by Jessica Gunn
Krystin stared at me, mouth hanging open. “Um, okay.”
Rachel placed her hands on her hips. “You’re going to let her stay here like nothing happened at all?”
“Nate had evidence,” I said. “Or so he claimed. Until he’s back and I see whatever that evidence is, yes. I guess.”
“You hated her,” Rachel snapped. “We all did.”
I still hated her. Or maybe not hate. Maybe it was disappointment I felt toward Krystin. Confusion. And guilt. But not hate.
The one thing that separated me from the others and from all the leaders in the Hunter Circles regarding Krystin was this: I didn’t think setting aside her role in the Alzan prophecy because of what’d happened was a smart idea. If Krystin was meant to help save Alzan, to help save the world, then she should be allowed to if she so desired. Because it was becoming clear that no one else had the balls to do it.
“The only thing I can’t do for you, Krystin, is get you a healer,” I said. “That’d mean alerting Jaffrin and the Fire Circle that you’re here. And I’m pretty sure you don’t want that right now.”
She nodded. “That’d be appreciated. I’ll be fine.”
Rachel glared at her one last time before walking past me on her way to the stairs. “You’re going to regret this, Ben. I can’t believe you trust her again.”
Trust wasn’t the word I’d use. In fact, I wasn’t sure there was a word at all, but a feeling. It was the same one I’d had when faced with the Ether Head Circle’s orders to let Krystin stay in jail. Jaffrin’s orders to wait and let him handle it. His orders not to go into Shadow Crest’s lair to save Riley, though we went anyway.
Whether I trusted Krystin or not, our lives were irreparably intertwined. Lady Azar had stolen Riley to get to Alzan, to destroy it, and Krystin was destined to stop that from happening. And sure, we’d all been yanked around by the Hunter Circles and Darkness both. But I’d done shitty things too. Not nearly at the level Krystin had, but they’d still happened.
So it wasn’t that I trusted Krystin or felt I owed her another chance.
It was that I didn’t have a choice.
Chapter 5
KRYSTIN
I was still in shock as I sat on the couch, leaning as far back as possible. Shawn’s reaction I’d expected. But not Rachel’s and certainly not Ben’s. And I definitely didn’t think they’d let me stay the night without calling Jaffrin.
Jaffrin. I honestly hadn’t been sure if he’d survived. Kinder had sliced off his hand like it’d been nothing, and he’d gone so long without medical attention. The rest of the team, too.
I winced as the couch cushions conformed to my body, though the pain wasn’t from my ribs this time. I’d done horrible things to my team, my friends. Shawn had been right about most of the things he’d said. But I’d never wanted them to get hurt. To almost die.
Flashes of Shawn falling from the ceiling I’d pinned him to, of Ben’s face the moment before I used teleportante to escape, of Nate’s body impaled by wood, they all crashed across my mind’s eye. I covered my face with my arm, too much in pain from my ribs to lean forward and cry.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, half-hoping Ben wouldn’t take any notice at all.
He sat next to me on the arm of the couch. “It’s—”
“Don’t say it’s fine. It’s not.”
“Okay, but—”
“No,” I snapped. “Shawn’s right. I did want to screw the Fire and Ether Head Circles. I wanted to be free. Kinder twisted that, sure. And she’d had control over my magik. But I never, ever wanted you guys to get hurt.”
Ben shifted but kept his hands to himself. I didn’t expect any reassuring gestures or hand-holding, but I definitely didn’t expect him to be calm either. “Well, we did. Nate and Shawn were in comas for days. Jaffrin’s got a prosthetic hand now. Headquarters had to get rebuilt in places. You’re technically a criminal.”
“Please, keep going.”
He looked over at me. “Kinder was right, too.”
I shifted, trying to get more comfortable, but I only succeeded in further irritating my ribs. “You think? Turns out I am a tool. Only she used me, not the Fire Circle. And now Alzan will fall because of it.”
“I don’t think so.”
I peered up at him. “You’re only letting me stay until Nate comes back because you’re hoping I’m telling the truth. You don’t actually believe me.”
