by Jayla Kane
“Shut the fuck up about my mother,” I growled, but he just laughed—inside, and out. The sound of it was deafening, full of the screams of animals, clutching at the end of their lives; rancid waves of scent filled the air as he chuckled. I clasped my hands over my ears, lashing out with my mind, instinctively trying to stop the horrid sound—
And watched as he stumbled, stunned by the blow. When his face turned back to mine, his expression was incredulous. “She said you were a telepath,” he hissed, suddenly furious with me. As if I were somehow in the wrong here. “What the hell was that?”
I speared out for him again, but this time he… He dodged. I saw his mind throw up an incandescent shield as Lucas darted backwards, staring at me, the deafening screams in his mind gurgling into hisses. I tried again and watched as my bolt blasted into his mind, hitting the shield he threw up so hard that it cracked. And then, behind him, I saw Jacob’s eyes open.
Jake has been looking forward to this his entire life, I realized, seeing the expression on his face as he immediately locked onto Lucas. Before he even got to his feet, I felt the rush of heat shimmering in the air, and then… Fire. Fire everywhere. I lunged back from the heat as the hallway filled with it; Lucas could barely keep ahead of the flames as Jake lashed out at him from the floor, sizzling arcs of flame singing the ceiling and sending me to my knees as they crashed onto Lucas, one after another, a barrage of endless fire, the wake of the heat as it flew by hot enough to singe my clothes. Jake was going to burn the house down—he was standing up now, staring at Lucas with a grin on his face, a mania I’d never seen before painted across those handsome features—Jake looked evil. A mirror of cruelty. He and Lucas circled each other, grinning, and I was shocked to see Lucas unscathed. His clothing smoked, but the rest of him… He looked fine. Just a slash on the cheek, a smudge on his arm. “I’m going to kill you,” he hissed, and Jake raked his hand through the air and sent a punishing onslaught of ice hammering down on Lucas from above, the world hissing as heat met ice… Lucas fell to his knees but then…
He got up, laughing, his high, thin voice echoing down the long hallway. There were pockets of blast marks on the walls, the floor. Jake’s eyebrows lowered as he focused again and held his hands out in front of him, wrenching them in the air like he was wringing a towel. I came closer to the doorway, not wanting to lose sight of him again but too terrified to leave the safety of Sarah’s spell.
“Oh, now that’s a good trick,” Lucas whispered, and I watched in horror as his body contorted unnaturally in the air, his legs sliding away from him, his back bending the wrong way, the wince on his face as he—oh Jesus--as he abruptly snapped back into place. “Shame to get rid of you,” he muttered, mostly to himself. His eyes darkened as he took another step towards Jake. “Useful prat, you would be.”
Jake slammed him with fire. Lucas bristled in the heat, and I watched as his skin melted… And reformed. Over and over again. I almost threw up, then stood and shot another volley at his bared mind, sinking my spear into the same hole I made before. Lucas whirled on me, his face a horror of melting and remolding flesh, and spat a curse in my direction. I couldn’t understand the words, but I heard it—felt it—slam against the invisible door that barred him from Jake’s room. He bellowed in anger when I sent another shard out, piercing that filth in his brain, as Jake slammed him with another wave of fire.
The house creaked around us. Now the walls were on fire—whatever magic held off destruction was finally being worn down. Lucas saw it and threw another blast of his power at the doorway, and I froze when I heard it ring like a gong. Jake didn’t notice—he blasted his uncle with more fire, oblivious to the toll it was taking on his surroundings.
Lucas grinned and took three more steps towards Jake, staggering away from me.
Jake never backed down; I knew he wouldn’t. He’d bring the whole place down on top of us. Jake, baby, we need to get away from him, please—
Raven, you have to run.
“I’m not leaving you!” Just the idea filled me with terror—but not for myself, I realized, just as suddenly as I realized I might fucking die here, burned or buried alive while Lucas picked the flesh off of me, grinning down at my corpse with his melted face. Please, please, please Jake, we have to go! Please!
I’m going to draw him away from the door, and I want you to run, Raven—
No! No—
Baby do it! Just fucking do it, Raven, please! His eyes slid to mine for a split second, and I realized he knew exactly what was happening. Something’s wrong—whatever the fuck his magic is, we’ll end up killing each other—Raven, I love you so much, more than anything, please don’t make me watch you die—baby, please—And when I saw the tears in his eyes, evaporating into smoke as the entire hallway filled with fire, I gasped and felt my heart stop.
What do I do?
What the fuck do I do?
