Page 13

‘Thea…’ Wilder warned. ‘We need to run.’

‘I’m done running,’ she replied.

And the storm-wielding Warsword, Althea Embervale, summoned her lightning.

Forks of white light kissed her fingertips and illuminated the dark.

Wilder grabbed her arm. ‘You saw what they planned on doing to me in there.’ His voice was rough. ‘If they capture a storm wielder, this war is over before it starts.’

Thea’s power swelled. ‘I have no intention of being their captive.’

‘Then the whole world will know who you are.’

He’d echoed Talemir’s concerns. But Thea had made up her mind. A tempest roared within her, demanding to be unleashed upon the evil in their midst.

‘It’s about time that they did.’

The reapers hissed. The lightning at her fingertips illuminated their forms stalking towards them, their clouded eyes drinking her in, hungry for a taste of her power.

Beside her, Wilder gave her a nod and twirled his blades, and that told her all she needed to know. It was her choice, and he would stand by her until the end.

Thea felt the storm rise in her blood instantly. It had been simmering just beneath the surface, waiting to be released.

She set it free.

Overhead, thunder rumbled, thick grey clouds swallowing the wall of darkness created by the reapers, and Thea reached inward, to the ancient power that resided deep in her bloodline, and the core of the very world she stood upon.

Whips of darkness came for her, but Wilder slashed through them with his twin swords, clearing a path for her and her magic, allowing her the time to draw it out. The thunder roared this time, vibrating through the ground, reverberating in her chest and echoing her heartbeat.

Thea tipped her head to the sky and stretched out her hands. She tasted the rain on the wind, and lightning crackled from her fingertips – not in fine forks, but in mighty bolts. She felt the intensity of their charge in her palms before she unleashed them on the reapers, throwing them like spears at the monsters.

The creatures shrieked as each bolt landed, sinewy flesh burning in their wake.

Thea summoned rain as sharp as daggers, and with a shower of lightning breaking through the shield of shadow above, both pelted down on their already writhing enemies. With a swirling motion of her hands, Thea conjured a vortex of wind. The scent of burnt hair tangled with that of wet soil, and she deflected another attack of shadow before aiming the tunnelling gale right for the reapers, charging the very air with the promise of their demise.

She advanced, the three monsters trapped in the clutches of her storm. But she was far from done. At her command, the energy intensified, and she sent more bolts of lightning surging for the reapers, electric tendrils of power striking them over and over again, illuminating their leathery forms in a surreal blue light.

They screamed in earnest now, and it was a melody she relished. Around her, the wind howled and rain poured, drenching the grounds of the Scarlet Tower, turning it into a muddy field. She let her storm rage, her senses heightened to a blade’s edge, becoming one with the tempest as it shattered the barrier of darkness around the tower and shadow wraiths beyond it fell from the sky.

‘Thea…’

Wilder’s voice brought her back from the lure of the storm, her gaze snapping to his.

Silver eyes met hers. ‘Let’s finish this,’ he said, starting towards the twitching reapers, their power now nothing but dissipating wisps of dying shadow.

Palming her dagger, Thea followed.

But there was no need to carve out the monsters’ hearts.

For she had burned them right out of their chests.

Panting, she and Wilder stood amongst the remnants of battle, the ground around them scorched, craters scattered far and wide across its surface.

Thea’s heart ached with regret as Wilder stared at the tower, his body tense. Amid the smoke and carnage, it still stood, tall and foreboding: a symbol of the darkness that threatened their world, a grim sentinel, a bleak silhouette against the smouldering battlefield.

Thea knew no words would comfort her Warsword in that moment, and so she said nothing. Instead, she summoned another charge of lightning, and held it in her palm: an offer.

A muscle twitched in Wilder’s jaw as he looked from her magic to the question in her eyes.