Not only stronger physically, but my mind was stronger, my will, my very spirit. I was feeling power such as I never had before. His power. I was borrowing a little of what he’d gained from the hundreds of Endreans he’d killed.
Under my hold, the grip glove became brittle, and then crumbled beneath my fingers. Endrick cried out with fury, “Curse you, girl!” and this time, he grabbed me with both hands, sending something like fire through my body.
I fell backward onto the ground, struggling for air, my thoughts flying apart; I was close to blacking out.
“Do you know what it feels like when I take someone’s magic?” he asked, striding toward me. My vision was fading to nothing. I only saw the hem of his cloak, coming ever closer.
Balancing on my forearms, I scrambled away from him, but he hovered over me, eager to strike, to punish me to the point of death. My heart was nearly pounding its way free of my chest, but I was determined to keep fighting. This was not over yet.
“It will feel like you’re separating from within, as I take one layer of your magic at a time. Once I start, no one will be able to stop me. You will beg for mercy, but the time for mercy has passed. I will hear your pleas as laughter, and when I have wrung you out and you are nothing but a hollow shell that used to be a person, then I will do the laughing for us both.”
“Is that what it felt like for you just now?” I asked. “When my hand was on yours, did you feel me taking life from you, one layer at a time?”
“What little bit you borrowed from me is inconsequential,” he said.
My smile back at him was full of fury. “I took more than your life. I borrowed your magic too.” And I shoved my hands forward through the air. It threw him backward through the doors where he had entered, so forcefully that they shattered apart and crumbled the walls around him. I wouldn’t be able to do that again, it was all I’d been able to take in those few moments, but it did buy me some time.
I flew to my feet and scrambled toward the horse I’d saddled. The second I was on its back, I kicked him away and raced down the hill. Violent fires sprang up beside me—Endrick’s attempt to slow me down—but this was a Brillian horse and it nimbly dodged the hazards. A roar sounded up the hill ending in the collapse of the entire Brillian palace, and the earth shuddered around me. I didn’t dare stop or even look back, but I felt as if all the air had been sucked from my body. How many people would have been inside that palace? Dozens? Hundreds?
Wynnow.
Wynnow, who had thought it was merciful to kill me. And when mercy didn’t work, she turned to total betrayal.
And received the worst of all possible fates in return.
Not only her. The entire government of Brill had probably just perished. No doubt that would come to haunt me, but for now, I had to get to Reddengrad.
The fighting resumed with greater ferocity than before. The Dominion had regrouped and may have oriented their soldiers to expect more tricks from us. Except that this time, we were out of surprises. Moreover, it was a dark night beneath this forest canopy, and we often didn’t know whether the person approaching us was friend or enemy until it was too late to avoid a clash.
I found myself fighting from positions deeper and deeper within the forest, at times pursued when the numbers were greater than me, and then the pursuer when those groups inevitably became separated by the tangle of the undergrowth and narrow paths. More often, I didn’t know which of them I was, or why I was even fighting.
Eventually, the morning sun broke through the canopy, offering a small bit of hope that at least some fighters on my side yet remained. I was cutting my way toward a clearing when I heard the shouts of men ahead followed by a screeching sound that turned my stomach. Hadn’t there been enough death, enough pain? It sounded like the soldiers were torturing a creature weaker and smaller than they. I wouldn’t tolerate this. Readying my sword, I crept in their direction, unsure of what to expect.
I reached the crest of a small hill and looked down to see four soldiers in Dominion colors firing disk blades at something ahead of them I could not see. Most of their disks made a clanging sound when they hit their target, but then whatever they were firing at would screech again and they’d cheer.
“Simon!”
I nearly jumped from my flesh at hearing the hiss of my name, but Trina put a hand on my shoulder, then crouched beside me. “You followed the sounds here too?”
“I think it’s a Rawkyren,” I whispered. “That dragon Basil told us about, and probably a young one. I’m going to rescue it.”
I began to stand but Trina grabbed my arm and pulled me down again. “If they’re as dangerous as Basil said, maybe what they’re doing is for the best.”
No, it wasn’t. I shook my head. “I don’t expect you to understand this, Trina, but I can’t sit here and listen to what they’re doing. After hearing my mother … I just can’t.”
Trina pressed her lips together and nodded in sympathy, then reached for the disk bow at her side. She checked her pouch and pulled out five disks, one for each of the men below and an extra. “I’ll give you cover, but we both know this is a terrible idea.”
“When has a terrible idea ever stopped us?” I winked at her, then redoubled my grip on the sword and started down the hill as quietly as I could. The men were so engrossed in the cruelty of their actions that they failed to notice me until I was more than halfway down.
With a shout of alarm, they turned, and one moved to fire his disk bow at me, but Trina caught him first, knocking him backward into the pond. I locked swords with the first man to reach me, then heard a whoosh directly in front of me where Trina must have fired another disk, hitting a man who was still targeting the Rawkyren.
When he fell, I got my first look at the creature, very briefly as it balanced on a rock in the center of a pond. It was no larger than a bird of prey, so it must have been a very young dragon, its silvery wings outstretched and flapping vigorously, but unable to fly due to a disk stuck into its front leg.
With increased anger, I attacked both of the two remaining men simultaneously, stabbing the first in the shoulder, then kicking at the man coming up behind me until I could face him directly.
“Do you know what those are, what they become?” that man said as I wheeled around with my sword ready again.
“I might ask the same question of you,” I answered. “Can’t you see what you have become?”