Page 120 of Ensnared

“Mom, it’s okay.” I want to reassure her, send energy her way, but I’m worried that if I do, my command and Ocharta’s will fight, and then what?

Azar shrugs.

Mom’s still convulsing, so I decide to risk it, keeping it as simple as possible. You did nothing wrong. You’re healthy and strong and fine. I push the thought at her and hold my breath.

She bows upward, and then she collapses, no longer trembling. I rush to her side, hoping she’s still breathing. . .and she is. I exhale slowly and sit next to her. “Mom.”

Her frame still rocks gently, but I realize it’s because she’s crying. “Please,” she whispers. “Please kill her.”

“I can’t,” I say. “Mom, I can’t do that. It might kill you, too.”

“It will.” She turns toward me. “And I still want you to do it.”

25

I thought, when I saw my mother again, I could bring Jade and Coral and Sammy up to see her. She’d see that they’re alright. They could hug her. She could kiss their cheeks.

It never occurred to me that I’d have to carry her like a wounded animal to a bed and nurse her back to standing upright.

“I can’t stay,” she whispers. “I have to go soon.”

“Why?” I ask. “Why can’t you stay here? I’ll bring you food. It’s warm inside.”

She shakes her head. “Even now, she’s calling me. I have to bring her food, or she’ll die.” Her lips twist angrily. “I wish I could resist her.”

I hate this.

I hate it more than anything I’ve ever hated in my entire life. In the end, we load her up with food. I funnel as much energy into her as I can, and then we send her back to the abuser, her captor, to be tormented another day.

“Maybe you should let her die,” Axel says.

My head snaps around toward him.

He holds both hands up. “I’m not trying to pick a fight, but she is in bad shape.”

“You’re the Prince of the Flame,” I say. “You have to be able to do something.”

He shrugs. “There are some things that can’t be changed.”

I think about his secret, how he has two affinities, how he’s led a double life for. . .I have no idea how long. “How old are you?”

“We don’t reckon time in the same way you do.” He shrugs.

“That’s useless.”

“I’m very, very old compared to you,” he says.

Great. Now I feel even more pathetic. “Look.” I start pacing. “I may be young. I may be human. I may be stupid, but I will not just stand here while my mom’s out there, being mistreated and wishing she could die!” I fling my hand at the opening in the side of the building, and a three-foot-wide fireball blasts from my hand into the air, sailing outward.

My jaw drops. “What in the world was that?”

“You were saying,” Axel says, “that you’re young and you’re human and you’re stupid.” His mouth curves into a half grin. “Was your next line going to be that you’re powerless?”

“How did I just make a fireball? Or was that you?”

He shakes his head. “All you.”

I jog to the edge of the building and peer over the side. I don’t see anything on fire down there.