He paused and frowned suddenly, his gaze going past me. "What the—" He swore, pushed me aside, and ran. "Ilianna, watch out!"
I swung around and instinctively bolted after him, fear slamming through me as I saw what he’d seen. The last elemental was forming out of the flames that engulfed a eucalyptus, and it was oozing down toward Ilianna.
I drew Amaya and flung her as hard as I could at the elemental. The sword whooshed high above Tao’s head and hit the creature in the midsection. But it did little more than make it falter and scream, because the force of my throw sent the blade right through the creature’s body and thudding into a tree at the edge of the clearing.
At least it gave Ilianna time to get out of the elemental’s reach. While she scrambled backward, Tao launched himself at it, his body arcing through the air like a bullet, flames licking across his skin as he hit the creature hard and ripped it from the tree.
"Tao!" I screamed, as the two of them went tumbling, a seething mass of flames and arms and screams. Tao’s screams. Horrible, pain-filled screams.
Oh God, oh God … No!
I ran past their tumbling, twisting forms, wrenched Amaya free from the tree, and swung her high. But as I did, there was a weird sucking sound—it was almost as if the fire creature was consuming every ounce of air around it. A second later I realized it wasn’t the creature. It was Tao. And his flames were growing brighter, fiercer.
He was drawing the creature’s energy into himself!
"Tao, don’t!" I screamed again, but the words were lost to another explosion—one powerful enough to throw me the full length of the clearing. I hit a tree trunk hard, heard a crack, and knew something inside me had broken. Pain washed through me as I dropped like a stone to the ground and for a moment there were so many stars dancing in front of my eyes that I couldn’t see anything else.
Damn it, it hurt. It would hurt more to move. And yet move I did, wanting—needing—to know if Tao was still alive.
I pushed to my feet and staggered back across the clearing, holding a hand to my side and feeling pain every time I took a step or drew a breath. The heat of the fires that still burned all around us was nothing compared with the burn inside me. Sweat broke out across my brow and my stomach twisted, threatening to rebel. But I staggered on, my gaze on the unmoving Tao.
He couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t.
I dropped on my knees beside him. The action jarred my whole body, but I swallowed heavily and studied my friend, searching for some sign of life, but fearful of actually touching him lest I find none.
I couldn’t see him breathing, but his skin was red and the heat within him burned so fiercely it washed over me like flame.
He couldn’t be dead. Not when the fire was still burning so ferociously inside of him.