Page 9 of Wings of Lies (Daughter of the Seven Circles #1)

Chapter

Eight

I stilled. Ominous clouds billowed in, obscuring the blue sky. The air crackled with charged energy, thick with the acrid scent of burnt ozone, silencing the chirping birds. We both searched between the trees.

A gust of wind barreled through the trees and knocked into us. Stumbling, I latched onto Oliver’s arm. Leaves and dirt whipped around in a chaotic storm, stinging my face with the force of the wind.

“What’s going on?” I asked as he righted me.

“Elementals.” Oliver’s hair was in disarray, more so than usual. His black streak moved and blended with his blonde strands.

“What do you mean?”

Thunder boomed nearby.

Oliver grabbed my shoulders. “I mean, we need to get the hell out of here! Can you run like you did before?” The urgency of his voice told me he didn’t mean regular running. We needed to go fast. Unnaturally fast .

“I can try.”

A pressure built underneath my skin, similar to the sensations from my first attempt at lusceler, yet this time without the accompanying itch. The pressure edged toward agony as if a million needles fought to break free from my body.

Lightning flashed, hitting a tree in the distance and sending a jolt through me straight to the millions of needles. They stabbed through my hands, and brilliant white fire erupted.

I stared at them in dread. “Again? That’s not?—”

Another boom echoed through the air, even closer. The white flames on my hands spiked.

“Lucy! Can you do it, or should I carry you?” Oliver grabbed my shoulders, shaking me.

I whipped my flaming hands out to the sides.

Oliver shook me again. “Lucy! Do I need to carry you?” He yelled over the forceful wind.

“No! I can do this!”

Lightning continued to flash, hitting trees and coming closer.

Shit! I shrugged off his touch and waved my hands around, begging them to go out. “Come on!”

“Lucy! They’re almost on us!”

I bent over my knees, heaving, keeping my flaming hands in front of me. “Something’s wrong. I can’t breathe.”

“It’s called panicking. Calm down, take control, and breathe!”

“I am breathing!”

My white flames shuddered. Purple intertwined with the white.

“Damn it, Lucy, that’s not even close to what I said!”

“What you said sucked ! Fix this! Make it stop!” I yelled, staring at my traitorous powers, unable to rub at the pressure pushing down on my chest.

“Keep those away from me, okay?” Oliver scooped me in his arms and luscelered away.

We blurred through the forest. I held my hands as far away from our hair and bodies as possible.

Lightning hit a tree to our left. I yelped, jerking my head into Oliver’s chest and shielding my face from the exploding shards.

“Marriage-carrying you is slowing us down! They’ll catch up to us if you can’t figure out how to put out that crazy heat and channel that power into running.” With my ear to his lungs, he wasn’t lying. I could hear the toll this took.

“I don’t know how.”

“You need to need it.”

Oh, my heavenly hell. I wanted to shake him. Need it. Need it. How much more could I possibly need it? The answers to my past and my mom were in Elora, and these elementals, whatever they were, stood in our way. Of course, I wanted to move. Of course, I needed?—

Oliver flinched, and I fell.

I slammed into the ground, tumbling across roots and pine needles. A trunk the size of my wrist caught the last of my momentum, snapping into my back. I gasped.

“Lucy! Are you okay?” Oliver blurred to my side, kneeling beside me, hands hovering in the air. “I’m sorry! So sorry. I didn’t mean to drop you, but your skin was blazing. I didn’t know if you were seconds from erupting or something. You scorched my hands through your clothing. ”

Groaning, I rolled off the miniature tree I broke with my back. “I tried to need it. But I think I only made the squeezing pressure worse.”

“You panicked?”

“Sure.”

Oliver reached for me, thought better of it, and stood. “At least your flames are put away.” He nodded down to my grimy, lightless hands.

Yay, no more suffocating, needle-poking pressure, only shock and pain shooting into my back from being thrown into a tree.

“Think you can try luscelering again?” he asked, peering around at the ominous sky. The wind blew on a gentle breeze, no longer an angry tempest.

I stood, poking at the base of my spine, flinching. “I’ll try.”

Oliver held out his hand. “When you’re ready.”

As I was about to place my hand in his and dive into my power, my hair stood erect. Thunder roared with deafening force as lightning flashed, crashing down on us.

I don’t know how I did it, but I moved out of the way—fast.

Oliver grinned like a fool, despite the fact we almost became charred flesh, and grabbed my hand. “That was need. Now you’re going to do it again. I’m not letting go. So, either it’s run with me, or I rip your arm out of its socket while I drag you.”

