Page 314 of Dawn of Chaos and Fury
A roar pierced the air, breaking through her panic, and she looked up to find a midnight blue dragon with black wings anda dragon a few shades lighter. Xan and Aiyana. It was the two of them against twenty or more seraphs. Black flames met magic attacks, both sides taking hits. Aiyana dove suddenly, as if going after something, but then she banked hard, narrowly avoiding a...
Tessa pushed to her feet, running several feet and peering around a small clump of bushes. Seraphs were there, loading a contraption with bolts of white stone. That was what Aiyana had barely avoided. They had weapons against the dragons.
In her next breath, her power erupted. It crackled in the air, latching onto any seraph it could find. Veins and wings lit up as Tessa took their last breaths, watching them all scream and writhe before her. Too consumed by her fury to notice that her power was killing, but it wasn’t taking. Those deaths weren’t refilling anything.
“Kat? Kat, where are you?”
She spun around. Where in the fuck was he? It sounded like he was right here. Like he was?—
Another sound had her spinning to find a body rolling down the small hill, coming to a stop face down in the mud. Dark hair. Tall. If that was Axel…
Her feet were moving of their own accord, and she felt like she wasn’t in her body. Felt like she was hovering above, watching herself walk far too calmly across the space to the unmoving body. Watching her muster all her strength to roll him over.
And then watched her magic explode when she found not the younger St. Orcas brother but Theon.
She was screaming, and she was burning with fury. This wasn’t… He was as powerful as she was. He couldn’t be.
No.
No, no, no.
She’d save him the same way she’d saved Luka. That was what she’d do.
Her hands on his chest, she ripped at the gear he was wearing. His shirt. Her power shredded through it all as she lost all control. Lost herself completely to her magic. Anyone who came near met an end, and she wasn’t even sure if they were all Achaz forces at this point. If Theon was taken from her, they were all enemies. If Theon was taken from her, she was going to destroy the realm herself. If this didn’t work, she was?—
Tessa paused, her gaze landing on his left arm. His left wrist where a union mark was…missing. That couldn’t…
She glanced at her wrist where the Union Mark was still fully intact.
She blinked, trying to understand. Because that Mark wouldn’t fade in death. And even if it did, hers was still there. And she could…feel his power. Strong and unyielding. Not as strong as it could be because he’d been using it all day, but still…
This wasn’t right.
Tessa pushed slowly to her feet, her heart hammering and breaths coming too fast. The world around her was blurred on the edges as she took in the surroundings. Her Chaos was churning in her soul, stretching and taking. Feeling that other power pulsing around her. Then, as if reaching out a hand, it peeled back a layer of magic.
That was Dex on the edge of the clearing, watching her with a smirk on his face. In his hand was a stone collar, just like the one she’d seen in her last vision. He was just standing there as if waiting for something.
She looked down where Theon’s body lay, only it wasn’t there. Dragging her gaze across the space, she found Tristyn’s body gone too. No screams from Axel. No roars of dragons overhead.
This entire thing had been Dex luring her away from the others. Altering her reality. Making her expend her magic on nothing. That was why her reserves weren’t refilling when she’d set it free earlier.
Tessa watched him a moment longer. He hadn’t seemed to realize that his magic wasn’t affecting her anymore. Her own Chaos had countered it so carefully, had turned it back on him, that he thought he was still watching her lose herself over Theon. His own reality altered.
Trembling with a fury she couldn’t have described if she’d tried, she pulled a dagger from a swirl of her magic. A long, thin onyx blade with a hilt just as dark. A blade that had taken the life of Brecken.
A blade created to end seraphs.
A blade Tristyn had brought to her after he’d taken care of Brecken’s body.
A blade she’d been saving just for this.
It wasn’t until she was standing directly behind him that she let her magic shatter his completely. Let it sink in with claws and teeth. Let it shred that power to nothing.
Dex straightened in alarm, likely at not finding her sobbing over a body. His head swiveling around frantically, she waited until he turned.
Then she plunged that blade into his chest.
“Tessie?” He gasped, eyes dropping to the blade she still had her hand wrapped around, then slowly dragging back up to her face. “What are you doing?”