And then… Through the grit and smoke and ash filling my face, my mouth… I saw something coming down the hall, from the main stairway. A figure, tall and broad and… Walking. Just walking through the stunning damage in the hallway. They were leaning into it, as if they were walking through a blustering gale, slow and steady but sure. Jake was taking diminutive steps backwards, I saw, successfully luring Lucas away from the door where I stood, the rash of blistering heat making Lucas no more than a grinning skeleton as he reached out, again and again, now naked, clawing for Jake—I gritted my teeth and sent spear after spear towards his mind, my toes crossing the threshold, but Jake’s magic… Jake’s magic was a hurricane, a tornado, a force of nature so fierce and deep that I couldn’t see Lucas, the images torn away from me, his cracked shield dancing in the wind. I turned my attention back to the stranger; they were walking right in front of me, but it was so dark I couldn’t see their face. They could try to hurt Jake. I couldn’t see anything, any more, the smoke and ashes filling the hallway so dense I knew I was singeing my lungs with every breath. I crouched down and crawled to the very edge of the doorway, peering out at the dark figure and unable to find them. Everything was shadows. Black as pitch. When I closed my eyes, searching desperately with my mind, my viewpoint remained unchanged—blackness. Darkness, everywhere.
And then it stopped.
Not all at once; I stared into the hallway, feeling the change first—I realized something was happening because one of the minds out there, buried in the hellish black, was… Disappearing. Fading, as if it were turning into smoke. Could it be Lucas?
Or… Did he finally reach Jacob? Finally grab him in his blistered, skeletal hands, twisting and ripping like his mind had showed me he would?
Jake! Jacob, please answer me! Please! I sent out tendril after tendril, until I finally didn’t give a shit any more and hauled myself to my feet. Coughing and choking, I staggered into the hallway, reaching out blindly for the wall. I could just barely see the outline of three figures about ten feet away, the smoke slowly winding around them, ashes filling the air, blocking my eyes. I couldn’t concentrate enough to think clearly; all I could focus on was Jacob. I could see him, I thought… The one furthest from me… Those were his shoulders, I was almost sure…
But the one in the middle—the one, I realized, that was most likely Lucas… That one was… Disintegrating.
Vanishing into thin air, slithering apart like a thousand grains of sand and then scattering, joining the ashes that were drifting through the smoke. Just… Disappearing.
No sound. No movement. Just… Nothing.
“Jake!” I screamed his name, and saw the figure farthest away lurch forward, as if he were coming towards me—the smoke was dying down, getting lower and lower, the room hardly clear, but now I could see more than their outlines. And Lucas was definitely vanishing.
He wasn’t facing me. He and Jake were still staring at one another, and I reached out and touched Jake’s mind—there. Oh my god, he was alive. He was alive. I heard the sob escape my mouth at the same time my heart jolted awake—I’d almost lost
him. Again. My Jake, he was there—
And then Lucas was gone, less than mist, and the person I didn’t know took a swift step back. A big man, dark and wide—Hunter?
No, I realized, reaching out with my mind as I took another step towards him; he was facing the other way, but I suddenly knew.
That was Tristan.
His mind was the vast emptiness we’d just escaped, a desolate, empty landscape full of nothing but shadows. I took a step towards him as he lurched away from Jake and the stain on the carpet that had once been Lucas, reaching out for him—he couldn’t touch Jake. He needed to get back. Goddamnit, why wasn’t he getting back?
That power terrified me—whatever Tristan had done to Lucas, it wasn’t enough to scare Jake away, and he was staggering towards his brother, his face painted in rage. “Now?” He howled the word into the long hallway, and I felt a rush of cool air on my face, his anguished voice shoving away his own magic. “Now, you’ve come?”
“Tristan—” I was almost to him. I reached out a hand as he staggered away from Jake, his back to me, one more step and I would be able to—“Tristan, don’t—”
I landed in a heap on the floor, the wind knocked out of me. Laying there on my side, I felt every second of the last ten minutes we’d spent, deep in the center of a hurricane of fire, and all the damage it had done to my body; I looked up at the brothers, now standing over me, and saw Tristan begin to reach down as if to offer a hand, then freeze. “Don’t! Don’t, goddamnit,” said a rumpled heap beside me, and I realized it was Leo that had knocked me down. He lurched upright, coughing as he propped himself up on one elbow. “For fuck’s sake, Tris.”