His eyes narrowed. “You don’t have telepathy anymore. How can you know that?”
“Because I know you, Ben. And I know that you were ready to kill me that night.” He winced. “I saw it in your eyes. It’s fine. I would have done the same.”
“It shouldn’t have happened in the first place.” His fists curled in his lap. “I wasn’t there for you, and this is the result.”
I chuckled once, honestly confused. “You were there. It wasn’t you guys and it sure as hell wasn’t your fault you didn’t believe me. The circumstances… Zanka did a good fucking job of framing me. And Giyano too, for that matter.”
Ben’s body went rigid and he looked away before asking, “Did you go to him for help?”
My brow furrowed. “Zanka’s dead.”
“No, Krystin. I mean Giyano.” His voice was low, an edge to it now.
I swallowed hard. “No. I didn’t. There wasn’t anything he could have done for me. Zanka nearly killed him, and before that, he was back under Lady Azar’s control. I had no way of knowing how that ended. Besides, I wanted out. So I left.” I thumbed the crystal around my neck. “I haven’t used magik or been in contact with anyone involved in the war since that night. Until this morning.”
“When you were attacked.”
I nodded. “Two Shadow Crest bounty hunters. Possibly from Landshaft. They wanted to bring my body to Lady Azar ahead of her march on Alzan.”
Ben’s fists relaxed and he lifted one to scrub the side of his face. “This is fucked.”
“Her plans?”
“No. All of it.”
I shrugged. Pain lanced my ribs and I whimpered. “Yep.”
Ben looked down at me. “Are they really that bad?”
Nodding, I ran the fingers of one hand over the lower bones. “I can’t tell which are broken or bruised, or how many. I’m thinking the latter and a lot.”
He frowned and reached out, hovering a hand over me, but pulled back. “I wish I was a healer.”
I smirked. “But then you’d be useless, Sparky.”
He chuckled, but then shook his head. “I’m almost inclined to say you deserve it.”
My heart twisted, but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t expected. “I do. It’s okay.”
He stood up and paced to the window facing the street. “Do you know any healers you can contact? I don’t want Jaffrin to know you’re here. Not yet. If you’re innocent, we’ll need whatever proof Nate swore he dug up.”
“The only proof is in my memories or that of anyone who was there when Kinder used Zanka’s stolen magik on me.” Which meant the five of us on this team. And two of those five hated me—with perfectly good reason.
Ben shrugged. “I don’t know what Nate has. He’s been gone for days now. He’s spent more time out there looking for you in the past six months than he has here with us.”
“Really?” Of all people, Nate wasn’t the person I’d expected to come looking for me.
“Yeah.” Ben turned, concern wrinkling the area around his eyes. “You sure you don’t know of any healers?”
“Off the top of my head, no.” Although there was that fire move I’d used on Giyano to heal him six months ago. But I doubted I could get to that place, that supernova in my hand, again without his guidance. And I was pretty terrified of the backfiring magik that was sure to happen after me not using my powers for so long. “I’ll be fine, Ben.”
He didn’t look convinced. “If you say so.”
“I do.” A wave of fatigue hit me then, as if my words had been a lie. And maybe they were
. But Ben didn’t need to know that. A weight pulled on my eyelids as I laid there awkwardly spread across the couch. My ribs ached, but the comfort of the cushions and, reluctant as I was to admit it, Ben’s presence soothed my whirlwind thoughts and fears. “Ben?”
“Yeah?”
My eyelids slid shut and I released a heavy breath. “Any way I can lay here for a bit? Until Nate’s back? It’s been a long…” Six months was what I wanted to say. “Morning. It’s been a really long morning.”
With my eyes shut, I couldn’t be sure, but I imagined a small smile on his lips. “Sure. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything.” The couch shifted the smallest bit, and then his footsteps sounded against the carpet all the way into the kitchen.
I was out before his feet hit tile, a feeling of safety rushing over me for the first time in almost a year. Safety in a den of potential enemies.
