“He was going to kill me immediately. At least this way I have a chance.”
For a long minute, I was the center of Logan, Ariel, and Skylar's anger and frustration. They were not happy about it, but they grudgingly agreed. Though I knew they wouldn't be able to keep their end of the bargain if something does happen.
“I'll be careful,” I promised before walking back to the older brother, who was waiting for me.
“Since I am not wearing the ring and don't have extra speed, you will have to choose just one power to level the playing field.”
“Water,” I replied. Water was my strongest power and my favorite.
“Good choice.” He threw a blast of fire at me, making the first move.
I dodged, summoned thousands of sharp ice crystals from the ground, and let them rain down on him like hail. He crouched low and encased himself within a blanket of fire. The ice crystals sizzled and melted on contact. As soon as the crystal shower was over, he abruptly stood up. His blanket of fire became a whip.
He cracked the whip before I got far enough, and it caught around my hand. The whip became longer as I jerked away, and the searing pain snaked up my forearm. I doused my hand with water, breaking the line of fire.
He stood a few feet away, allowing me a minute to recover. “Don't take it personally. If it was up to me, I wouldn't be here.”
I remembered the protective glance he gave his youngest brother—the glance that made me wonder if there was more to him. “What brought you here then?”
“Well, this story starts with a family's eldest son, Hunter, and the death of his mother and father,” Hunter replied, staring down at his feet. “After Ash took over Astella, my parents died. The responsibility to take care of my three younger brothers fell on me.”
Suddenly, Hunter ran toward me. I melted the snow in front of him and turned it into ice. He slipped and fell down on his back but didn't bother getting up just yet.
“Then Ash found us,” Hunter said. His voice turned hard. “She threatened to kill my brothers if we didn't do what she wanted. And to be cruel, she would let me live so I could feel the guilt.”
A dull ache settled in my chest. If I was in their situation, I would have done the same. Even love could be used to manipulate.
“So that left you no choices,” I said.
Hunter nodded. “That left me no choices.”
He jumped to his feet and filled the air with sparks, blasting it toward me. I rose water droplets from the snow and did the same. The sparks and water canceled each other out, leaving behind only steam.
I took a few steps toward him. I had to steal that ring, and I couldn't do it from afar.
As our battle went on, we held each other at a stalemate. I kept myself from being captured, and Hunter kept himself just out of my reach. But the sun was starting to dip below the horizon, and it was unlikely that the lake would work at night.
Time was slipping away, and we were getting tired. Soon one of us will give out, and it might be me.
Hunter threw a stream of flames at me, and I reacted too slowly. The fire grazed my wings and sent them blazing. I quickly summoned water from the lake and extinguished it. At this rate by the time I reach Ash's palace, my wings will be in tatters.
Before Hunter could launch another attack, I made him slip, and he fell again, kneeling on the snow. I encased his hands and lower legs in ice and covered the distance between us quickly. I reached into his front coat pocket, and my fingertips brushed against the ring.
He freed both of his hands by melting the ice and grabbed my shoulders, pushing me down. “I'm sorry. But you know I have no choice.” Hunter pinned me to the ground by my wrists.
Shouts from both my friends and Hunter's brothers rang in the air. It sounded like they have started a battle of their own.
And we will have to watch while he does it, Logan had said. But I knew that was going to be impossible for them.
I struggled to break free, but his grip was as strong as manacles. “Then why did you make the bargain?”
“Because I don't want to be like her. At least you had a chance.”
He moved one hand to seize my throat and got his knife with the other. I used that second to my advantage. Before he could thrust down with his dagger and stab my heart, I flung a ton of snow into his face and knocked him off me. I rolled away and quickly got to my feet.
Slightly smiling, Hunter dusted off the snow and got up. “I should be very angry with you.”
But he wasn't. From his slight grin, he might have been just a little relieved.
Hunter charged at me, and I stayed still. He grabbed my arm, but instead of jerking away, I spun into him. Hunter turned my movement into an embrace with me in front. He pinned down my arms by wrapping his around me tightly.
“Are we dancing, darling?” Hunter whispered in my ear. I could sense the barely held-back laughter in his voice.
“No, and I'm not your darling,” I said in a mockingly sweet tone that matched his.
I stomped on his foot with my heel, and he hunched over in pain, loosening his grip on me. Reaching into his pocket, I closed my fingers firmly around the ring. Then I broke free from his arms and stepped away.
I held up the ring for him to see. “You will get revenge for your parents.”
Hunter's family wasn't the only one that was broken because of Ash. He wasn't the only one she manipulated.
“I am going to try my very best to defeat her. Count yourself lucky.”
Hunter straightened up. There was a bit of hopeful light in his eyes. “Maybe I will.”
We walked back to the rest of the group. Their fight must have ended a little before ours because everyone stood still, waiting for us. As we approached, the second oldest brother advanced on me.
Hunter stepped into his path.
In the background, Skylar had somehow stolen Jordan's bow and was aiming an arrow at the second brother. Logan and Ariel stood ready. Since I was so close, I could hear the hushed conversation between the two brothers.
“She won, Treyton. Back down,” Hunter said in a low tone.