Tristan staggered away from me, his face grim. Jake stared after him, then immediately kneeled beside me, brushing my hair back from my face and staring into my eyes. “I’m alright,” I said softly. “But please, give Tristan some space—I don’t know what he did, but you can’t—”
“I can,” Jake said, and he reached a fist towards his brother, the air swirling with power. Blistering cold, sweltering heat—
“Goddamnit! For fuck’s sake!” Leo cuffed Jake behind the ear, and he spun towards the older man, incredulous. I scrambled into a sitting position between them, grateful that Leo had cut off the blow that was about to land on—
But it had, I realized, seeing the shattered glass, the tattered wallpaper and torn carpet around Tristan’s hulking form. A shotgun blast of cold and heat sent on a wave of air so hard it punched a hole in the wall… But not in Tristan. The damage surrounded him, but where he stood the floor was untouched, the wall bare.
Tristan remained there, staring at us, his face blackened by soot. “What the fuck?” Jake’s voice was gravel. He twisted his neck, looking between the two men. “Talk. Now.”
Leo huffed out a breath and pulled himself back against the wall, closing his eyes as he tried to recover from the storm that was Jacob. “It isn’t obvious? You saw what he did.”
“What the hell did he do?” Jake snarled the words at the older man, then rose to his feet again and took a step towards his brother. Tristan moved back again, his face bleak. “What did you do, Tris?”
“The Binding,” Leo snapped, harshly enough that Jake turned towards him once more. Leo’s breath came in sharp bursts; I knew how he felt. My whole ribcage ached, as if it were still filled with smoke. “You know what your gift is. Looks like you have a touch of all the elements. Lucky you.”
“That doesn’t explain—”
“I couldn’t come back,” Tristan said unexpectedly, and there were more unshed tears in that voice than any I’ve ever heard. “I tried to—I didn’t—”
“You left me here with that sack of shit for five years, and then you didn’t even give me the pleasure of ripping him to pieces?”
“He didn’t let you die, you jackass,” Leo barked, and Jake turned towards him, fury on his face, unspent wrath clenching his fists.
“What did you mean about the Binding?” I stood up and walked over to Jake, stopping him in his tracks. I wrapped my arms around his waist, nestling my head beneath his chin; warmth flowed back and forth between us, comfort and tenderness like I’d never felt. I was still reeling from the horror I’d imagined… Just the idea of losing him. I couldn’t. I could never. He pulled me in tighter, his battles forgotten, and kissed the top of my head. After a second we both turned to find Leo rolling his eyes, then shambling to stand up before leaning heavily against the wall, his breath still coming in sharp gasps. “Leo?”
“Are you sure you don’t just want to call it a day and head back to your room?” He gave Jake a sardonic look. “You seem busy.”
“Fuck you.”
“No,” I said, unable to keep the snap out of my voice. “What is it? What were you trying to explain—”
“I don’t have an elemental power,” Tristan said softly. He was watching Jake and I, and his face didn’t have quite the same bitterness now. He took another step away from us, his dark eyes glinting from the shadows that seemed to surround him. “I’m not in the Second Circle. Or the First.”
“Okay. Whatever the fuck that means,” I snapped. “Leo? Translation please?”
“Jake, you, and I—we have powers that crop up often enough,” Leo said, and there was now a strain of sadness in his voice, erasing the harsher one of a moment ago. “We Bind things—that’s magic. That’s what magic does.”
“Except me—you said I can undo—”
“You can undo the Magi’s spells, yes. That should tell you how rare such a thing is, the fact that we have some fancy-dancy name for your position in the shithead Society.” Jake started towards him again, ready to fight, but I wrapped my arms around him tighter and he halted. Leo rolled his eyes at him. “I’m not saying nasty things about your girl, dumbass. I’m just trying to make the point that Binding is what we do. It’s what magic is—”
“I Unbind.” Tristan’s voice was so quiet he was barely louder than the sound of the wind now drifting through the hall, cool and crisp, through the numerous pockmarks ripped through the walls. “That’s my power.” He kept moving away from us, slowly, further and further, instinctively putting distance between us.
“So, what, you… You can undo spells?” I blinked, trying to understand; Leo’s shield was very good—I’d have to talk to him about that, it felt like a bottomless wall of water, beautiful and endless—and Tris… There was just nothing there. Just a desert of darkness, an extension of the shadows that surrounded him. “I don’t understand.”
“He Unbinds, goddamnit,” Leo snapped, getting impatient. “He Unmakes. He Uncreates—”
“Death,” Tristan said, his voice hollow, and Jake and I twisted to stare at him, his scarred, blackened face, his haunted eyes. “That’s why I can never come back.” His stare locked onto Jake, and I shivered from the force of the grief that rent through me, ebbing like a desolate, forgotten ocean to and from Tristan’s bleak mind. “Death is my power.”
The third book in the Legends of the Ashwood Institute Series, Enslave Me, will debut on October 31st, 2019—be sure to follow Jayla Kane on Amazon and Goodreads for updates!
