Page 80 of Of Blooming Embers
BREAKING THE VICTOR
SERYN
Frantically, my attention snapped to each concerned expression. Breena’s mouth puckered to the side as she looked up, studying Kaden’s prison.
“Bloody void,” Gavrel snarled, stalking in a wide semi-circle, looking for a way to free his brother. Rhaegar moved the other way, studying the angles opposite the commander.
The shadows churned not far off. The reapers were getting curious.
Studying Kaden, Marek blinked several times, his deep blue irises looked almost black. His nostrils flared and, without a word, he backed away several paces, his brawny form slipping into the shadows.
“Wanker.” Breena scoffed at my cousin’s retreat.
Desperation scraped up my spine as I focused above. Kaden’s nightmare had moved along as every muscle in his body stiffened, the veins in his neck bulging. All at once, his body went lax, and he wasstanding, leaning against the curve of the glass with anguish hanging off his gaunt features.
I’d seen that look before.
When we were thirteen turns old.
The day Hestia was culled.
Was he reliving his mother’s death? This place was draining him alive. The sickening realization that Kaden had been suffering for so long tunneled through the marrow of my bones.
Two dream reapers emerged, their skeletal fingers scratching at Kaden’s pen.
The slapping of boots sounded behind me, and in a blur, Marek leaped, digging his staff into the floor and vaulting his body on top of a nearby sphere. It wobbled as he steadied himself.
“Not a wanker,” Breena muttered, taking back her earlier insult. Her eyes were wide as we watched my cousin leap onto another bobbing globe.
And another. Until he was near enough to Kaden that his quarterstaff could touch the glass.
The creatures were already imbibing, greedy to feed on my friend’s pain. A few more began drifting toward their brethren.
Marek’s ebony flames flickered around him, and he held one palm out. His ember seeped over his arm in a rolling black fire, shooting forward and over the orb.
His energy wrapped and clung to the bubble like it had over Helos’ illusion barrier. Marek bared his clenched teeth, shoulders tensing.
Lurching back, the specters’ veils dispersed from their faces like a gust of wind clearing away smoke. Crimson flames flared behind the cavities of their skull-like faces as they hissed.
My pulse skittered, and my iridescent aura twirled around me restlessly.
Marek’s dark power throbbed around the sphere, and the silver streams that had been drinking in Kaden’s nightmare recoiled. Their slinking tentacles lashed over my cousin’s flames, trying to reattach themselves to the glass.
“Incredible. His illusion ember is confusing it,” Rhaegar murmured in awe. “Well done. Bloody brilliant!”
Breena narrowed eyes fixed on Marek. “It’s all right, I guess.”
And as the lambent edges of his gift neared Kaden’s head, my friend’s clouded irises brightened into a clear green. He bobbed his head from side to side, and his brows rose as his attention snapped to my cousin. To the reapers scratching furiously at Marek’s barrier.
Then, his frantic gaze locked with mine, and my scar throbbed in time with the illuminated branches pulsing and creeping over my arms as I reached for him once more. “Kaden!”
Next to his temple, he slammed his fist repeatedly against the glass, but then Marek’s ember enveloped the orb entirely. “Seryn, now would be the time to help!” he bellowed, his scowl digging into his mouth.
I blinked a few times and then focused on the ball of dancing black fire and called upon my ability. It happily obliged as it pumped over me, through my arms, and exited my outstretched fingers.
As it rammed into Marek’s flames, a chorus of screeches pierced the air. The reapers tried to scurry into the shadows, become one with them, but my ember latched onto them. Light contracted within each one and then burst like a star. Shadowy ribbons and ash fluttered about.
I pulled a deep inhale into my lungs, coaxing my gift to ignore my cousin’s energy and to dig through to the amber light within the glass.
