Gritting my teeth, I take a deep breath, as beneath the panic and the fear, a spark of defiance that refuses to be snuffed out flares to life. Fury builds in my chest, and my hands move before I fully understand what I’m doing. Without a conscious thought, I fling my hands out in front of me as if I can somehow push back the fire with sheer willpower alone.
Nothing happens. Of course, nothing will happen. What did I expect?
But then my chest squeezes so tight, I feel like several ribs crack inside me.
And the world stops moving for a single second.
My breath catches as the air around me shifts, the temperature plummeting so fast it steals the warmth from my lungs.
“No!” This time I scream the word, feeling it tear from my throat with every ounce of desperation I feel.
Then, pain streaks through my body, like a thousand knives slashing at my skin, all along my arms and the soft pads of my fingertips. A blast of icy wind surges from my outstretched hands, so powerful it’s as if I’ve summoned the very heart of winter. My eyes widen in shock and horror as frost begins toform in the air before me, spiralling in an almost unworldly pattern. The frost instantly thickens, turning into shards of ice that shoot forward, faster than I can comprehend, like an unstoppable force.
The ice forms into a wall, glistening and sharp, curling upwards to form a dome over Janus and Kahlia. The shield spreads, expanding outward to arch over them like a protective canopy. It’s breathtaking and terrifying all at once, shimmering and glistening in the firelight. The flames hiss and crackle as they meet the ice, steam rising in angry clouds, but the ice holds. It’s a barrier—solid, unyielding.
My heart races, fear mixing with confusion as the realisation of what’s happening crashes over me. How is this happening? How am I doing this? My hands are trembling, cold sweat breaking out on my skin, but the power doesn’t stop. It’s like a raging river inside me, one I have no control over, and it’s pouring out in a torrent of ice and snow.
The burning roof finally collapses, the burning debris crashing down, but instead of burying everyone beneath it, the ice holds strong, deflecting the worst of the flaming debris. The impact reverberates through the shield, cracks spidering across its surface, but it doesn’t break. Instead, it strengthens, the frost spreading out in all directions, extinguishing the flames wherever it touches.
My chest heaves with the sheer effort of breathing, but I can’t lower my still outstretched hands, as if I no longer feel as though I can control them. The pressure in my chest dissipates, and my knees buckle, all strength draining out of me as quickly as it had come.
What just happened?
Around me, chaos continues to ensue as everyone is screaming. But it’s all muffled to me. I stare down at my hands, fingers still splayed, the pain in them almostunbearable. I almost expect them to be covered in blood. But they look the same as they always have.
How can that be?
I gasp, still struggling for breath.
The world suddenly blurs, the ice shield still glistening, but the edges of my vision darkening as I lose sense of everything.
The last thing I hear is someone shouting my name.
I think.
I’m not sure.
I’m not sure of anything anymore.
TWO
Eirabella
Everything is dark,heavy, like I'm trapped under a thick blanket. My body feels as if it’s suspended in tar, weighed down by an exhaustion that seeps into the marrow of my bones. An unidentifiable rhythmic rocking lulls me in and out of a blurry state of wakefulness and sleep.
For a moment, I wonder if I'm dreaming, drifting in some in-between existence where nothing quite makes sense. The only prevailing fact is that this place is dark, dangerous. And I need to get out. Now. With all the energy I can muster, I will my arms to move, to thrash.
To break free.
In my state of near unconsciousness, I’m breathless from the sheer effort. But I grit my teeth, jaw already aching—from what? I don’t remember—ready to fight against invisiblerestraints.
“Stop. You’re safe.” A deep voice, low and rough, cuts through the haze.
Then there’s silence again, except for the sound of my own breaths.
Safe? Somehow, I doubt that. But the voice is oddly soothing, and my brain, foggy as it is, decides to take a chance and trust it. Just for now. I want to argue, to ask a million questions, but I’m too tired to do anything but allow the rocking motion to take my consciousness away again.
And so I sleep.
