Page 27 of Veiled Fate
“This guy just doesn’t give up, does he?” I groaned.
“Jada.”
I glanced at Kiel. His eyes flicked past me. I whipped my head around to see what he was staring at.
The window on the wall half a dozen feet to my left.
“Go!” he shouted as soon as I saw it, reading my body language.
“Stop them!”
The guards charged at us. I flung the one remaining table into their path as best I could with my right hand as I passed it by, trying to delay them.
Then I leaped for the window.
An armored body intercepted me in a flying tackle, knocking me into the stone hard enough to leave bruises. Nearby, Kiel roared as he tried to batter his way through.
“One more move, and I’ll take her head off,” the squad leader cried, placing the edge of his blade to my throat while one of his henchmen yanked my head back by my hair.
Kiel’s struggles ceased immediately.
“Much better. Now, you, nice and slow, on your feet,” he ordered me.
I didn’t move, glaring up at him stubbornly. More guards moved in, grabbing my arms and yanking me to my feet. I kicked the leader in the groin as I did.
He bent over with a pained moan, but his armor deflected most of the blow’s power. Still, his face was strained when he stood back up, something I took great satisfaction in.
“Petulant little bitch,” the leader spat, backhanding me with his mailed fist.
My skin split as he tore my face open with the blow. Blood dribbled down my chin and neck.
And the world turned green like I was staring through some sort of tinted glass. Everywhere I looked were shades of green. Emerald and jade, olive and forest. Everything was green. Even the energy coursing through my veins. Or was it blood?
I smiled at the squad leader, feeling the blood drip into my mouth, likely staining my teeth.
“What are you doing?” he asked warily, looking around as the atmosphere in the bar filled with ionized charges.
“I have no idea,” I said through mangled lips. “Shall we find out?”
“Stop it. Right now,” the leader yelped. “You will cease—”
I threw my head back and screamed as green lines of lightning shot from my fingers. The two guards holding my arms were fried even as the force of the power tossed them back like ragdolls.
Turning my green gaze on the rest of the guards, I shrieked again, lifting my hands and plunging more brilliant green lightning into their armored forms. Some others turned to run at the sight of their comrades blown away by my strange powers, but they were too slow.
My lightning caught them in the back, launching them forward to crunch heavily against the stone walls on the other side of the inn.
I bent over as the lightning went out, breathing heavily. The energy drain from the attacks left me more than just winded. I was sluggish, moving languidly. The air was thick and viscous, its very molecules impeding my progress toward the door.
Everything around me was still covered in green.
A familiar ghostly emerald outline appeared in the doorway. Beckoning me. I stumbled toward it, moving past the dead or wounded guards without a care, their moans nothing but background noise to the roaring in my ears.
Outside. I had to get outside. Had to breathe. To escape the pressure building in my head. In my lungs. It was building swiftly. The roaring white noise jumped in volume as well.
“Too much,” I whispered, staggering out through the door into the air outside.
But the sensation of the world weighing on my shoulders didn’t decrease. The noise didn’t soften.
