Nikolai’s rage exploded. The ground shook, and thunder cracked the sky wide open. Rain pounded down. His hair lifted off his shoulders as he gestured with a hand and sent red lightning scorching through all five men. One fired a burst from his weapon that shredded Nikolai’s left shoulder.
But he never felt the pain. Red lightning shot from his hands to engulf the humans, and the men writhed and screamed.
He burned them to ash.
The screams faded to silence. Beneath the storm, nothing moved, or breathed.
Nikolai shook all over. Everything within a hundred feet of him stood scorched, withered, and brown beneath the driving rain. Every leaf, every insect, every animal.
Mai. Was she okay? He reached a hand to her. She huddled against his neck. Shivering. Terrified. But alive. Had her close contact with him saved her this time?
Nothing else around him was so lucky.No.He wouldn’t let it happen like this. Not again.
Could he fix it? He had to try. Nikolai braced himself andreached. There was nothing to pull from nearby; he had to go much further afield. And unless he wanted to spread the destruction, he could only trickle the essences away. It was very difficult, but he took it from the living and fed it to the dying.
The insects were the first to revive, and the buzz of their wings had never been so welcome. Then the small creatures hidden in the bushes—the shrews and mice and birds roused. As he worked, Mai chittered nervously at him from beneath his hair.
But the bull elephant lay still, its song silenced. Nikolai crouched near its head and placed his hands on it. He closed his eyes and searched for any sign of its life essence.
It had scattered, dispersed into the land, but the merest trace of it remained with the bull. He gathered it up and fed it back into the animal, adding more that he pulled from afar, until the trunk twitched and the sides rose and fell.
Nikolai switched his focus to the bullets and the damage they had done. He was conscious, this time, of the surrounding life essences and how much he drew to heal the elephant. What he’d rebuilt was so fragile, and it took immense care on his part to skim what he needed from the surroundings farther afield.
The huge ear flapped once, forward, and then back. The song burst forth, a deep rumble that penetrated the ground and embraced the life it found there. And from the distance, the old female and her herd answered.
Nikolai backed away as the bull rose on unsteady legs. The elephant rolled an eye toward him, and it blinked through its long eyelashes. It raised its trunk and laid the weight of it across Nikolai’s shoulders.
Then it turned, and strolled off, swaying, striding, and flapping to the pulse of life as though it hadn’t just died, and been reborn.
You have only started to discover who you are.
The mark beneath his hair itched and burned as the words dropped into his mind.
As well as what you can do.
The inner voice vibrated with approval. How did it know so much about him? Glancing at the piles of ash, Nikolai didn’t agree with its assessment. He’d had his fill of these new hidden talents.
They were nothing,the words were laced with scorn.They deserved to die.
Maybe they did, but what about all the trees and animals? Did they also deserve to die?
Sometimes, to achieve the greater good, you must accept collateral damage.
Collateral damage? Nikolai’s stomach twisted. Mai trembled against his neck, and his legs shook right along with her. His injured shoulder ached, but it was already halfway healed. As he stood there, the remaining bullet pushed back along the tracks to emerge from his skin and topple into the dirt at his feet.
He’d always healed fast and well, but never like this.
Soon, nothing will be able to stop you.
Nikolai pushed the voice away. The cost of his power hadn’t been paid by him, and not all the damage he’d wrought could be reversed. He sensed the sap once again flowing through the bushes and grasses, but they would be slower to recover than the animals. Their leaves were twisted and brown and would have to be dropped before new growth could be pushed through.
He’d managed to fix most of it, but the damage—how was it that he was capable of such things? The five humans were no more than piles of scorched ash on the ground.
The last time he’d done this, his own kind had come looking for him. Had they sensed the energy disruption this time too?
If they were anything like him, likely.
The urge to leave this place, to run away and never look back, seized him. Mai clung to his hair as he turned away. The rain stopped as quickly as it came, although the clouds lingered above him.
