Page 24 of Witchcraft and Fury (Chronicles of the Divided Isle #1)

She was too quick for him. Her sword parried the staff firmly, knocking it wide from its intended mark.

With his body unprotected she aimed a kick at him that caught him in the stomach.

He was knocked off balance and crumpled against the far wall.

Solar lunged for him and brought her blade down towards his neck in a sweeping arc, aiming to leave him at her mercy with the keen blade just shy of piercing an artery.

But Gib raised his staff and an invisible force field surged from its tip to meet Fury.

The sword jarred against the shield in thin air, just inches from Gib’s jugular, and the shock of the collision travelled all the way up Solar’s arm.

She cried out and drew back in surprise, and the momentary retreat was all Gib needed to spring back up.

He brought his staff down in a series of punishing strokes.

Solar backed off, staving off the barrage as she went.

Halfway across the room she was forced to leap round the cauldron in her flight from the onslaught.

‘You’re … getting … slower. Poison … taking … its toll?’ taunted Gib between pants.

Solar blinked sweat out of her eyes. She knew it was true.

It had taken her no time at all to realise that she was the better fighter, swifter and more agile, but the poison weakened her further with every passing moment.

In addition, Gib’s magic staff seemed to give him forewarning of her every move.

Another spasm of pain coursed through her stomach, and it was all she could do to stand up straight and counter Gib’s thrusts, each of her parries coming weaker than the last.

‘My little potion will … kill you … soon,’ said Gib, managing to cackle and wheeze at the same time. ‘Three … minutes … before you collapse … I’d say.’

‘Where is the antidote?’ Solar shouted in response, fear in her voice.

‘That’s for me to know,’ he sneered.

Solar threw her weight behind a strike aimed at Gib’s head, but he swatted it aside as if it were an imp.

Then the poison caused an explosion of pain inside her skull, and her vision blurred into a rainbow of colour.

She registered vaguely what appeared to be two or three staffs bearing down on her, and the next thing she knew Gib’s weapon had slammed into her forehead with a terrible crack. She fell to the floor.

Gib stood above her, staff pointed at her belly.

‘What will … your final words … in this world be … Solar Carpenter?’ he gasped.

Solar lay there panting, glaring up into the man’s gleeful eyes, her vision returning slowly.

At that moment, so close to death, she was acutely aware of her body clinging tenaciously to life: her heart pounding against her ribcage, her chest heaving in ragged breaths and her hand clutching Fury tightly by the hilt.

She felt her hair and clothing clinging to her skin, slick with sweat brought on by the potion and the duel. Blood trickled from her lips and nose.

Gib’s breathing began to steady. Dust swirled in the golden glow of the windows. The cauldron simmered in the sudden quiet.

In that moment, as she felt rage boil up inside her – rage at her impending death, at the fate of her poisoned friends and at the evil sorcerer standing before her – Solar truly understood the Azure Euphoria seething over the fire, how an uncontrollable energy made it churn and froth.

Every splutter echoed a little of her anger, every bubble her pain.

She directed her heart, soul and energy at the potion, poured her own life force into it to create a swirling, savage storm.

Then, with a final muster, she bade it rise from the cauldron in a boiling tempest. She rolled hastily to one side as the potion cascaded across the lower half of Gib’s body.

He dropped his staff to the ground with a piercing scream. The spell on the imps was broken instantly and they sprang into the air before hurling themselves as one at Gib, knocking him down and pinning him to the ground.

Gib continued to shriek in agony. Hot potion had burned his thighs and calves. Solar stood over him, swaying dangerously as the poison she had consumed made her see double again.

‘The antidote! Where is the antidote to the poison?’ she demanded, watching what appeared to be two Gibs writhing on the floor.

‘Help me first!’ he screamed.

‘First tell me where the antidote is!’

‘A green vial! There’s a tray of green vials!’

‘Where?’

‘The cellar! Water, get me water!’

But Solar was already gone, hurtling down flight after flight of stairs, aware that she was just moments from passing out as the potion destroyed her from the inside.

More than once she slipped and completed the flight in an uncontrolled scramble, sweat blurring her vision and searing pains in her head further distorting her sense of balance.

Finally she came to the bottom floor. She ran through the only door, tripping on the doorsill and into a storeroom lit by a lone torch in a wall sconce.

Potions lined the shelves of all four walls and were arrayed on a metal table in the centre, but all her potion-befuddled eyes could make out was a series of blurred colours: blues, reds and yellows.

The green antidote wasn’t there.

Gib had lied. Solar felt the final deceit as a blow more deadly than any that had come from the sorcerer’s staff. She no longer had the will or time to search.

Darkness crept in at the edges of Solar’s vision. Her eyelids grew heavy as she lost her grip on the present. She blinked desperately, trying to prevent them from closing forever. She breathed in tortured convulsions.

An agonising pain in her stomach sent her sprawling into one of the shelves.

Vials fell down in a riot of exploding colours.

Solar turned from the shelf only to fall against the table, her legs buckling.

Her face collided with the surface, her leaden arms knocking more potions to the floor.

Her cheek pressed against the cool, metallic tabletop.

She was dimly aware of a cacophony of smashes, of strange smells released from bottles and of her own heartbeat slowing.

Her eyelids drooped for the last time. A green blur swam before her eyes as they shut forever.

Green!

With a colossal effort Solar struggled to her feet.

She staggered round the table, tripping on fallen bottles, her hands outstretched.

They touched something solid … a shelf. Her fingers fumbled at the green blur and found a corked vial.

Her skin slippery with blood and sweat, the vial fell from her grasp to smash on the stone floor.

Then her hands found another, and this time she prised the cork free. She lifted the vial clumsily to her mouth. Liquid splattered across her face. She licked desperately at the potion dripping over her lips.

The vial tumbled from her fingers, empty.