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CHAPTER SEVENTY

Ryker

The fog rolling across the ground crept so thickly it covered the leaves and debris littering the forest floor. Gray tendrils slipped through the trees and into the clearing, where they crept higher until they obscured the bottoms of the trees and concealed the boulders tucked beneath the limbs.

The birds stopped singing, and nearby animals fled deeper into the woods. They sensed the unnaturalness of this mist; it wasn’t often a fog so thick existed.

As it rose higher, a wind howled through the trees as it raced toward the clearing. The leaves rattled, and branches clicked as the trees swayed from the wind.

It whipped into the clearing, where it created a funnel that didn’t disperse the fog but sucked it up and spread it higher until it encased the branches. Rain fell to patter against the leaves and ground.

As the rain fell, lightning flashed throughout the tornado and branched off to the sides. It shot little bolts all around as it sizzled across the clearing and crashed into the targets established for Ellery. She was as deadly accurate with the lightning as she was with an arrow.

Hail whipped out of the tornado. Large balls thudded off the trees, clattered against the rocks, and bashed the targets, swiftly becoming little more than tattered remnants of their former selves.

Power swelled in the air, bringing an almost rhythmic thrumming sound that pulsed around the clearing. Thunder quaked the trees as the ground heaved.

The crack that splintered the earth swallowed some of the fog as it poured inside to obscure the depth of the hole. Beside me, Scarlet gasped as her hand went to her throat.

As the fog thickened, it concealed the lightning until it was dull flashes of light within the thick mist. But it was much more than that, as it destroyed what remained of the target closest to us.

A few feet before us, Ellery’s hair floated around her as her power swelled in the air. Lightning flashed from her palms as snow fell to coat her lashes; the whipping wind lashed the snow into a blizzard that further obscured my vision.

Her eyes had shifted from black with lightning bolts shooting through them to entirely white, as they became what they were when she fully dipped into her power.

I worried she wouldn’t come back from this, but she’d controlled herself on the battlefield under far worse conditions. She could pull herself back again now.

“Holy shit,” Tucker breathed as large balls of hail swarmed up the outside of the tornado, turning it white.

A week had passed since we’d returned from the gargoyles. We’d spent much of that time in these woods, training Ellery’s powers and trying to draw more from her as she grew stronger.

And the more she used them, the stronger she became. Her confidence had built with each passing day, and today she was unleashing a bigger display of what she could do. It was fucking amazing.

It had also been a week of sleepless nights as Ellery came to terms with our decision to keep the gargoyles where they were. It wasn’t easy for her, but sometimes doing the right thing wasn’t easy….

Sometimes it wasn’t even the right thing.

She wasn’t the only one grappling with the decision. I knew better than anyone what it was like to be at the mercy of others, and while keeping them imprisoned was the best way to keep Tempest safe, it wasn’t an easy choice to live with.

Leaving them there probably wasn’t the right choice; it was simply the safe one.

The storm’s intensity grew as Ellery funneled more of her power into it. I shifted my attention from the storm to where she stood only a few feet away.

Lightning crackled as it snapped around her arms and face; her braid danced around her. Her power prickled my skin as it called to my lightning, but I kept it bottled.

We were working to strengthen her abilities; combining my power with hers could be too much for her to handle… for both of us. I fisted my hands to resist my impulse to connect with her.

“Unleash more of yourself,” I encouraged her. “You can control it.”

We’d been unleashing more of her powers every day to see how much she could push them and what she could do. So far, her ability seemed limitless as she pushed it further.

The lightning increased until I couldn’t look directly at her anymore. I cast my gaze away as she rose from the ground; electricity sizzled from her palms and feet.

From the corner of my eye, I watched as she rose five feet above the ground while white light encased her. She was so beautiful it stole my breath.

I cast my voice higher to be heard over the wind and hum of electricity as thunder boomed. “Rein it in.”

So far, she’d done well with this, but she’d never unleashed this much of herself. Closing her fingers and eyes, the muscles in her forearms bulged as she reined in the power.

The wind died down, the hail stopped thudding off the ground, and her lightning retracted into her as she drifted down to the earth. When her toes touched the ground, the lightning retracted enough that I could look at her again.

And she was even more beautiful as her skin glowed with vitality and her braid fell down her back again. The white faded from her eyes, and they twinkled when they met mine.

No one spoke as the weathers she’d drawn forth retreated. A hush remained over the woods, but eventually, the birds returned to the trees, and something scurried through the underbrush.