Treyton stood firm. “We have to complete our mission.”
“It was never our mission in the first place.”
The usually thin winter air turned heavy as the brothers glared at each other.
“Fine,” Treyton said through clenched teeth and stalked away.
Hunter turned around to face me. “A deal is a deal. But now thousands of lives are in your hands, including ours.” He gave me one last half-smile.
The four brothers kept their bargain and flew away. Logan, Ariel, and Skylar rushed to my side.
“Don't ever make a deal like that,” Logan said. He was still tense even though the brothers had already left.
“If you do,” Skylar added, “I will kill you myself.”
“I know. I'm sorry.” I opened my hand to reveal the ring. “But we have to hurry.”
The sun was halfway set and rapidly sinking below the glassy surface of the lake. Standing close to the edge of the water, I tossed the hard-won ring as far as I could.
The ring sank through the lake's flawlessly smooth surface without a splash or any kind of disturbance. Nothing happened for a few seconds, but then ripples started spreading from the place where the ring fell. The ripples grew bigger and stronger as they reached the bank.
We flew into the air and hovered twenty feet above the lake. The ripples cleared, and the water stilled once again. Then a giant, full color, HD quality video played on the water's surface. A little girl with fiery red hair was walking in the snow—her feet bare.

From the very beginning, hate was constantly present in Ash's life. Ash was hated by her mother because Ash was a reminder of her mother's mistake. Ash was hated by her father because Ash was a reminder of his wife's betrayal. Even her eleven siblings looked down on her and treated her like she was an inferior.
They were a v
ery poor family, so at meals Ash was only given scraps and nothing if food was scarce. Her parents kept her out of sight as much as possible by sending her to the woods to forage for edible plants despite rain or snow. They didn't even provide shoes when the weather was especially bad. Dinner and bed were the only times Ash was allowed to come home.
Ash didn't handle the unfairness of life well. Those long hours outside gave her time to be cruel. At age eight Ash started venting her anger in unhealthy ways. It started from little things such as yanking flowers from her neighbor's painstakingly planted mailbox garden. Then it progressed to throwing stones at birds for fun. It took a while and many tries for Ash to actually hit one and kill it. At first she felt sorry for the pigeon that lay dead at her feet. But that feeling of regret faded with each bird she killed until it no longer existed. Instead, it was replaced by a sense of victory when she took out a bird with a single shot.
Soon killing birds became boring for Ash, and she moved on to setting things on fire. In the beginning she was careful and only set fire to small twigs or crumpled balls of paper. Then one day the small campfire she built in the forest grew out of control and caught on a nearby tree. Soon a large section of the forest was in flames, and Ash didn't try to stop it. Instead, she loved the way the heat licked her skin and how the woodland creatures scurried for cover.
After being forced to do things and ordered around by her family, Ash felt powerful as the fire turned the once thriving woods into her namesake. She had started this, this was her doing, and she thought it was magnificent.
Ash returned to the forest the next day, wanting to send the rest of the woods to smoke and flames, but she forgot to bring matches. That didn't stop her, though. On her third try, a spark flew from her fingertips. A few minutes later, she could shoot columns of fire with hardly any effort. Destruction just became even easier for her.
But that feeling of power vanished once Ash returned home. As the economy plunged over the years, her family became even crueler to her. And since food was becoming increasingly harder to come by, Ash went hungry more often than not. The only reason her parents kept her was because she was another pair of hands that could do the chores and a convenient person to yell at when they wanted to vent out their anger.
On the night her father lost his job, Ash broke a plate while cleaning up after dinner. Her parents were already worked up, and the beating she got was especially rough. Ash snapped. The last bit of good in her turned bitter. That night she sealed off all the exits and set the house on fire while her family slept.
The fire killed everyone inside. The fire freed her.
Ash was only thirteen when she fled to the forest to escape punishment for her crimes. After that she lived in a tiny cave at the edge of the forest petal. During her time there, she watered and nurtured her hate and vengeance with bitter thoughts. It grew and grew until it finally grew so strong that she could turn it into Dark Magic.
The last scene showed Ash storming into the throne room on my fourteenth birthday and testing her new power. Since then her Dark Magic grew even stronger.
After the flashback ended, everyone was quiet. The last ray of light had disappeared, and the moon rose, illuminating the battlefield below. Snow was melted in some places. The dirt was overturned in others. And broken arrows littered the ground. It was no longer the picture-perfect scene like before.
But behind this destruction, there was once an innocent girl. The world and her choices shaped her, and she grew up to cause even worse devastation.
We made camp, and Ariel and I made a bed of vines.
“I'll take guard duty,” Logan said.
“No, let me,” I replied.
Even though I was tired, I had a lot to think about. We learned of Ash's past and how hate turned into Dark Magic, but I still don't understand how to defeat her with love. And our deadline… Maybe it was best not to think about that.
“Are you sure?” Logan asked.
I took a blanket from the pack and wrapped it around myself. “Yeah.”
I sat on a rock, made myself as comfortable as I could, and stared at the big silver moon. Two more nights then it will be the end of the world unless we save it.
