Page 53 of To Scale the Emerald Mountain

“Remember who you are!” he condescends.

Hearing his reminder sets me over the edge. I pull my spools as tight as I can and unleash. Electricity zaps from my fingertips, coming without the need of earth around my hands in self-preservation. My magic hits the kitchen island, and it explodes with enough force to throw Locane backwards.

He is still flying through the air as I run through the kitchen door and make for the front door.

I didn’t hear him when he landed from my blast, but I hear him now, thumping menacingly down the hall behind me. The sound of his gait tells me he’s injured, and I’m grateful for it, hoping it will give me the advantage I need.

“Ellya!” Locane screams after me, and his voice sounds strangled, laced with panic and fear of his own.

A ragged cry escapes my throat, knowing he is following me with a new determination. I continue running for the front doors and throw them open. My breathing is nothing but panicked sobs drenched in my terror by the time the sultry late afternoon air hits my lungs.

“I’m sorry! Please, stop!” he wheezes behind me, coming through the door, his pace increasing. I continue to run, pushing myself harder as I cry, frantic and hysterical.

Locane says he thinks I’m capable of the jump, and I’ve never been angrier with myself than I am right now for being so agreeable when he told me it was too dangerous to try. For being so agreeable with everything. In the last hour, his manipulation has become so obvious to me I feel like an absolute fool for falling for any of it.

What is wrong with me?

How could I not see before how he manipulated my emotions to elicit specific reactions out of me that he wanted? How he would criticize me so harshly and then throw me miniscule morsels of compliments, sometimes within a few breaths of each other. How he tried endlessly to convince me that Nana, the only person in my life I know who cares for me, didn’t care for me at all, and tried her best to hold me back.

How did I fall for any of it?

The answer hits me like a battering ram. He told me weeks ago how. Locane has been pulling my strings this whole time. He toldme he compelled me to make my escape. Has he been compelling me to feel what he wants me to feel?

But of course he has. Too many times I’ve found my mind suddenly blank, no real thoughts of substance. And oftentimes those instances came at times that would have been very convenient for him. When I would ask too many questions that he didn’t want to answer. When my distrust began to take over. He’s been pulling my strings this whole time, a puppet master with his perfect little marionette doll.

And his appearance…

My thoughts stop with my feet. I’m planted in place, crying harder at the knowledge that my chance of escape is over. Locane is using what vestiges of power he has left to keep me within these wards.

He catches up to me quickly and grabs my arm, spinning me around until I’m flush with his chest. My hands are crushed between us. I make fists and try to punch him away from me as I cry hysterically. His arms encircle me, and he holds me in a vice-like grip so I can’t move. I pull at my reluctant feet, wanting to start kicking him when he screams over me.

“Stop! Stop!”

Instantly, I do, his power just barely able to pull me back into his hold. Tears continue to stream down my face as I’m rendered motionless by his compulsion.

But I can still speak.

“You’re fucking tapped! That’s why you look like death is calling for you. You’ve stretched your magic to the max for months, fucking months! Making me do and think and say what you want!”

The realization sends a hurt through my body unlike anything I could ever imagine, branding an ugly scar into my heart and soul.A warm drop of Locane’s blood plops onto the top of my head. A nosebleed caused by pushing out one last burst of mental power in a desperate attempt to keep me from leaving. Blood begins to drip from my own nose.

“Yes.” He says it so simply, as if he hasn’t brought the only world I know crashing on top of my head.

“You knew you couldn’t hold it much longer.” I’m crying harder now. “You knew!”

“Yes.”

The grip of Locane’s compulsion is loosening as another drop of blood falls on my head. My muscles scream and protest against his weakened magic—desperately trying to break free. I cry into his chest as I say the words of his latest manipulation tactic out loud, making it so horribly, painfully real.

“You knew you couldn’t hold it much longer, and you were intimate with me hoping that would give you a hold on me in a different way.”

Silence. And then Locane sighs heavily, “Yes.”

I’m wiggling against him as his mental bonds continue to loosen. I’m so close to being able to get myself loose and be free of Locane for good.

“Are you the reason I can’t remember anything of my life before you?” My hysteria is increasing with the crushing weight of all that is coming to light.

“Yes.”