Sixty

Quell

The graveyard is engulfed in a cloud of darkness. Shouts scratch my ears, but it’s the moans of people writhing in pain that stirs the bile in my stomach. The brooding sky has only grown darker, and the chaos has filled the air with ash. When mixed with the fog of toushana, the murk is so thick I can hardly make out the Sphere, now a bit away. But I can see wisps of magic evaporating into the chilled air. I keep my eyes fixed on it and the magic whirring in my chest. I hold my focus there, churning it faster, letting it build in me until my lungs feel as if they might explode.

In the haze I spot Beaulah’s Draguns still arranged neatly around the Sphere. But as she breaks ranks with them and moves closer to me, several follow. My heart rams in my chest. I pull at the icy chill in my bones, urging it to stir harder.

When I release on the Sphere, she’ll be dead.

“Get back!”

She steeples her hands.

That’s when I see it.

A familiar ring on her knuckle. Once stoneless, now with a bright red heart-shaped stone at the center of its nest of gold. The stone from Jordan’s pendant. No! How? I step backward, trying to think of something to say. Or something to do. That stone will draw my magic to it! I can’t use toushana anywhere near it.

“I am so proud of you,” the wretch says, moving right beside me.

I tighten at my core, trying to hold on to the weighty cold begging for release. Beaulah moves past me, motioning for her Draguns to get back to the Sphere. Near the opening. The window of chance is narrowing.

“Tell me, darling, why do you need to attack the Sphere to kill me? I’m right here.”

Bile rises in my throat.

“If you’re truly a Darkbearer, face me fearlessly. Release on me.”

She doesn’t want me to hurt the Sphere. She still has hope that she will make it out of here with the Sphere’s power. Her ring flickers like the glow of a hungry flame. She waves her hand in front of me, near my chest. The magic growing in me shifts, compelled by the ring’s nearness. Toushana moves through me in her direction. I am out of choices.

I put some distance between us before forcing out the cold clawing beneath my skin in one sharp gust, thrusting it in her direction. Hoping I can attack her with enough magic that it will also overwhelm the ring. Shadows rush at her. She meets them with her fist in midair, and the stone gleams.

Then several things happen at once.

Magic hooks in my chest.

Darkness bleeds out of me, reaching across the graveyard like an outstretched arm.

It touches Beaulah’s fist.

And a tether of toushana pulls taut between us.

“Back to the Sphere,” she orders Felix. “Leave her to me.” The rest follow and she marches toward me. Shadows swirl beneath the surface of her ring. But the magic siphoning out of me snatches the breath out of my chest. The red rock on her finger swims with my toushana, growing larger. So large, she detaches it from the metal ring.

Fight. My mom deserves better. Beaulah watches the stone transform, filling with darkness. I try to pull away.

Somewhere, someone yells.

Beaulah grunts as something knocks her forward. And the tether of toushana between us breaks. She turns and is pulled into fighting. My heart twinges with hope. I look for Jordan or Yagrin. When my vision clears, my grandmother is holding a flaming dagger to Beaulah’s throat.