Authors: Amy Braun
Ferno swung both swords at Hadrian’s neck and stomach. Hadrian moved faster, using one blade to block the slash to his neck and the other to stop the one at his middle. He pushed them both away and slammed a kick into Ferno’s ribs.
Turve lunged, aiming his swords at Hadrian’s throat. He deftly ducked under both and jammed his shoulder into Turve’s chest. As the stocky man staggered back, Hadrian spun and slammed his elbow into Turve’s head.
Ferno roared and charged for Hadrian, shoving one of his blades toward his chest. Hadrian spun again and blocked the sword, but Ferno was lost in some kind of frenzy. He hacked and slashed like he was trying to cut Hadrian in half. I watched the grim determination in Hadrian’s eyes as he battled, saw the anger on Turve’s face as he recovered and gripped both swords. Then he whipped his head at Declan.
“Take her!”
I saw the sudden flash in Hadrian’s eyes. He heard Turve and looked at me. The split second cost him. He managed to get Ferno away from him, but Turve had another plan. He put the swords across his back and manipulated his hands, like he was cupping an invisible bowling ball. Around me, the wind picked up. Turve shoved his hands outward. The same force that had been tossing me around hit Hadrian and knocked him across the road. Ferno and Turve charged him while he was on the ground.
I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t watch Hadrian die, but I couldn’t fight. I didn’t even have a weapon–
A fist knotted in my hair and pulled up. I yelped and grabbed a thick wrist. My heels skidded along the pavement as I was dragged against a sturdy chest.
“Looks like your Guardian isn’t very good at his job, Ginger. You don’t even know what you’re capable of now, do you?”
“Let me go!” I shouted. I thrashed and flung my arms back, uselessly, as it turned out. If I didn’t hit something inconsequential on Declan’s body, I missed him all together.
“You’re supposed to be like me, now. Looks like they’re going to make short work of your Guardian, so why don’t we see how strong they made you?”
Declan let go of my hair and shoved me forward. I staggered and whirled around, shivering when I saw the cold look on his face. I had no idea what he was talking about, let alone what was going on. I didn’t have time to think about it, either. Declan shoved out his hands.
A spark of blue light and a creaking noise came from my right. Whatever Declan tried to do was suddenly blocked by a creeping wall of ice. I looked over my shoulder and saw that Hadrian was standing. Frost circled his hand and the silver sword clutched in it, encasing it in a pale blue cast. He didn’t look longer than he had to, ducking under Ferno’s latest strike and slicing his sword toward Turve to keep him from attacking his back.
Declan shouted with rage, the wind around us picking up. Through the icy wall, I saw his shadow push forward. A gale of wind crashed into the wall and cracked it into a million pieces. I lifted my arm and blocked the jagged icy shards as best as I could. I lowered my hand as Declan charged for me.
I didn’t think about what I was doing, didn’t bother to understand it. I just wanted him to get
away
from me.
I held out my hands, ready to push him back.
My whole body shivered, like I’d been plunged into a cool river. Blood felt thick and sluggish in my veins, and my arms were heavy as I held them up. I grimaced at the bizarre sensation, hoping I would have enough strength to shoo Declan away. He kept storming closer, eyes wild and violent. I stepped back and thrust out my arms.
And Declan did get pushed back. But I never touched him.
Rainwater curved before my eyes. It bent in the air, the drops becoming horizontal as they darted toward Declan like needles. They struck his chest and halted him. He grimaced and clutched his chest. In that split second while he looked like he was in pain, I glanced at my hands. Only one question came to mind:
What the hell?!
Declan shifted on his feet and I looked up at him. The smug bully I’d seen before was gone, replaced with an angry brute that didn’t look pleased about a little girl landing a hit against him.
“So you do know a couple tricks.” His grin was murderous, which made the situation even more terrifying, because I didn’t know what he was talking about. “They won’t be enough, Ginger.”
He was right. They weren’t.
Declan pushed out his hands again. Blasts of air hit me like fists, battering the sides of my body and crushing the air from my lungs. He held me in place with one hand, then reached out to the side. I watched him flick his wrist, spinning it into a circle.
Then I watched the debris from the building on my left pitch and spiral, rising upward and turning into a funnel.
A tornado made of shrapnel.
Declan grinned his dark grin, winked at me, and swept the tornado in my direction. The whirlwind of shattered brick and serrated metal spun in a blurring cycle, churning violently and creeping out of the ruins. My hair was thrown away from the sides of my face as it drew closer, kicking aside garbage and slicing apart the raindrops around it.
I couldn’t move, trapped in whatever invisible barrier Declan had crushed around me. I couldn’t ask Hadrian for help when he was fighting two warriors with swords and serious animosity toward him. I was on my own.
But what the hell was I going to do?
I scrabbled for some kind of idea–
I need to move
– tried to remember how the rainwater bent to protect me. Had I done that? I didn’t know for sure, but the bad guys seemed to think I had some kind of power, so I didn’t see the harm in trying something outlandish and insane.
Plus, I was desperate.
I couldn’t move my hands, so I concentrated on the tornado shifting toward me. I thought about stopping it, holding it in place, turning it around, anything–
Frost snaked across the ground like a streak of lightning. It crept under the shrapnel tornado and gathered at the peak. The frost interwove with the spinning shrapnel, freezing over the pieces until the stony grey particles became frosted white.
Declan bellowed again, thrusting out his hand to push the icy whirlwind at me. He concentrated so completely on the tornado that his hold on me loosened. I staggered from the released pressure, almost losing my balance.
Strong arms circled me. A hard chest pressed to my back. I opened my mouth to scream.