Exhaustion was a strange, powerful thing.
My mind was a blank slate, free from dreams and images. Silence at last. Until I was thrown through the darkness onto a hard surface. Shouts and screams filtered in through the black around me, a light growing until the blurry darkness turned into light. Into reality.
“Krystin!” Ben shouted. The smell of ozone sifted into my nostrils just before a snap of raw power struck the ground next to me.
I flinched, my fingers digging into the carpet of the team’s living room. Ben’s attack flew inches over my head, but my recoil away from it sent a new wave of pain splaying across my ribcage. I rolled, ignoring the fire in my ribs, until I could see the fight unfolding above me.
Ben’s form came into view, standing beside the couch. His jaw was clenched, both fists filled with lightning. “Krystin, get up!”
A thin pillar of fire appeared, heating the air around us, and struck Ben in the chest. Water followed, dousing the flames on Ben and attacking the demon at the same time. It had to be a demon. No one else would come into the team’s house like this. But who?
“Teleportante,” I groaned, thinking of the kitchen. My body felt weightless for a moment, my feet lifting off the ground, as I blinked out of the living room and appeared next to the counter, leaning against it for support.
“Get back here!” someone shouted. A man. And not just any man.
Giyano.
My blood ran cold, but my hands moved, snatching the closest, largest kitchen knife from our holder. If he was here, if he’d attacked us inside our home…
I preemptively swallowed down the pain from my ribs and ran into the living room with my knife brandished. Giyano stood above Ben, a pillar of fire holding him against the ground. Ben cried out as smoke rose from his shirt. Giyano was burning him.
Footsteps hurried down the stairs, where Shawn emerged and instantly threw a wave of Ember witch ether at Giyano. He deflected with a surge of his own fire magik. Water soared across the room, turning into ice at the bottom of the fire pillar holding Ben to the floor. The fire sizzled out as ice climbed its way back toward Giyano.
I readied myself, then threw the knife right at Giyano’s head. At the last second, his gaze and his hand snapped up, and he grabbed the knife by the handle.
“A knife?” he asked, eyebrow lifted. “Really, Krystin?”
“What the fuck do you want?” I shouted.
Rachel’s hard gaze swung back to me over her shoulder. “Like you don’t know.”
Oh, screw you.
Giyano laughed, then kicked Ben in the side, lifting him up on a wave of fire and slamming him into the closest wall. The impact dropped the two paintings hanging there and knocked a ceiling tile loose.
Shawn roared, jumping into the fray with a sword… my three-piece sword I’d left behind. He swung low—a move Giyano blocked—but threw up a palm full of orange ether in the next instant. It made Giyano’s body freeze and stumble backward as he grunted.
Giyano’s eyes narrowed. “Call off your teammates, Krystin.”
“We’re not a team anymore,” Rachel said as she helped Ben stand.
To Rachel, I said, “Speak for yourself.” I glared at Giyano. “What do you want?”
But that’s when I saw it, glinting off the light produced by Ben’s newest lightning attack. A gold medallion hung low on Giyano’s chest—one imprinted with Shadow Crest’s symbol.
My gaze snapped to the demon’s, my gut twisting. “You’re working for Lady Azar again.” Except he’d never do that. Not willingly.
He shrugged as a firestorm grew around him, knocking away the ether attacks Shawn kept firing at Giyano. “We all have a price.”
My eyes narrowed, but before I could ask what that even meant—since he hated Lady Azar more than he hated any of us—Giyano let the firestorm loose, heading right for Ben and Rachel. It soared at them with such speed and ferocity that they wouldn’t be able to get out of the way.
They joined hands, their lips moving to form the word teleportante, but I’d ripped the crystal off my neck at the same time and stomped on it, destroying it on the ground beneath my feet. Then I launched myself directly into the path of the firestorm, landing with enough time to draw my arms up and, for the first time in six months, use my magik.
My veins screamed as my changed blood raged through them. The fire bent to my command, arching up and over the three of us as my magik swallowed me whole from the inside. The flames raged at my will, but they were so thick, I couldn’t see a thing through them.
