"No." Panic rose inside me. "Don't do this!"
But he raised his hands together and a ball of fire formed between them. He threw it at the home closest to him, which immediately lit with flame. The people around it screamed and went running. More people emptied from their homes as Radulf formed a second ball of fire, and then a third. Within seconds, homes on both sides of the road were engulfed in flame, and it was spreading.
I looked around, unsure of my capabilities, but certain I had to do something. I glanced up at the skies, wondering if it was possible to create a rainstorm. If it was, I had no idea how to make it happen. Maybe that was a good thing anyway -- I didn't dare stay out here if the storm also created lightning. I had to think of something else. Aurelia was yelling at me from behind, and Crispus was likely doing the same, but I couldn't hear either of them. Why couldn't they have stayed in the baths when I asked them to?
The baths!
I turned my focus there, on the open-air pool. Could I do that, pull at something so formless and vast as all that water? I had to try.
I gathered the bulla's magic in my arms and then used it to call to the water. I didn't need much -- just enough to put out the fires. For a few moments, I wasn't sure if anything would happen, but then above the noise of burning and the people's cries, I heard the splashing of water. It traveled as if through an invisible tube, and with each hand, I sent half to each row of homes, letting it rain down on them like waterfalls. But, as with everything I attempted, there was so much more water than I had intended. It came down like an ocean had overturned on us, creating a river in the streets that forced the people still there to run behind me, away from the deluge.
I hoped that at least it would carry Radulf away in its current, but it didn't. He wasn't truly here, so the water passed through him like he was made of air.
"You are stronger than I thought." For the first time, Radulf sounded worried. Then his voice turned icy. "But only because of that bulla. No matter how much power it has, you will always be weaker than me. Because I don't care about any of those people behind you. I will sacrifice them all to get that bulla!"
"Everyone get out of here!" I yelled to the crowd.
"Why?" a man yelled back. "So you can finish destroying our homes? Get him!"
I threw a hand toward them, intending to create some sort of invisible barrier between us. Instead, it threw the people back, like they had been pushed by giants. Where they had stood, a vast ditch opened up in the ground, too wide for them to jump and too deep for them to climb through. One man fell in while trying to lunge at me, and I yelled for the others to help him get out, then to stay back.
Ahead of me, Radulf snarled and drew in a deep breath so forceful that it pulled in dirt from the higher grounds, which writhed and s
wirled around him like a horde of angry snakes. Once it had collected, he threw everything forward. It came at me like a storm, full of violent wind, dust, and rocks that hit me head-on.
I held up both hands, hoping to contain enough of the storm to protect Crispus and Aurelia, and the others behind me. They might not be able to see Radulf, and for all I knew, they couldn't see this storm either, but surely they'd be able to feel it.
Radulf continued sending anything his fierce wind could pick up, rocks and downed branches and parts of the homes that were shredding apart. I didn't dare let it fly past me and hit someone else, so I took all of it, absorbing the blows as best as I could.
"What is he doing?" I vaguely heard Aurelia shouting behind me. "Crispus, help me across! We have to grab him."
I didn't know how she intended to get across the ditch, or if Crispus was helping her, but I couldn't pay attention to them now. Instead, I pulled my hands together and tried to gather the storm, letting it build in my hands the same way it had done for Radulf.
Before I'd finished, Aurelia's hands were on my shoulders and she was saying something. Radulf smiled. "You know the truth about her, don't you?"
That caught me off guard, but only for a moment before I threw what I had gathered back to Radulf. The storm left my hands with the strength of the bulla, making it far worse than what he had done to me. It knocked him backward, and when he sat up again, a long scratch was on his cheek.
"Thank you, Nic," he said calmly. "Now I know exactly what you're capable of. I will be ready when we meet in person, and I promise to bring the whole of my powers against you."
And then he disappeared.
I lowered my arms and only then turned to Crispus and Aurelia. Their faces registered horror when they saw me. Behind them, the families stood in clumps, frightened by what I'd done, maybe angry too. A fallen plank of wood was lying across the ditch, which they must have used to get across. With the wind Radulf had created, it could never have remained in place ... unless the storm was invisible too. Nobody felt it, or saw anything other than my standing in front of them, fighting something they could not perceive.
"Your face!" Crispus said.
I felt with my fingers the cuts and bruises I already knew were there. But I tried to smile through it and said, "I've looked worse before."
Aurelia shook her head. "No, you haven't. The corpses of Pompeii look better than you do." But then she smiled too, a little.
I put my hand on the bulla, which was beginning to cool, and though we remained in the moonlight, its glow was fading. Perhaps because I had faded too.
Crispus offered me his arm for support and said, "Whatever that was, Nic, it looked like you were attacking those homes, all of these people."
"I wasn't," I whispered.
"We know." Aurelia drew out her knife and yelled to the crowd, "Everyone get back. Let him pass through!"
They did. With me leaning on Crispus, we waded past them through the muddy waters. His wagon was waiting near the baths, which, thankfully, wasn't far away.