Page 105 of Splitting Secrets
The Syndicate’s strongest warriors falter, undone by glimpses of their own inevitable defeat.
I step forward, and my presence feels like a force of nature itself. My veins burn with the power of my ancestors—the potency of all six bloodlines expelling into every rebellion member around me. Flames coil around my fingertips, the wind bending to my will. Shadows cling to my movements, light illuminating my path. Time slows in my presence, and the very earth beneath my feet rises to meet my call.
“The real Supreme has come to claim what’s hers.”
Matilda was talking about me.I’mthe new Supreme. And I’ve finally come to deliver their reckoning.
The council of Supremes have hung back within the gates of Ravenshurst University, six ominous figures standing beneath cloaks near the gates. They throw out random spurts of energy, allowing their members to fight their battle for them..
“We need to get to them,” I tell Raze, my eyes glued to the cowards waiting in the back.
“I’ll clear the way.”
53
Sonny
Istep closer to him and his shadows snake back around my legs, twirling upward until I’m fully engulfed in their onyx mist. We move unseen past people lashing out their gifts, resisting the urge to help those who are struggling.
I have to keep my attention onthem.If I can somehow take the leaders down, the Midnight Syndicate will have nothing else to fight for.
We get within fifteen feet of where they stand, and Raze strengthens his illusion around me until I’m likely nothing more than smoke and shadows.
“Start with the small one, Angelica. She’s a Luminara,”he suggests into my mind, and I instantly find the figure he’s speaking of. Her slim shoulders can hardly hold the cloak up and it pools at her feet. She should be easy to take down. This must be why Raze suggested starting with her.
As if she senses me staring, her darkened eyes land right in the spot we’re standing.
In the blink of an eye, she vanishes into the gloom, attempting to strike me from unseen angles. Bouncing between beams of burning light and razor-sharp shadows fly past my face like bullets, I utilize every ounce of training that Griffin put me through to dodge hits and anticipate my opponent’s next move. With so much defending, there’s almost no time for me to counter with my own gifts. The other Supremes have likely caught on that I’m near, and it’s only a matter of time before they begin concentrating their nefarious powers on me too.
But with Raze’s help, we manage to pull the Luminara into some in-between place where there is no light, no shadow—only a void.
Stripped of her power, she thrashes in the nothingness, screaming for light, for dark. For anything. Her eyes are focused on me, a wild expression filled with hate and resentment distorting her face. Once she realizes her gifts don’t work wherever we are, she resorts to a physical attack. Just as she comes flying at me with fists raised, Raze reaches forward from behind and jams his blade inside her neck, instantly killing her.
He looks to me for confirmation that I’m still in one piece, then drops us back onto the streets of Nocturne Valley.
I’m nearly taken out by a towering wave of stone and fire from my left, where one of the men who dragged me down to my cell stands, his face contorted from the effort. Raze screams the warning into my mind, and my instincts take over. I counter the Primaris’s move by manipulating the wind to slice through the inferno. Then, I call on a surge of water from the creek in the woods to harden the misplaced lava into jagged spikes. The terrain shifts beneath us as I siphon his own power and use it against him.
As he lunges toward me, I wrench control of the very earth he stands on, swallowing him whole into a sudden sinkhole, his screams lost in the shifting rock.
Before I can even catch my breath, I feel someone clawing at my mental shields. I turn to see who is doing it, surprised to find a pot-bellied man staring back at me with a cruel smile playing across his face. He bangs and thrashes against my mental door until it breaks apart at the seams, and then a flood of visions fills my psyche.
Images of Poppy being killed, Raze murdering people with his bare hands, and parents’ bloody corpses lying on the ground fly past in rapid succession. I nearly fall prey to the devastation of it, my chest twisting in pain. But then I feel a second presence in my mind—a gentler, onyx thread that guides me back.
Before the man can muscle his way back in, I reverse the effect—sending his mind spiraling into his worst nightmares until his psyche shatters. With a final psychic push, I force his mind to collapse in on itself, leaving him an empty shell lying on the ground.
Another man steps toward us just as the last one collapses, and James falls into step beside him. Raze is nowhere to be seen—likely shrouded in shadows so neither man can see before he attacks them. The two circle me with sinister smiles warping their faces. I refuse to take my eyes off either one. My head aches already, my muscles fatigued, but I’m coiled like a snake, ready to fight.
The first hit comes from James—a blast of his fist against my jaw that has my head flying backward at an unnatural angle. I step forward to counter, only to find myself back in the same spot I had just been. I try again, my chest heating with rage as the nameless man releases a laugh, and I realize what he is.
An Aeternum manipulating time.
Every attempt I make to attack them is rewound, undone before it even lands. My frustration grows as I swing over and over, my fist finding nothing but empty air until it all bubbles over with a loud scream.
“Fight me, you cowards,” I roar into their faces, but they only smile.
I see multiple versions of the Aeternum at once as he manipulates time to attack from different points in his own past and future. James looks on with a giddy expression, waiting on the sidelines for his friend to allow him to make his next blow.
A blur of blonde rushes past me, intercepting one version of the Aeternum before he can land a hit on me. He stumbles back, surprised to see Divina standing before him, her expression twisted in pure loathing.
