Page 102 of House of Ydril

I draw in a breath, taking a few quick steps back as my mind scrambles to find a way out of it.

But I don’t have time to think, because I see the Keeper walk into the Arena, throw one of her arms back and lunge at me with a ball of lightning in her hand.

Holy fuck. Breath held, I stumble backwards and I tap the Growth Rune, making the ball of lightning in the Keeper’s hand expand until it swallows her, sending a shock through her body that has her collapse to the ground.

I fall to my knees, air knocked out of my lungs. When I finally manage to catch my breath, I see the rest of the crowd start to walk over her body and keep coming for me.

I tap my Element Rune and make an air bubble around my entire body, stopping them from getting too close. It’s at that exact moment that I hear someone yell, “Make them snap out of it.”

I turn around and see the Pied Piper charging through the double door and into the ring, visible signs of fight on her dress. She’s making her way through the crowd by throwing merciless blows at everyone around her. Who was she talking to?

As the mind-controlled crowd keeps pushing at the barrier of my air bubble, I turn my eyes back onto Baldor. He doesn’t look fazed. His eyes sweeping over the chaos around us, he chuckles and makes his nephew send some of his creatures at de Groot. I want to help her, but maintaining my air bubble is quickly draining my energy.

Among those attacking the Pied Piper, I spot the only two remaining Vipers, Sarya shooting rocks at her and Harry shifting into the biggest grizzly I’ve ever seen.

I draw in a breath as I watch de Groot let them get closer. Once they do, she just slams them into the ground with a couple of blows of her hand. Fuck, she’s strong.

But then the Keeper attacks her by making the ground beneath her start crumbling.

De Groot jumps up in the air, lands right in front of her and sends her flying to the ground.

It feels so fucking good to know that she’s on my side. I turn back to Baldor and decide to grit my teeth, stop wasting my energy just defending myself and take the opportunity to attack.

As soon as I let the air bubble burst, the people almost come crashing into me. I jump up, quickly tapping the Element Rune. I make the air below me dense so when I land on it, I remain hovering high above the ground. Looking down at Baldor, who now seems to be fighting the Keeper, I lift my hand to my Runes.

This time, I won’t be showing any restraint. I send a huge wall of earth flying straight at him.

He just dodges it and charges at me. With the corner of my eye, I see Faust standing in the middle of everything, his body vibrating with the effort to break free of his uncle’s magic.

Raging inside, I turn back to Baldor and raise my hands to send another wall of earth at the old prick’s chest.

To my surprise, that’s not what ends up happening. Instead, I knock him over with an angry ball of fire shooting out of my palms.

My Air Magic failing me, I fall down to the ground, making the people below me disperse. What the fuck just happened? Since when can I use Fire?

I quickly push myself up. When I look at him, I see Baldor lying on the ground, heavily burned and panting. But when his eyes meet mine, they don’t linger there. They dart to something behind me.

The next thing I know, a knife gets stabbed into my back, right above my heart, and I let out a pained scream and come crashing to the ground.

As I lie there, I watch Baldor dodge attack after attack. And the people that keep charging at him are the ones whose asses de Groot kicked when she arrived.

Then it hits me. When she said to make them snap out of it, it was me she was talking to.

My eyes dart to Faust, who’s still under his uncle’s spell. And there’s the Vipers, the Keeper and the Pied Piper trying to take down Baldor, but there’s still so many of those that are under the prince’s control and things are getting out of hand, people yelling and attacking each other all around me.

One of them being Nuala. I see her getting beaten up and I rush to her, knocking over both her and her attacker with a wall of air. As soon as I do it, I see them snap out of it, my friend pushing herself off the ground to give me a quick hug.

So there really is only one way to do this. “We’ve no time to waste,” I tell Nuala. “We need to make everyone snap out of it.”

She nods and as I turn to look around, to see exactly how to go about it, I notice her dig through her pocket and pop something in her mouth. I frown at her, but she just says, “I’ll have your back.”

Quickly, because Baldor is sending more people in my direction, I tap the Element Rune and squeeze my eyes shut, making the earth below me tremble.

And it’s all terribly loud, but nothing really happens. People just keep attacking each other.

Just as I let out a frustrated groan, I hear someone charge at me from behind and I turn to defend myself, when I see my friend shift, right before my own two eyes, into the biggest, most beautiful white tiger I have ever seen.

The tiger knocks the attacker out cold, stalks back to me and, well, gives my face a thorough lick before she turns back and goes to run after Harry’s grizzly.

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