Page 39 of Trial of Three
“Keep the arm,” Coal’s voice barks from somewhere in the room.
Arm. Right. One hand sliding over to grip the male’s wrist, I ram the heel of my other hand against his elbow.
The king yells in surprise and pain as his joint strains, and he bends to relieve the pressure. Freeing his elbow, Griorgi spins away, turning to face me on slightly bent knees, chest heaving.
Distantly, I notice the night guardsmen preparing to attack and Jawrar stopping them with one hand, a faint smile on his terrifying face. The bastard is curious.
“What the hell are you?” the king demands—a question I’m quickly growing used to. He advances slowly, eyes flashing in a new assessment of me. Larger than River, powerful enough that his mere presence fills the entire room just as his cold gray eyes pierce through me, shattering the bravery I had when I wasn’t facing him head-on. Dark, sweaty hair frames Griorgi’s severe face, a long scar on it reminding me of another master.
All of a sudden, my breath stutters. My heart leaps into a gallop and blood drains from my face, my hands wet and clumsy. I step back, trip, flail my arms to keep my balance. The magic burbling inside me flares so hard, its aftershocks make the world blink at the edges. Familiar voices shout around me, but I can’t work through the words’ meanings.
“Answer me, wench,” Griorgi booms, his hand rising for a strike. A ring flashes on a large knuckle, its ruby likely to split my face. “What—”
The ground rumbles beneath us, sending both Griorgi and me toppling to the ground. River. A moment of relief floods my body as Griorgi’s trance over me dissolves, but then I feel a new sensation.
River’s magic, the echo of which has thus far only whispered in my blood, suddenly roars to life. The scent of rocky earth fills my senses, and I can practically feel dry, sandy soil crumbling between my fingers.
The fourth cord.
A final phantom limb of power, fully connecting the quint inside me. If I thought the magic was powerful before, now it’s a tsunami that threatens to drown the world. My eardrums ache with the pressure, my scalp tingling as thousands of tiny sparks run up and down my skin. A low keening whistles in my ears, though I can’t tell if something is actually making the noise or if it’s only in my mind. I grip the strands together—Tye’s fire magic, especially, refusing any sort of control. Wild and raw. Indignant as only a feline can get.
Stars, the magic cords have personalities.
I push my way to my knees and blink, the ceiling’s wooden beams coming into focus. A dim little candle that somehow made it into the Gloom without its brethren hangs from the center of one rafter. The tiger of Tye’s magic roars at the little flame, as if spotting prey that the predator in it can’t let pass.
The inferno of power inside me grows, the four cords pulsating with it. Swelling against my grip. Stalking their prey. The magic bunches like living muscle and... I feel the power bolting the moment before it happens, my heart freezing with paralyzing, helpless dread.
One heartbeat I’m holding the four cords of magic together, and the next they are holding me.
A wordless scream escapes my throat, my body flying back from the force of an explosion. And another. Another. Like Coal’s stallion, Czar, who once bolted with me to Mystwood, the strands of the males’ magic drag me along with their raging fury.
Flame rises up and up and up, the cracking of wood and stone deafening. I try to let go of the magic, to make it stop, but I can no more halt it than I could stop Czar. The cords wrap themselves tighter around me, pulsing and lashing. Each whip-like strike of power sends a new boom of destruction through the crumbling cellar. The whole top half of the house explodes in a rain of deadly debris. Blue. Red. White. Black.
Shade lunges for me, grabbing my body and rolling to River, who is already throwing up a shield.
“Leralynn!” River’s hands are on my cheeks, his beautiful gray eyes filling all of my world.
I struggle to turn, to see what’s happening. What I’ve done.
The stone wall the prisoners were once bolted to no longer exists. Coal, chains still dangling from his limbs, now swings them as weapons to bring down the qoru beside him, blue eyes blazing. Jawrar is nowhere to be seen, having left his qoru and night guardsmen to die for him.
Kora calls an order and the females in her quint pull together, some crawling to make their hands touch. A shimmering green shield springs to life around them, barely in time to stop a blast of splitting stones from crushing them into pulp.
In my side vision, a Night Guard quint closes ranks around the king, moving Griorgi to safety up the shattered stairs just as the world trembles again.
I scream, the cords of power inside me wanting to shatter those stairs to dust. The stairs, the king, the whole world if need be.
“No, look at me,” River shouts, shaking me roughly. “Look only at me.”
I try. I truly do. My body arches, fear seizing my core. I can’t stop the magic. Can’t control it. Can’t—
“Coal, Tye, connect,” River bellows, his hands tightening on my face.
“The king—” I gasp.
“It doesn’t matter, Leralynn. Breathe with me. Nothing else matters now.” The male’s voice turns impossibly calm. “Match my breaths exactly. Do nothing—nothing—else. Think of nothing else.”
Breathe. I can do that. Focusing on River’s chest, I draw a breath. In. Out. In. Out. The flailing cords of power inside me slow, their grip on me loosening. Capitalizing on my small advantage, I snatch at the cords.