“Trust me,” Hadrian said in my ear.
It was all he had time to say. The tornado shot toward us like a bullet, shattering out of Declan’s control. Razor sharp debris exploded outward, a scattershot mess of metal and brick that would slice and batter us.
Hadrian kept his arms around me, still holding onto his swords, then pivoted so his back was to the explosion. The temperature around me dropped. His arms froze my chest. I looked down. The blades of his pale silver swords were glowing with white, frosty light. The frost swept over the ground and encased it, crawling into the air like spider-webbed glass.
He was cocooning us in ice.
I just didn’t know if he would be fast enough.
Ice crunched and groaned behind me. The debris was hitting the frosty wall. Hadrian suddenly jerked and tightened his cold arms. His arms pushed against my bruised ribs, and a hiss of pain slipped from his teeth. He was hurt.
He was pressed too close to my back for me to see his face, or the injury he’d taken. All I could do was look ahead.
Turve and Ferno were still standing and scowling. Rage filled their faces. They wanted blood, and the ice wall was weak in front of us. They could have cut us down without any problem. Hadrian’s grip wasn’t loosening any time soon.
But they were hesitating.
Because I'm in front of Hadrian, and they want him dead. Not me. They want me for something else.
I had no idea what that something else was, and didn’t want to find out.
Shards of ice spat past us. The frosty light from the swords was getting weaker. Hadrian was shaking. He couldn’t protect us for much longer.
Images of rainwater bending and shooting into Declan’s chest like darts rushed through my mind. Ghostly sensations prickled my skin when I recalled the thick, watery feeling in my veins.
I was scared to ask, but I did anyway. “Do I have powers like him? Declan?”
Hadrian’s breath was ragged in my ear. “Yes.”
Adrenaline shot through my veins. I wasn’t entirely sure I believed it, but with Hadrian hurt and that group out there ready to kill him and capture me, I would play along for now.
“Tell me what to do with them,” I said.
He shuddered again. “You’re not ready.”
I nudged him roughly with my elbow. “Bigger picture, Hadrian! Tell me what to do!”
I didn’t think he would answer me. Around us, barrages of wind shoved wreckage onto the street. Bricks became wrecking balls. Strips of rebar were spears.
Then he whispered, “Imagine the rain becoming hail. Use the energy of the storm around you.”
If there was a lesson more confusing than that, I didn’t want to know what kind of class it was for. So I imagined it was make-believe, that I knew what I was doing with… whatever power I had.
I closed my eyes and thought about the rain dousing us. Recalled its cool caress before Declan and his new pals showed up. Wished it were colder. Harder. That the raindrops were like chunks of broken glass, deadly and sharp.
The air outside of the shield became frigid. My skin was covered in goose bumps, and my lungs were tight. The raindrops turned white, crystallized together until they were icicles.
I narrowed my eyes and watched them fall. My heart was galloping in a body that felt too cold.
In front of me, Turve and Ferno stood helplessly against the onslaught. Their arms were raised, protecting their faces but little else. The falling ice cut lines across their forearms and backs. I heard Declan yell behind me. He must have been enduring the same thing.
Hadrian’s arms finally uncoiled from me. The ice wall fell away. He stepped back and turned me around.
Rain had drenched his hair, shadows played across his face and danced in the shallow cut on his cheek. His eyes were electric, the dual blues shining like cold fire.
“Take the shrapnel out.”
Hadrian turned again and showed me his back. And the jagged piece of metal sticking out of his upper left shoulder blade. I winced, my eyes trailing down his back to his scabbard. Printed into the leather was a sigil, a broadsword pointed up amongst a torrent of rain. I gasped, the hail pounding the street around me. It was almost identical to the one I’d seen on the man who stabbed me.
No, that one’s different. It was a sword cutting through waves, not raindrops–
“Now, Ava!” Hadrian barked, bringing me out of the memory.
I didn’t want to hurt him, but that shard couldn’t stay in his back. We weren’t out of the fight yet.
I gritted my teeth and put one hand on the middle of his back. The other curled around the cold metal. I shoved his spine and pulled the shrapnel at the same time. Hadrian grunted and stumbled forward, released from the shard.
“I’m sor–”
He spun around, ignored me, and shoved his swords into the ground. Frost exploded from the tip of the blades, layering the road again to block us from Turve and Ferno. Then the frost hardened to ice, and another wall sprang up. This one covered in thorny icicles that stabbed out at the two warriors.
They skidded to a stop to avoid being impaled, glaring murderously at Hadrian.
Turve scowled and sliced his blades together. Metal shrieked against metal, and a crush of wind batted into us. I slipped a little, but Hadrian kept his ground. He tightened his grip on his swords and pushed the wall closer to Turve.
I didn’t see Ferno until I started looking for him. The blood-haired warrior was running to Hadrian’s open side, slicing his sword against a patch of unfrosted road.
Mud kicked up with it, and went straight into Hadrian’s eye.
He yelled sharply, off balance and blind. Ferno ran with both swords held out.
I spun and reached for the icicles again, wanting them to dart to Ferno as I’d done with the rain to Declan.
It worked.
The shards of hail twisted and slammed into Ferno’s chest like daggers. He skidded to a stop and howled in pain. The sound cut straight to my heart, and all I could see was the blood, the oozing trickles of it spilling past Ferno’s armor, made all the brighter from the melting ice coating his chest–
Wind hammered around us, as if the very air had detonated. I was thrown from Hadrian’s side, landing close to the spiked wall of ice. I groaned, my entire body feeling like one cold bruise.
I rolled onto my stomach and looked back, seeing Declan.