I swung my arms around and then up, circling the fire into a ball in front of me. But by the time the flames died down and the smoke cleared, Giyano was gone.
And so was Shawn.
Chapter 6
Ben
My chest stung. I stood there in the middle of the living room blinking slowly. Trying to process what’d just happened. But no sense of logic, no reason at all, came to me.
Water whipped past me, accompanied by a shout. A cracking, hardening noise followed. I watched as the water transformed into an ice-lance at Rachel’s command, then headed straight for Krystin. But she turned at the last second and melted the ice with fire.
“I’m not in on this!” Krystin shouted at Rachel. “I swear I’m not. I have no idea why he’d come here or why he’s working for Lady Azar again.”
Rachel swung her icy glare on me. “It can’t possibly be a coincidence that on the same day Krystin shows up, Giyano does too. Come on, Ben.”
“I’m not working with him,” Krystin said, her voice low. Her eyes had hardened. “Remember that Shadow Crest attacked me, too. That’s why I’m here.”
“We have no proof of that.”
My teeth ground together. “Why would he attack us, anyway?”
Krystin’s eyes widened as if she were surprised by the question. “I have no idea, Ben. I haven’t talked to or seen anyone in six months. And before that, Giyano disappeared after I healed him. Lady Azar must have taken him back. Or maybe Zanka worked his magik on Giyano before Kinder got to him. Either way, I have no idea what his plans are.”
“Except to steal Shawn,” Rachel said.
Krystin threw up her hands. “Yeah, except that. But since Shadow Crest attacked me this morning, too, as you keep ignoring, Rachel, it’s probably safe to say Lady Azar ordered her soldiers after the two of us because she’s marching on Alzan soon. With Shawn and me out of the picture, she’s got a free and open path to the city.”
“She did anyway, since you nearly killed us instead of working with Shawn to unlock your magik.”
Rachel’s words stung me and I wasn’t the target. “Okay, enough,” I said, coming to stand between them. “Right now, we’re all we’ve got. Let’s trace the teleportante trail before it’s gone.”
“What about Nate?” Rachel asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s been gone for days and won’t answer his phone.”
“And he hasn’t shown up at my place,” Krystin added. Her eyes were focused across the room, to where Shawn had last been standing before Giyano’s final attack. To her th
ree-piece sword Shawn had adopted after Krystin had disappeared. She looked back over her shoulder at me. “What are the odds Giyano has Nate too?”
“He’s not a part of the prophecy,” I said.
“No, but if you knew he’d been taken, Nate would be great bait.”
Rachel’s eyes narrowed on Krystin. “You sure you don’t know what Giyano’s up to?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Krystin said through gritted teeth. “But I’m also sure I know how Giyano thinks. If Giyano’s got Nate, he’ll still be alive. Shawn too.”
My stomach twisted and I released a long-held breath. “He wants you.”
Krystin’s eyes met mine, though her expression was indecipherable. “Maybe.” She shook her head. “Probably. But not for the same reasons as six, eight months ago. If Giyano really is working for Lady Azar, I’m a hindrance to his boss’s plan.”
I nodded as I processed her words and walked to the spot where Giyano had last stood. His teleportante trail left goosebumps on my skin, a remnant of the unnatural abuse of space and time. “We need to follow the trail before it’s gone.”
“What if it’s not just Giyano on the other end?” Krystin asked as she retrieved her old three-piece sword and twisted the handle in her palm.
That was a good question. One I was starting to think didn’t matter anymore. “We have to go for Shawn and Nate. I’m not leaving anyone behind.”
Krystin laughed once, a bitter, betrayed sound.
“What’s so funny?” Rachel asked.
Krystin shook her head and then walked over to my side. “That you have to ask says everything. Let’s go.”
I winced as though her words had been a physical blow. The truth was, I had sort of left her behind. I hadn’t trusted Krystin. And then, instead of helping my teammate, I’d let our enemy make her an ally.
Krystin held her hand out, palm up. “Ready?”
