Page 36 of Avelina

“Steady,” he said. The heat radiating from his body should have been intense enough to burn me. Instead, it sank into me, feeding the shield. I watched as a new color joined the spectral lights. It was a brilliant vermilion and looked less like points of light than it did a streak of orange and red flame, surging around the sphere and engulfing us.

Seleca turned back toward us and fired, but it was too late. Rogue had bought us the time we needed, and the shield expanded around us, locking us into a protective bubble. The impact of the bullets on my shield sounded like a metal bat banging on something an inch from my head. The vibrations were so painfully strong that I almost lost my hold on the shield, but Aaron tightened his grip around me, and we held.

The bullets must have ricocheted off the shield and hit the dragon because a split second later its corpse crashed into us from above. The weight and momentum were too great, and Aaron and I were both knocked viciously to the ground. Aaron’s protective embrace never wavered, and together we withstood the impact, maintaining the shield.

The silence that stretched after the attack lay over us like a woolen blanket. My heart still galloped in my chest, and my ears rang. I panted hard, trying not to weep and failing miserably. She had killed Spirit. She had killed Rogue. She had my father’s Glock, which meant she might have killed everyone else at the house, too. It was all too much.

Aaron held me for a moment, and then he whispered, “Lina, we have to get up. Come on.”

The dragon’s body had fallen on top of us but then slid off the shield like it was an oil slick. I looked around but didn’t see Seleca. Fury bubbled up from my heart and out into the shield, and rage tears surged down my face as a fire exploded inside me. I needed to see Seleca’s face dented and covered in blood.

Aaron got his feet under him and pulled me up. I didn’t feel tired at all from holding the shield, but Aaron looked like the effort of getting up had drained him. He was unsteady and leaned on me a little. I didn’t want to risk him collapsing and accidentally falling outside of the protective sphere, so I held onto him, focusing my intention on separating his fragment from mine. I imagined myself flicking off a light switch, closing the link between our two fragment reservoirs.

His energy contribution dwindled, and the fiery vermilion lights in the shield flickered and went out, leaving the original swirl of green, aqua, magenta, and that strange blood-red. Aaron regained some strength, and some of my rage drained away along with the Evocation fragment, though it didn’t stop entirely.

Aaron peered down at me and nodded, then we looked in every direction. Seleca was nowhere to be seen. I squatted down, touching the soil with my fingers in an attempt to locate her. My own shield blocked the attempt. I looked back in the direction that Seleca had stood and saw Rogue sprawled on the ground.

“Let’s go to him,” I said.

Aaron nodded. We walked toward my friend, holding hands. I looked down at Rogue, tears dripping down my cheeks. It was hard to tell where the bullets had landed because his body was a mass of blood and fur. His eyes were closed. I wondered how long it had taken him to die. Did he suffer? Did Spirit suffer? A sob broke from my chest.

“Rogue, I’m sorry,” I said, my voice breaking.

Rogue cracked his eyes open a sliver at my voice, lifted his head to look at me, then slumped back down. Aaron and I both jerked in surprise.

“Rogue!” I yelled. “Aaron, I can heal him.” I prepared to release the shield so I could grab him.

“Wait,” barked Aaron, searching over one shoulder, then the other. “She could be hiding under a Reflection veil, like the dragon, waiting for you to bring the shield down so she can shoot us with her crossbow.”

I had no time to correct him. “The shield is too big now. I can’t reach him. Can you reach through the shield and pull him in?”

“I don’t know,” he said. Aaron reached his hand out, but it pressed against the shield from the inside and couldn’t penetrate through.

“We can move without ripping up the ground. Maybe we could just walk over him.” We tried, and again, the shield bumped up against Rogue. Sweat dripped down my forehead, and I wiped it away with a shaky hand. “I have to bring the shield down before it’s too late,” I said, my voice rising almost to a squeak.

“Bring my reservoir back into the shield,” he said and pulled me close, hugging me. His heat radiated out again, but it was much more subdued, as if the fragment itself was depleted. I hugged him back, tightly, concentrating my intention on bringing the heat into my body. His scent filled my nose, and I breathed him in greedily. He bent his head over mine, doing the same. We stood there together for several seconds before I accepted that it wasn’t working.

“Look at me,” he said. His hand came to my jaw, and he angled my face up toward his. His dark brown beard was a little longer and scruffier than yesterday. His hair had come loose from the tie and was now tangled and matted with sweat. I pushed it away from his eyes. They were a nearly translucent blue and reflected the light more than they should. I looked into those eyes and he into mine, feeling heat stirring beneath his skin.

I didn’t think, I just wanted to pull that heat inside me. The heat wanted to be inside me, so it came. The swirl of colors shifted to add Aaron’s bright vermilion. He exhaled slowly, then released all but my hand, bending down to grab Rogue by the scruff of his neck and pulling him into the sphere.

I closed my eyes briefly, relief washing over me. Aaron had guessed that if we connected in that way that brought his Evocation into my shield, he would be able to permeate the barrier. Aaron’s ability to stay calm in an emergency would save Rogue, provided I could heal him.

“Can I even do this while holding a shield?” I asked.

“No,” said Seleca from behind us, “you can’t.” I whipped my head around to see her holding the gun on us. “And you also can’t hold that shield forever. Eventually, your reservoir will run out of fragment, and the shield will fall. It’s too late. Your dog is dead, and you’re about to join him.”

Chapter Eleven

Syndeth’s launch into the sky was so jarring that Linorra would have tumbled off if not for the horns protruding from his neck and spine. She held fast to him, bracing herself against the wind tugging at her cloak.

“Good thing these horns are here to hold onto,” she said, “and they aren’t too sharp.”

“Those aren’t horns,” the dragon said. “Those are my memories. They grow every time I make a new one. I think I can feel one coming on even now.”

My fury at the sight of Seleca flared like a newly lit match. She had killed my friends and had tried to kill my dog. The irrational temptation to lower my shield and attack her was nearly irresistible. She stared back at me with the same fury, as if what I had done to protect Aaron and myself from the same fate was an abhorrent sin.

She’s trying to delay you, Spirit thought. Ignore her. Try the healing.

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