ROSE
Chapter 25
An hour after my shift ended, a humongous black grizzly bear trampled through the camp, giving us a nasty surprise. The bear looked intent on finding something. Too bad that something was us.
It only took a few minutes to capture and tie the beast down with vines. Once the bear saw that it was trapped, it gave one last mighty roar, dissolved into black smoke, and disappeared. The bear was easy to defeat, but if Logan didn't wake us up in time, we would be the grizzly's next meal.
We broke up camp because it was clearly Ash who sent it, and no one could get any sleep after that. We covered a few hundred miles in a few hours, which was depressingly slow considering we had thousands to go, until we came to a gigantic mountain range. We couldn't fly over the mountains because they were too tall, and we couldn't go around because the chain cut all the way through the middle of the Fifth Petal.
We were stumped for an hour on how to get through, but then we found a narrow ice ravine. It didn't look very safe with avalanches randomly tumbling down from the mountains, but we didn't have any other choice.

I held an arm across my face to block snow from getting into my eyes. The wind shoved me, and I placed the other hand on the icy, dark gray wall to anchor myself.
The ravine was so slender that we had to fly single file: Ariel, Skylar, Logan, and me. I wanted to be last so I wouldn't slam into somebody if my wings gave out, but it caused Logan to keep glancing back to make sure I was all right. He offered to help me fly, but I turned it down. I didn't want to burden him any further. He was already weak and dying, flying in the below freezing cold, risking his life to help, and also struggling to keep himself aloft. I think I could do just fine.
“_______” Logan yelled to me.
It was probably some encouragement, but I couldn't hear him.
A deep rumbling noise cut through the high whistling of the wind. I looked up and saw a mass of snow tumbling down the mountainside and about to bury me. I flew backward, but this time instead of fighting me, I had too much help from the wind. The wind carried me back and slammed me into the left ice wall. I hit the back of my head, hard, and heard a loud crunch behind me that was either my wings or the ice. Hopefully, it was the ice.
Everything turned fuzzy and unfocused. Logan, Ariel, and Skylar called my name, but it sounded like babble.
For a moment I stayed pressed flat against the dark gray wall—my head pulsing terribly. But the moment passed, and I dropped like a stone. A hundred feet below, the ground was covered with slabs of broken and jagged rocks. I tried to fly, but if flying before was hard, now was impossible. My back felt like it was covered in lava—a sure sign that my wings were broken—and I was so dizzy and disorientated that I didn't even know which way was up.
Just as my boot grazed against a rock, Logan scooped me up in his arms and stopped my fall. I buried my face in his shoulder, so very grateful to be in his sturdy embrace.
Logan would make the best boyfriend in the whole world. He is sweet, caring, charming, (not to mention good looking) and he also saved my life more times than I could count. What more could a girl ask for?
He found a flat stone slab and set me down carefully. Ariel and Skylar landed beside him a few seconds later.
“How badly are you hurt?” Logan asked. He was trying to keep his voice calm, but I could still hear the worried undercurrent.
“I broke my wings and bumped my head. That's all.”
Logan gently touched the back of my scalp, feeling for the bump.
“It's okay. I'm okay,” I lied for his sake, but his furrowed brows told me he didn't believe it. “I just need a second.” I sat down leaning against the ice wall and waited for my head to stop spinning.
&
nbsp; After a few minutes of observing me, Logan spoke. “We definitely need to rest for the night.”
“No!” I shouted louder than I meant to. I struggled to my feet which was a mistake. Everything started swirling even more.
Logan caught me before I could topple over. “Take it easy, Rose.”
“We can't afford to lose any more time. If you guys don't need to rest, we can go on. Seriously, I am fine.”
The three of them exchanged concerned glances. I was clearly not fine, and I didn't feel fine either. I felt like I was riding on a never-ending roller coaster with a bunch of loop de loops.
Logan scrubbed a hand over his face. “Rose, you're hurt. You need time to rest.”
“But we don't have time. We only have two more days and a lot of ground to cover. I'm fine,” I insisted.
Skylar let out a sigh. “We can't change her mind.”
She knew me well enough to know when something like the fate of the world is at stake, I won't stop for anything and could be as stubborn as her sometimes.
“At least let me help you fly,” Logan said.
I wanted to argue. Not because I don't want his help, but because it would tire him out keeping two people aloft with only one pair of wings in this harsh wind. But I saw in his eyes he won't take no for an answer. If I was going to keep going, he is going to help me. Besides, I needed it.
He must have read my expression.
“Oh, I will be fine. You should worry about yourself.” Logan put his arms around my waist and flew up with Skylar and Ariel.
We made it out of the ravine and flew for a couple of hours. It was warmer in Logan's arms, and my headache had lessened somewhat. Though my wings still felt like molten magma. But I could see Logan was tiring. His wings beat slower, and he was straining to keep both of us aloft.
I pointed to a clearing in the icy forest below. “Logan, let's set down there and rest for awhile.”
“No, I have plenty of energy left.” He put on a slight burst of speed to prove his point but slowed even more after.
So it was his turn to be stubborn.
Fated Loss (Red Rose & Black Ash Book 1) Page 10
