to be controlled.

Her feet hit the wooden boards at the end of the arena. The gusts didn’t stop. They pushed against her chest, pounding her again and again, until her body rose and her wings spread and she was pressed flush to the wall like a painting made of flesh.

Lyana waited for Malek to stop it.

As the wind crushed her, she waited for his voice, for his command.

It never came.

Tears leaked from her eyes. They burned. Her exposed skin stung as pellets of sand caught in the maelstrom struck her like a million tiny knives. She fought to lift even a single finger, her arms shaking from the exertion. A scream tore through her lips instead. It was useless. She couldn't focus her magic, and any minute Malek would realize it too. All she had to do was wait, was endure. All she—

Lyana paused.

Somewhere in the pain and the panic, a force unfurled like a new flower in spring, not made of magic but of thought, carrying warmth and awareness down her veins, to the very tips of her toes, so every nerve tingled with its might.

When have I ever waited for a man to rescue me?

What happened to the bold girl who'd saved Rafe from a dragon? To the daring dove who'd chosen a raven as her mate? To the confident woman who'd agreed to be taken into the mist? She'd gotten herself into every one of those messes, and she'd gotten herself out of them too. The weight of this world beneath the mist, with its people and its prophecies, had buried her spirit. It was time for Lyana to set herself free.

Stop.

Lyana released her magic, sending the word out like a command.

Stop.

Through the watery film covering her eyes, through the whipping gales and the swirling sands, she saw Viktor freeze.

Stop!

She pushed the thought across the arena like her own raging tempest, letting it slam into his chest in an explosion of golden magic. He stumbled back and back and back, until he too stood flat against the wall, wincing despite the steely focus in his gaze. Still, his magic came.

"You must stop more than his body, Lyana. You must stop his power."

Easy for you to say, she snapped, letting the feistiness wrap around her like a shield. Deep in her magic as she was, the thought spiraled out, as physical as an arrow,