and I was never going to make any other choice.
"I accept your terms," I growled in a deep voice that echoed with finality. "And I offer my life in payment."
F ire blazed all around me as I stood before Lionel, gritting my teeth in desperation while I tried to stop myself from attacking Caleb. But it was no use, the bond forced me into action no matter how hard I fought it.
I held an air shield tight around myself and Lionel and the thump of my pulse in my ears was enough to make my head spin.
Caleb shot to my right with a determined yell and I lifted my hands to blast him with water magic, but just as the power reached my fingertips, an enormous blast of energy almost knocked me from my feet.
I staggered back a step as I sucked in a sharp breath, my magic pulsing through my skin in an unfamiliar wave of motion, feeling like sunlight against my flesh in the brightest summer's day and an echo of something dark and forgotten brushing up against my soul.
My left arm burned in a way that sent shivers of pleasure racing through my skin and as I looked down at it, I found the Aries mark Lionel had branded me with fading as the shackles within my mind began to fall away.
I sucked in an astonished breath as my power surged within me and I swung my head around to look at the man who had stolen my crown.
The shield I was using to protect us disbanded as the compulsion to protect him left me. Lionel grabbed my wrist, shouting something I couldn't make out as I narrowed my eyes on him, finally feeling nothing at all but hatred for this monster who had imprisoned and tortured me.
From the corner of my eye, I noticed a blur of motion shooting towards me, taking advantage of me dropping my shield for the first time and I gasped as a sharp prick smacked against my arm.
Caleb was gone as fast as he'd appeared, but the effects of the antidote he'd just given me sped through my body like wildfire as my Phoenix woke up and fire danced within my soul.
"What the hell have you done?" Lionel bellowed, his grip on me tightening as he felt the bond between us falling apart too.
But he clearly hadn't figured out that that was what was happening yet, and this single moment was the only one I needed.
With a roar of fury, my Phoenix form burst from my skin and I was swathed in flames which burned hotter than the surface of the sun as I shifted.
Lionel screamed as his hand was engulfed in the flames where he held me and a blast of air magic slammed into my chest so hard that I was thrown clean out of the royal box and down to the pit far below us.
The stench of burning flesh stayed with me as I fell, his magic driving against me so powerfully that I slammed down onto the sand within the pit before I could even try and fight it off.
The sand felt as hard as rocks as I hit it and my wings were crushed beneath me as my flames flared around me, agony ricocheting through my spine.
I gasped against the pain in my body, healing myself of the worst of it as I found myself in the thick of the battle taking place down here, though none of the Nymphs had turned their attention on me yet.
I cursed as I scrambled to my feet, and a charred, blackened hand fell from my wrist where his fingers had still been curled around me, thumping down onto the sand. A wild and savage smile filled my lips as I looked up at Lionel where he stood screaming down at me from the royal box, a blistered stump where his right hand should have been and his face filled with utter panic as he spotted the charred lump of flesh before me.
He threw a blast of magic at me, but I was far faster as he struggled to wield his Element single handed through the blinding pain of that injury and his attack ricocheted off of my air shield without effect.
Magic surged in my veins as I looked up at him, seeing my chance to end this once and for all and the flames coating my body built up all around me in a blazing inferno, gathering in my