Page 89 of The Eighth Isle

For a moment there, I saw it. I saw Syra surrounded by all of us, all that magic coming at her from all sides at the same time, and she couldn’t really hold us all back forever, could she? Eventually, she was going to slip. She wasn’t going to be careful—or she would just be too tired to act fast enough.

And I could hit her. If her body turned on itself the way Valentine’s did when exposed to my magic, we actually had a chance to stab her in the heart. Cut her head off—no, cut her into a million pieces.

My God, it could actually reallywork.

“Sunshine, wait!”

I was running. Call me crazy but I was running toward the fight, moving to the right where Grey was still trying to get closer, and Storm roared at the top of his voice in frustration because he knew I was supposed to stay with him. To wait for the dome to disappear.

But I couldn’t. Not when there was a chance I could help.

Grey’s eyes fell on me for only a split second before Syra’s magic hit him. It didn’t take him to the ground because his wings helped him keep his balance. He was still standing, and so I turned to Syra again, and her body was glowing. So much light and magic, white magic, was coming out of her constantly that her skin was glowing with it now, and to see her face from closer up made my heart fall all the way to my heels.

I was less than ten feet away, and I had no choice but to stop for a second. In my mind, I saw the Syra she had been that day when she first ruined Ennaris, when she slammed her fist to the ground and unleashed her magic into it andorderedthe entire continent to destroy itself.

She looked exactly like she had that day, and though there was more blood on her now than there had been then, her eyes were just as alive. Just as hateful.

For a moment, they locked on me.

She took the air out of my lungs with that look, held my heart prisoner and my thoughts at bay. I saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing but her—her pain, her rage, her power.

I had no idea how I knew or how I was able to separate her magic from that of the rest of the sirens—maybe because I’d gotten used to it without realizing it in the time I’d been trapped here? I don’t know how I knew, but her magic was not what it used to be. It had weakened, indeed, just like her sisters claimed, and I felt it. I felt it fading more by the minute, even though her light shone just as bright still.

Then the world continued to spin, and raw magic hit her like an invisible fist to the face, throwing her head back. Breaking our eye contact.

“Fall, get back!” Grey shouted, just like I knew he would, and it was okay. He’d understand once it was over. He’d understand that it was worth risking everything to defeat her before it was too late for all of us.

So, I raised my hands, and I unleashed all the magic that was burning inside me at Syra.

It didn’t work.

Whatever magic she was releasing at one of her sisters, it blocked mine and threw it off like it wasn’t even there. Then we all watched as she, with both hands raised, took the siren off the ground—it was Mea, though her face was so torn and bloody I could hardly tell—and began tobreakher.

Mea’s screams would remain in my mind forever. The bones in her body broke and we somehow heard it echoing all around us, and then she began to burn with that invisible fire, just like Sedelis had in the tomb mountain.

She turned to ashes right before our eyes as the others all screamed, too, as if they felt Mea’s pain until she was no more. They screamed and they attacked Syra, and Grey was already coming closer to us, and Valentine shouted, “Now, Sunshine!” before he unleashed his own magic, too.

I obeyed.

No hope was left in me, but I raised my hands once more and I let out my magic the same as always, aimed at the light that was Syra’s body. I could hardly see her face from the brightness of it, from the way it enveloped her, like her skin itself was the light. And I knew that my magic wasn’t going to harm her, but I kept on releasing it, not a single burst but a constant stream, something I’d never even tried before. I was doingsomething,at least, not standing back and watching.

And the siren sisters were talking,screaming.Though it was a language I didn’t understand—probably Faeish—it felt like they were giving one another instructions. They were telling one another how to attack and when, and then Grey was next to me, his wing wrapped around my side.

“We had a deal!” he told me, and he was pissed as all hell.

“We’re all going to die ifshedoesn’t!” I shouted back, then gritted my teeth when my arms began to shake.

Fuck, I wasn’t made to release all that magic. Regardless of whether I had it or not—my body had been human only last year. This was stretching it, I knew, but I wouldn’t stop. Because I meant what I said, and Grey knew it was the truth, too. That’s why he said nothing else, only did something stupid—the moment Syra turned her head to the side to attack the two sirens coming for her at the same time, he jumped forward.

He wrapped his arms and his wings around Syra’s body, and the scream that tore from my throat came from my very soul.

For a moment, everything was suspended on air. For a moment, the night was dark again because the light that had been coming from Syra was blocked by Grey’s wings.

Then she exploded.

Grey was thrown back violently all the way to the other side of the dome and landed near a roaring Storm. The two sisters who’d been coming for Syra attacked her from the other side, and I only saw them until the light coming from her skin enveloped them completely.

Then Valentine said, “Take care of yourself, Sunshine.”

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