Oath of the Alpha - Eva Dresden Page 0,24
fingers of crimson grew stronger as they found more weeping cuts.
Er’it swayed, the dry click of his throat loud in the surrounding stillness. As soon as the fear he might pass out before completing the act snared his thoughts, he shoved it away with brutal determination. He would see it done, even if Kal had to carry him over his back like a sack of goods. Dropping to one knee with his hands still held out in front of him, Er’it thought it might just come to that.
Wrapping around his ankles, it sifted through the crinkling leaves with a sigh. Tangling its way up his calves and thighs, it wrapped tighter with every circuit it made before Er’it could distinguish the numbing cold from the deadened sensation of exhaustion. Shout ragged, filthy brow furrowed, he watched on in horrified fascination as the glimmering blue light crept farther up his body. Unable to climb to his feet, there was nothing he could do as the last shreds of his power guttered and threatened to blink out of existence.
Only it began to surge anew. The lurid ruby light turned night into glorious, blood-shaded day before the snapping azure overtook it, twining over and through the strengthening red of his magic and turning it plum dark as it mingled and spread. Not just hovering over his skin but sinking deep into the flesh down to his very bones, it gave Er’it the strength of twenty men as he lurched to his feet with a victorious roar.
Kal thundered behind him, trumpeting into the darkness, the lustrous circle of power held at bay. The resonating call trembled through the earth as jagged flashes of pure white light scored the blackened ground, building in waves as Kal reared and came down with silvery hooves again and again.
Laugh bordering on mad, drunk on this wild surge of power that kept building inside him, Er’it spread his hands at the ravaged scar. Palms out, he found words of power on his lips not in his language. Soft and wild, they fled from his tongue, shaping the power limning his arms into something he had never seen before. Smooth and sharp, a well-honed blade that grew stronger and paler, it crackled and popped like a fire throwing off sultry violet sparks into the chill-dark air. The tempest reached up to his shoulders before Er’it’s lips formed a sigh into a command.
Shooting from his outstretched arms, it struck the rotten dirt with a shower of sparkling amethyst. Glittering with a light all its own, it furrowed the sundered ground and spread in widening circles. A rock of glorious magic in a pond of filth and decay, its ripples of energy coated every slimy clump of greenery and sodden trunk. Transforming it in a frenzy, power lashed at everything it touched. Whipcords of it snapped around trees and vines, digging deep into the earth until the crumbling soil glowed the same incandescent purple hue.
Hands delving deep into the sweet-smelling loam, Er’it continued to laugh, amazement turning his face boyish as the years of toil and hardship slipped away under the incredible onslaught. Veins scalded by it, heart stuttering in his chest, he tipped his head back still and laughed at the glittering stars peeking through the thickening canopy.
This could all be his, no more sacrifices needed to be made once he had this power. Able to heal the lands he took, return them to their unruined states, he could give his people a place to call a true home and not the gritty, lingering death shroud of Denath. To take even more, he could be the ruler of all. None would defy him with this phenomenal power.
As if triggered by his thoughts, the power feeding him swelled and stunned, lurid spots dancing through his vision, and Er’it laughed all the harder. Pulling on the violent blue energy, he tucked it close against his very soul where the intoxicating fragrance of spring and snow grew stronger with every vicious wave.
It was the pain of Kal’s large teeth crunching through the cloth and flesh at his shoulder that pulled him from the cycle. Scream hoarse as he tumbled to the side, Er’it slapped a hand to the wound and lunged to his feet with all the grace of a drunken goose.
“What is wrong with you?” Er’it snarled, staunching the sticky flow of blood by bunching his shirt over it.
Kal’s lips rolled up, baring his blood-smeared teeth. The swath of red staining the dusty