Wonderful.

The squeezing pressure came back, along with the needles. Luckily there were no flames. Yet. But with no other option, I begged myself to find the live wire beneath it all.

“Ready?”

I nodded, squeezing my free hand into a tight fist .

He took a step.

We luscelered.

In the deepening shadows of the forest, we sprinted faster than the human eye, driven by the urgency to avoid lightning strikes. Oliver released me once he realized I could keep pace.

Pressurized energy filled every cell in my body, moving my feet in impossible ways. I glanced down to make sure my feet touched the ground, wanting to laugh at the thrill of it but stopped by the needle-like stabs of my power and a powerful gust of wind pushing against our speed.

“Faster! We need to outrun them.” The rushing wind weakened Oliver’s voice.

“Who are they?” I jumped over a fallen log with no conscious effort.

“They’re called Powers, elemental—” A boom of thunder covered his voice.

“What?” I screamed.

“Elemental angels!”

My steps faltered. “Why are we running from angels?” Weren’t we on the same side? What was I even thinking? Were there sides?

“Well, I don’t think they want to talk. Watch out!” Oliver grabbed my arm, yanking me to the side and out of the path of another incoming lightning bolt.

Blood rushed from my face. The pressure under my skin increased, pushing my legs faster. Not once did my legs falter or slow down. But I knew the foreboding drain was coming. It was just a matter of when.

We covered miles and miles of terrain. They never showed themselves, but their powers over the turbulent weather never ceased .

Moisture thickened the air as the clouds overhead turned black.

That couldn’t be good.

Drops of rain fell, pelting our bodies. Oliver cursed up a storm. My legs trembled, longing to collapse under the relentless assault. I had no doubt we’d both find welts once we stopped.

“Keep going, Lucy! Don’t stop!” Oliver yelled, noticing my slowing pace.

It was smart on their part. The lightning bolts we dodged. But with a downpour, we couldn’t.

I put on a burst of speed, ducking my head. The faster we moved, the lighter the drops became—a good sign. But the numbness that crept into my feet wasn’t.

I glanced at Oliver, and we shared a smile. He even gave a cocky wink. We were losing them. Then the ground shook, and trees groaned. Oliver’s smug expression dropped as he lost his footing and collided headfirst into a nearby trunk.

I stumbled over the rippling earth to his sprawled body. “Oliver!” I used all my body weight to turn him over, feet slipping in the mud. He groaned. Blood dripped down from a gash on his forehead. “Are you okay?”

The earth steadied, the whooshing of leaves settled, and my quick breaths filled the eerie quiet. I looked around, searching between trunks for movement.

“There’s no way we lost them,” I whispered, looking down at Oliver. His eyes were closed. “Oliver,” I said. “Oliver!” I shook his shoulder. “Shit.”

He was still breathing but unresponsive. I whipped off my pack, searching for something to hold against his head. Toilet paper would work .

Water seeped into my joggers as I kneeled next to him, putting pressure on his wound. I panned between his rising chest and the quiet forest. The stillness poked at my nerves. I didn’t see anyone. I didn’t hear anyone. But it would be foolish to think we lost them.

A couple of yards away, thick bushes jutted from the mud. If I managed to drag Oliver over there, we could hide ourselves behind them.

A strange sensation crawled up my legs when I grabbed his arm. The throbbing of my welts dulled, and sand replaced my blood, weighing me down. Not now. I squeezed my eyelids shut, holding back tears of frustration. The energy I used was exacting its toll.

Oliver groaned. I snapped my eyes open.

“Hide,” he whispered.

“What about you?” I couldn’t leave him like this. But I barely had the energy to move myself, let alone a concussed Oliver. My hand weakened the longer it held the wadded toilet paper.

“Now, Lucy,” Oliver said more forcefully, blinking at my face.

Pressure pushed into my chest, shoving harder with each second I took to decide what to do. The hair along my arms rose underneath my wet jacket.

I couldn’t leave him, could I?

But I didn’t stand a chance against them. Maybe that’s why my mom sent me away when I wanted to fight with her.

Burnt ozone overwhelmed my nose. I glanced at the bushes.

Oliver would be okay.

I dropped to my hands and knees, crawling towards the bushes. But before I entirely abandoned Oliver, my hair prickled with electricity, and lightning flashed.

An explosion of pain ripped into my back right before oblivion.