Bryce’s mouth curled into a knowing grin. ‘Back for round two, lad? You remember how last time went, surely.’
Cam knew Bryce could sense the fire in him. He probably thought he was back in luck for an easy refill.
‘You look like hell,’ Cam remarked, taking in Bryce’s appearance. Previously, his Scorched eye had allowed him to see behind the enchantment Bryce used to disguise his face. This time Bryce wore no such enchantment, and the haggard, aging face was his true one—a far cry from the young face of Bróccin which he’d fought so hard to preserve. ‘You’ve been struggling to get by without a Walker to leech off, haven’t you?’
Not bothering with an answer, Bryce conjured a ball of fire between his hands and launched it at Cam. Cam threw up a wall of blue flame to deflect it, and both blazes fizzled out mid-air.
Bryce staggered back. He raised both hands again. ‘You’ve learned something then, eh, lad?’ he puffed breathlessly.
Now that he’d woken up to it, Cam was acutely conscious of the link between him and Bryce. He felt Bryce prodding at the ethereal cord. Trying to get back in. Like a weak animal scrabbling at a windowpane. ‘You won’t get anything from me that way,’ Cam warned, doing the mental equivalent of bolting the doors. Bryce grunted in frustration.
Cam’s encounter with the Redcap had prepared him for this. He was more aware than ever of his own shape in the world. And Elspaith’s spirit—she’d shown just how muchmoreof him there really was.
There was the outline of his physical body that walked in the world, the flesh and blood currently in human form. Layered outside of that was ghostly Nessie, the invisible bulk that added weight to his footsteps and made him feel too large to fit inside this very cave. And then there was the fire, the magic thrumming in his veins like its own living animal. It carried a part of his spirit—the part Bryce wanted.
Cam saw the shape of Bryce’s fire, too: a shrivelling snake of a flame. A serpent eating its own tail.
Thwarted on the incorporeal plane, Bryce opted for violence on the physical one.
Cam dodged another burst of fire. Bryce’s aim was getting lazy. Cam was about to retaliate when Bryce crumpled, his face contorted with pain. He hugged his arms as though shivering. All of a sudden, he seemed frail. Cam hesitated, and saw the unmistakable blackening of a Scorch mark creeping over Bryce’s skin.
Bryce relied on consuming magic to stay alive all this time,he realised. Without any other source, his body was cannibalising his own magic just to keep itself going. Bryce was Scorching himself.
‘You need to give up, Bryce,’ Cam said levelly. ‘I see you, and I won’t let you in. You can’t hide any more.’
‘What do you know of anything, child?’ Bryce rasped, managing to sneer through his suffering. ‘Power is wasted on you. On all of you, with your pathetic, petty lives. You could be so much more.Iam so much more! Your power should be given to someone worthy!’
‘There’s nothing worthy about the life you’ve lived,’ Lachlan said behind him. ‘And Cam is so much more than you’ll ever be.’
‘Ha!’ Spittle flecked Bryce’s mouth. ‘Yet no Walker has ever bested me! Even Amelie, andshesaw me coming, Cam.’
Cam’s throat tightened. He held himself back, keeping his fire on a tight leash. He wouldn’t let Bryce goad him. ‘You betrayed my parents’ trust. You’re a cunning piece of shit, but I reckon that’s all you ever had going for you. I know Mum could have shut you out, if she’d been able to discover your plan in time. That’s why you killed her though, isn’t it? You killed anyone who might be onto you, even if you didn’t need to harvest their magic just yet. Because you were afraid they’d realise how easy it is to sever your hold on them. You’re nothing but a parasite.’
‘And a coward,’ Lachlan added calmly.
For all the emotion in Cam’s speech, it was Lachlan’s comment that pushed Bryce over the edge. With a guttural scream, Bryce rounded on him. He brandished his withered hands, already wreathed in flame.
Cam lunged between them, catching the spout of fire square in his chest. He gasped, his own magic rallying to shield against it as Bryce turned up the heat. Cam found himself back inside his nightmares, drowning in fire. He was at the centre of a roaring vortex. Held inside a blazing cocoon where his own fire met Bryce’s. The heat pushed at his mouth and nose, seeking a way in.
Cam breathed. Long and deep exhales. He was in control, he reminded himself. He didn’t need to be afraid of his own fire any longer. Bryce was playing a futile game.
Cam glimpsed Bryce’s distorted face through gaps in the firestorm. He looked nothing like the man Cam had once known; barely like a man at all. His lips pulled back in a ghastly grin, eyes wide and manic. Black veins crawled under his skin. They drew the noxious shadow of the Scorch with them, gradually overtaking most of Bryce’s face. Why wasn’t he stopping? Didn’t he know what he was doing to himself?
Bryce was still screaming, words that Cam struggled to make out over the roaring fire.
‘Give it to me!’ Bryce’s wail was hoarse, ripped from a throat that was burning on the inside. ‘It should belong to me!’
The inferno began to die down. Bryce collapsed to his knees, arms still outstretched. He was a Scorched husk, somehow still hanging onto life despite looking like a blackened corpse. His shallow breaths clattered in his chest like a death rattle.
Cam smothered the rest of the flames and looked around to make sure the others were all right. The Minchman was gaping at him, poised as though he’d hoped to leap over the circle any minute. Lachlan, on the other hand, was pale with terror. He met Cam’s eyes, and Cam understood the blatant panic there.
‘I’m all right,’ he said softly.
Bryce didn’t seem able to move, so Cam ignored him in favour of scuffing through the ritual circle he’d laid over the floor. As soon as the binding spell dropped from it, Lachlan flew into Cam’s arms, clutching him tightly. He buried his face in the borrowed flannel shirt.
‘Are you okay?’ Cam asked, running a hand over Lachlan’s hair.
‘No,’ Lachlan muttered into his chest. ‘I won’t ever be okay watching you burn to death.’
