Tempest Reborn (Jane True) - By Nicole Peeler Page 0,54

the shadow, and gave me tips, nudging my body here and there. But I was in charge – I was the one doing the hitting, weaving out of the way of the White’s random tail lashings.

I was also paying close attention to the White’s internal battle. Maybe Anyan could win, and we wouldn’t have to perform this ghastly ritual? Maybe he could trap the White, and it would die when he did, of old age?

But that didn’t happen. Instead, I saw the moment Anyan lost to the White with vivid clarity. One second those eyes flashed almost entirely gray, causing my heart to swell in my chest, and the next they were a pure emerald green. And then the dragon dove away from my attack, rising to its feet and visibly regrouping.

This time, when it charged, there was no Anyan present to stay its course.

He lost, I thought; that kernel of hope that had grown with the spread of gray through those eyes died then, and I knew. Not knew because everyone told me, but knew.

Anyan would rather die than live like this, and the White had to be destroyed. Either the ritual worked the way we wanted, and Anyan lived, or it only worked because it killed the White and Anyan. But either way, it had to be performed.

This time, I didn’t pull my blows. I hadn’t realized I was pulling blows until that moment, but I had been. I wondered why the creature had let me, but it probably wanted me to come to this realization on my own. I probably had to be in this one hundred percent for the ritual to work.

The first punch of my shadow fists that connected knocked the dragon to the ground. A second destroyed its jaw, and a third smashed down on the dragon’s back, a horrendous crunching sound ripping through our watery cage.

It was easy, to be honest. Not least because we’d already beaten the White half-senseless while Anyan was doing battle with it internally. And it wasn’t the Red, fully charged with two beings’ power and will. It was divided, just as the creature and I had been, when I didn’t want to hurt the White’s hostage.

Undivided, I was not only powerful, but incredibly pissed at being forced to make the kinds of decisions that would have me carving up the man I loved like I was Jack the Ripper.

[You must use the ax, child. The shadow can’t deal the final blow,] the creature said. And then it left me. Its power was still there, but I think it couldn’t take part in these final actions.

It had to be me. Probably because it would hurt more. We like to think the universe cares, and it had told me itself that it does seek balance. But balance runs both ways, and the other side of caring is watching us squirm.

At that moment, the universe definitely wanted me to squirm.

I found myself racing forward, screaming like Mel Gibson in Braveheart, holding the labrys aloft. Never letting myself think – the bane of action – I attacked. With a massive, two-handed, overhead swing, I went for the White’s head.

And I fucking missed by a good foot.

Swearing like a sailor, I tried again, but I’d taken too long. The White had recovered enough from its wounds to lash out at me with those deadly claws, which no magic could heal.

I backpedaled furiously, actually pulled by the ax, which seemed to have come into its own. It pulled me left, right, weaving through the White’s lashing front claws. Its spine must not have been healed yet, as its back claws stayed put, but I knew I had only minutes to finish this before it was back up and we were at it for round two.

‘Fuck round two,’ I said with a snarl, as I used what I remembered of the creature’s power to make a mini-shadow, just an extension of my hand that I used to bop it once again on the same place we’d whacked the White before. Its green eyes rolled back in its skull and its head hit the dirt.

Channeling Little Bunny Foo Foo, I struck again, only instead of a bop, I gave a lop. Totally running on pure adrenaline, I struck again and again and again, until the creature spoke in my mind.

[Er, Jane…]

I came to, panting like an overrun horse, and still in midswing. The ax landed with a sickening sound in the mass of blood and bone