Chapter 110
Serafine POV
It’s not calming, I’m sitting on the grass, trying to use the calm around me to draw back in the magic, but it’s still out of control and spiralling its class knew I should never have tried this.
How can I control something that wants to be free? Closing my eyes, I try to focus, to drag it back in, to order it, but it’s hard. It’s not something simple. It’s confusing and a mess. It’s like it has a mind of its own, and maybe it does?
Maybe this magic was never meant to be controlled, maybe it’s meant to control me, consume me and drag me to death?
I should have brought the journal to write in, to ask, but the feeling of the magic was too strong, and all I could do was run, to get away from others, away from Eryx before anything bad happened.
Even the sound of the wind brushing through the trees and stirring the tall grass does nothing to bring me peace. The air still feels too still and heavy despite the wind. There’s nothing calm here. I’m not sure how I’m meant to control this.
Drawing my knees up, I place my palms flat against the earth, trying to anchor to settle, to listen to my commands, but it doesn’t.
yself, hoping that the feel of it will help ground me and force the magic
It’s everywhere, buzzing beneath my skin, and churning through my blood like a storm that has no center.
It doesn’t want to be contained. Whatever this magic is, it wasn’t made to be contained, it was made to be in control.
Closing my eyes, I try again to breathe, to draw it back into myself, as if it’s possible to pull it back into me in neat lines and wrap it in order. Still, it resists me, it’s like water slipping through my fingers that are clenched too tightly. It’s pulsing in waves, rising and falling without a rhythm. It feels like it’s following music that I can’t hear, a beat that isn’t meant for my ears.
Maybe that’s the fact in all this, maybe it wasn’t meant to obey me at all, but guide me? I’m so fixed on trying to stop it, to control it, but what if this is it trying to guide me into something?
There aren’t many things ancient that still exist, and to think I could control something as old as time will bend to my words is crazy. It’s wild, and wants to consume me from the inside out.
A thought strikes deep, almost cold and bitter as it coils inside of me, What if this magic isn’t a gift but a curse dressed in gold light? Maybe I’m not the wielder, I’m just its vessel, which means I have no power to choose how it ends. Maybe I’m not meant to survive now that I have brought Eryx into the
world?
That thought settles deep, and for a moment, I feel calm, because if Eryx’s safety, his life, depends on this magic consuming me, and me dying, then I welcome death. I’ll walk into the darkness, into those burning flames and let it have me.
I ran out here to save Xander from what might happen, I ran to save the packhouse and my son. Eryx. I ran to save him from this power.
A branch cracks behind me, and I freeze. Xander said no one would come, he said no one would come near here for hours.
For a moment, the wind dies entirely, and the air holds its breath before I hear voices, rough and fast.
“There she is!”
“Threadborn bitch-”
“Kill her before she burns us too!”
My head snaps around at the sudden sounds of movement in the clearing, and Lsee the shadows between trees slowly turn into figures, four people, no five. They are all charging toward me with weapons.
The markings on their armor say they aren’t from this pack, they aren’t Xander’s men, so how did they get in here? How did they get past the wards and
1/2
Chapter 110
the border?
One of them raises a ladle, and
other chris spain
Curse? Panic slams into me hata, and my heart stundase, 1 ecHARA
screaming now in reaction to the threat, it doesn’t focus, it thrashing wid Burke,
my feet, and the granny deen
Focusing, I try to shift, to pull my wolf forward, but it doesn’t work. I by Beyong hay to rise forward, te se modales myxelt, but the more i reach for her the more the magle fares in defiance. A suge af hast dag inte dy ribe, it dries tha
from my lungs.
I can’t shift, my wolf isn’t responding. The magic is too strong, too wild and clawing at my bones, draggin now, and I’m not sure what to do to protect myself.
Brything Back in chase they
A blade whistles through the air, and I duck on instinct, rolling through the grass, my body aches, and the mag spills from my hands without any aim of shape. I don’t know how to wield it, and I can’t think or figure it out. As I try to use the magic, nothing happens, and pante mere
The closest one reaches me, and everything suddenly breaks, my magic runs free from me, and the ground beneath him cracks, expect rumble, but instead, it opens, it splits clean down the middle in a jagged line, Golden light pours from the fractures like it’s bleeding mulig
The warrior stumbles mid–swing and screams, and as the light shoots upward in a column and consumes him in a flash that turne flest
His screams are cut off in an instant, and the others freeze in their places. Their mouths gape open, as they stand stunned and horrified, just long enoug for the second pulse of light to strike.
Vines erupt next, they aren’t green or natural but slick and black, glowing faintly gold like veins running through them. They slither through the air, and lash out with a will that isn’t mine. I watch as they wrap around legs, throats and torsos, squeezing each of them.
One of the intruders tries to run, but the vines hook his ankle and drag him back into the clearing. They don’t bleed or even get a chance to dry out.
Their bodies burst into cinders, soft and silent as their armor clatters to the earth like it’s mourning the loss of weight.
Suddenly the forest is quiet again, too quiet though. My knees give out and I collapse, my chest heaving as my hands press into the scorched grass where the light still glows faintly.
My breath rasps in and out, throat raw, my eyes burning. I didn’t do that, or at least I didn’t mean to do that. I didn’t call out the light, I didn’t want the vines, but my magic, my blood did, somehow it did it.
It didn’t hesitate or pause, it saw a threat and destroyed it without a thought. Now, all that is left is smoke and bones and the scent of fire hanging in the stillness. It’s now I realise the magic has receded, no longer out of control, but settled, and sleeping.
How? Why was it so crazy before but now it’s calmed and settled?
