Emberhawk - Jamie Foley Page 0,77

if your orphans pray to Aeo or to me.”

Ryon’s blood chilled into an icy slush. “I don’t know what you’re talking abo—”

Zamara’s hand flashed up and caught a small blade in mid-air—Kira’s throwing knife. The fiery eyes shifted to Kira.

Ryon jumped between them as his vision exploded into sparks. Lightning coursed through him, ravaging his nerves in searing bursts.

His body writhed and twitched, unresponsive to his commands. He collapsed to the blackened earth and heard himself cry out.

Ryon focused on the torrent that sizzled through him. He couldn’t fight her—not if she were half as powerful as Felix. But he wouldn’t just let her break him.

His body didn’t listen, but the energy did. He urged it back toward Zamara, coaxing it to leap back to her body and escape to the ground through her feet. The loop of energy boomed as it connected.

Then it stopped, and the forest fell silent beside the river’s trickle.

Ryon gulped in air as his lungs spasmed. Did I do it?

“Decent.” Zamara looked down at him with electricity lashing out along her skin. “But is your talent natural, or given by Felix?” She pointed a long fingernail at Kira, who whimpered behind him.

“Wait!” Ryon reached a hand up, ready to absorb a new arc of lightning. “Let her go . . . she has nothing to with this.”

Zamara smiled, her white teeth gleaming. “What’s she worth to you?”

Ryon panted through a dry throat. Kira wasn’t worth marrying his cousin for. Nothing was worth that to him. He’d rather die.

But he was an experienced liar.

“I’ll go home with you.” Ryon’s voice cracked as he said it. “Just let her go.”

Zamara’s laugh flowed like silk cloth tumbling from its roll. “You’ll come regardless, but . . .” She flicked a wrist at Kira as if shooing a fly. “I’m in a good mood today.”

Ryon glanced over his shoulder as Kira struggled to her feet. Her body shook and spasmed like his, and leaves and flecks of ash dotted her unruly curls. She focused on Zamara and snarled like a trace cat, then withdrew her d’hakka stinger and lunged.

The forest once again exploded with energy, consuming Ryon’s senses in a bright and violent maelstrom.

Stupid girl. She had no idea what kind of beast she was prodding. And she’d just thrown away her last chance at life for nothing.

Perhaps a minute passed. Or perhaps an hour. Ryon’s existence was nothing but crackling agony, and the pain didn’t relent.

Maybe Kira was suffering the same fate beside him, and they would die together. Maybe they would go to heaven, or maybe if half of his childhood had been a lie, everything else he knew was. If the majority of humans worshipped elementals as gods, and this was their true nature, maybe there was no heaven at all.

Zamara had to die. He had to kill her, even though she looked like his aunt. Pierce the core, Felix had said—the center of their spirit which their syn and chosen forms shifted around.

Ryon’s blade was a molten puddle, but his machete was . . . somewhere. He couldn’t think through the crackling torture. And his spasming muscles wouldn’t respond, no matter how bad he needed them.

The torment abruptly ceased, and Ryon gasped like he’d forgotten how to draw breath. His vision slurred back into focus.

The false queen stood over him with outstretched fingers curled like claws. She looked back over her shoulder with a curse. His aunt’s face twisted and shrank into that of a hawk, and her silver dress disintegrated and dropped to the forest floor in a pile of shimmering dust.

She flew above the treetops and into the brewing storm.

Ryon blinked into the sky, wondering if he was hallucinating as his body twitched. He willed the excess energy inside him to the charred earth beneath him, and the hurricane in his nerves calmed.

He tilted his head to find Kira wracked with spasms beside him. He grabbed her arm and absorbed her excess energy, then sent it into the ground as well. Her body relaxed, and her panicked blue eyes found his.

“We’re alive?” Her voice cracked, fracturing his heart likewise.

“I’m so sorry.” Ryon pushed himself up to his knees with effort. His strength had burned up like kindling.

Kira just laid there and panted. “Is she gone?”

Ryon lifted his arm and made a fist just to ensure he could control his limbs again. He scanned the forest and river for Zamara, then jumped as an orange fox burst from the brush.

“Where is she?” the fox