Page 86 of Of Blood and Banes
A heat crowds my body and sweat trickles down my neck and back. But the flames around me don’t falter. When I pull my hand off the stone, my handprint leaves a wet mark on the ground.
It’s not working.
I slap my palm to the street again, gritting my teeth as I attempt to suck the magic surrounding me to my hand. But that spine-tingling sense of magic doesn’t flood my veins like it should.
Still. Not. Working.
“Fuck!” I cry out, as the precious seconds tick by. Ripping my hand off the ground, I look up at the buildings around me engulfed in an ever-growing flame. It bleeds over to the buildings lining the pathway Cole suggested the townspeople take south.
No…no!
More homes burst into flames. I push up to my feet, standing to face the raging fire. My hands tremble. The screams of that little girl back in Hornwood resurface, along with the distant chanting of a nightmare.
Fire incarnate.
Flame in flesh.
Blood of power.
I failed. What good am I if I’m destined to save this realm? To save these people? My thoughts begin to spiral into something dark. Into an unclimbable pit?—
Something wraps around my hand. Stilling the rush of racing thoughts and whispers pulsing in my brain.
I look down at my left hand and find strong fingers lacing through mine. The rough calluses brush my skin with a distant comfort. Flicking my gaze up from our hands, I find Cole’swarm amber eyes staring down at me, the flames dancing in the reflections.
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. He only squeezes my hand.
It’s okay. It’ll all be okay.
The meaning of it alone chases away the storm breaking inside my head, clearing a path for me to take.
“I believe in you,” he whispers, so softly I almost question whether he was the one who actually said it. “You are the strongest person I know.”
He slips his hand from mine, his eyes still focused on me as he takes a step back. I look at the flames, my heart slowing in my chest as I come down from my own panic. I had practiced manipulating Daeja’s dragonfire with Marge. And while it was at a much smaller scale, I have to try again. I have to try until I have nothing left. I take a step forward, stretching my left hand out with Cole’s mother’s ring in the direction of one of the closest buildings on fire.
“Yield to me,” I whisper inside my head, eyes locked on those wicked flames as I take another step. Another. And another.
The heat blasts me in defiance, warning me to get back. I stop a few inches from the flames, narrowing my eyes as sweat drips down my forehead. The salt stings my eyes and blurs my vision, but I can’t blink. Gritting my teeth and fighting the trembling in my arm, I bend my fingertips toward the fire as if I were digging into it for a stronghold. As heavy as if I were moving the building itself, I swing my hand across my chest.
The flames, shrieking in protest, reluctantly follow my hand, sending a blast of embers off into the sky. A small smile tugs at my lips. It’s all the confidence I need.
I stretch out both of my hands and focus on hooking my influence into the flames before swinging them back and forth to break them from their own volition. As I find a steadyrhythm, the flames surrender more and more to me as I swing them. With a strangled grunt, I slam them down into the ground, forcing them to join the magical ley lines beneath me. A soft smoke rises from the building, but at least it’s free from dragonfire.
“Well done,”Daeja purrs.“I knew you could.”
A soft laugh rumbles in my chest, a flare of her pride bleeding into my subconscious as I pant. Icando this.
I turn my attention to the rest of the buildings surrounding the square. I can’t wrap my head around how much effort it’ll take to return it all to the ley lines. But if anyone can do it, it’s me. And if I have to do it one at a time, if it drains every bit of my strength, so be it. I sweep my hands across the town’s center, spinning myself in slow circles as I coax the flames out away from the buildings and toward me.
Marge’s voice whispers inside my head from the last time I slipped into The White.You are in control—remember that.
Sucking in a quick breath, I spin in slow, staggered circles, arms outstretched and summoning the flames closer to me, pulling them in as if I’m the center of gravity. As I spin, the fire twirls with me, becoming a cyclone of heat and flame.
Yield to me!
The flames grow larger and larger around me, spinning faster and faster and teetering on the edge of my control, waiting for me to slip an inch before it bursts and explodes.
But I won’t. I can’t.
