The third elemental was nowhere to be seen, but instinct said it wouldn’t be far.
I drew Amaya free from her scabbard and ran through the circle. This would destroy any protection it offered and leave the book open to attack, but I didn’t have any other choice. Ilianna had just thrown the first of her bottles at the creature, which meant she was out of water.
I screamed and raised the sword high above my head. Amaya’s hissing was an electric, vehement sound that filled the clearing and made the creature shudder. It turned around, its movements heavy yet rapid.
I swung Amaya. Lilac fire splattered through the air in a wide arc, whipping around the creature like a leash, burning where it touched. Then the blade hit it. Unlike the white ash stakes I’d used the last time I’d confronted these things, Amaya didn’t slice through the elemental, allowing it to divide and regenerate. She simply consumed it.
The creature’s flame seemed to wrap around the black of her blade, and then it melted away, as if its energy were being drawn into the sword itself. The blade shuddered and glowed, the ethereal steel glinting and flaring as the purple leash of her fire drew tighter and tighter, until the elemental was little more than a flicker of flame, and all I could hear was Amaya’s fierce hissing and the elemental’s dying screams.
Then the last of the fire creature was gone, and Amaya felt heavier in my hand—almost as if her belly were full. I shuddered, then thrust the thought aside and looked at Ilianna.
“You okay?”
She nodded and wiped a hand across her sweaty forehead. “Just fucking hot.”
No doubt thanks to both the elementals and fires they’d lit in the forest. Fires the sentient forces residing in this place weren’t happy about, if the seething mass of energy filling the air was anything to go by. “Keep alert, because there’s a third elemental around somewhere.”
She nodded and bent, withdrawing a knife from her left boot. It looked and felt like silver, and I wondered if it would do any better against the elementals than the white ash.
Then I turned and ran for Tao.
He and the second elemental were still trading fiery blows, but Tao’s flames were no longer as bright or as fierce as they had been. I raised Amaya and screamed again, drawing the attention of the creature.
It swung around and aimed a ponderous fist at me. Fire spat from Tao’s fingertips, forming a rope of flame that spun around the creature’s wrist and snapped it back. Tao stepped away—his flame dying everywhere except for that one band around the creature’s wrist—and pulled with all his might.
The creature stumbled sideways, arms flailing as it struggled to regain balance. I leapt close, letting the heat of the thing wash over me, feeling the burn flush across my skin as I swung Amaya at the elemental’s head.
This time, the sword didn’t consume. She simply killed.
Black steel met with flame and the creature exploded. The force of it knocked me backward, and I landed on my butt several feet away. I grunted as the shock of the landing reverberated up my spine, but nevertheless tightened my grip on my sword and scanned the clear
ing.
Where the elemental had been standing, there was now a large patch of burned, sooty-looking ground. Several feet to the other side of that was Tao. He looked beat, his face drawn and ashen, as if the force of his flames had drained every ounce of life out of him.
But he gave me a tired smile when his gaze met mine. “I think you timed your reentry into our world almost perfectly. Another few minutes and I would have flamed out.”
I pushed to my feet, sheathed Amaya, then walked over to Tao. Every step felt heavy, as if the sword’s weight had somehow become mine. Or maybe it was simply exhaustion. Walking the gray fields always drained me, and I’d done that and battled creatures on both that plain and this.
I pulled Tao to his feet, then gave him a quick hug and said, “Thank you.”
He snorted softly. “We are family, and a family stands together.”
“I know, but—”
He placed a gentle finger against my lips. He smelled of flame and fierceness and also, oddly, elation. He’d actually enjoyed fighting the elementals. “As I’ve said before, you are not doing any of this alone—”
He paused and frowned suddenly, his gaze going past me. “What the—” He swore, pushed me aside, and ran. “Ilianna, watch out!”
I swung around and instinctively bolted after him, fear slamming through me as I saw what he’d seen. The last elemental was forming out of the flames that engulfed a eucalyptus, and it was oozing down toward Ilianna.
I drew Amaya and flung her as hard as I could at the elemental. The sword whooshed high above Tao’s head and hit the creature in the midsection. But it did little more than make it falter and scream, because the force of my throw sent the blade right through the creature’s body and thudding into a tree at the edge of the clearing.
At least it gave Ilianna time to get out of the elemental’s reach. While she scrambled backward, Tao launched himself at it, his body arcing through the air like a bullet, flames licking across his skin as he hit the creature hard and ripped it from the tree.
“Tao!” I screamed, as the two of them went tumbling, a seething mass of flames and arms and screams. Tao’s screams. Horrible, pain-filled screams.
Oh God, oh God … No!