Blood dripping from her wrists onto the rocky salts, Vanessa starts to murmur the counter curse, eyes focused on Mason. Brief sparks of green flash around him, making my jaw drop. Most curses are usually invisible. This has to be a mighty one.
Charity takes that as her cue. She positions the scarlet milkweed flowers on the floor, then lights them up. They only burn for a few seconds, but the smoke hovers until Charity blows it at Mason. When it reaches him, it seems to activate the ancient charm placed on him. Mason’s skin flashes purple as Charity fights to break the charm. The effort drains her in front of our eyes, but Charity only casts a worried look at Awan and pushes ahead.
Soon, her nose dribbles blood. Her eyes redden and swell from the effort until a single red tear rolls down her face. My stomach clenches and pulses with sickening force as I watch her enact the vision I had of her. It’s all the more terrifying up close.
“You’re up, Seff.” Awan takes his eyes off Charity, refusing to bear witness to the blood coming out of her nose and eyes.
Seff and Fillan have another one of their silent conversations. With a quick nod, Seff signals his twin that he’s ready. Fillan unties the bag of Wolfberry for him. Seff’s eyes flash electric blue, more intense with each breath of air mixed with the Wolfberry powder until the pouch is empty.
His entire body shakes, so Seff only manages a short, “Sorry, man,” in Mason’s direction, before he grabs him by the forearm and sinks his teeth into it. Mason clenches his jaw, determined to breathe through the pain and the inflow of venom entering his body. It’s meant to burn away the old traces of wolf venom that mark him as a hidden legacy, washing away the weird silent abilities distinguishing Mason from other hunters.
Then, it’s Jean’s turn.
“Look at me, Mason,” she says.
Though she’s three feet away, Jean looks Mason straight in the eye as she uses her most compelling voice. It’s thick, sweet and alluring. Until it turns demanding.
Jean recites the words on the scroll we found in her box, many of which sound archaic. Mason stares back at her without blinking, still breathing through the pain of Seff’s bite.
It all comes together in pieces. Mason’s eyes widen in shock and anger as soon as Jean has finished undoing the compulsion. The purple charm flashes brighter, then vanishes at the same time as the green sparks around him. Both Charity and Vanessa fall back unconscious, landing into Eddie and Sofia’s arms. Vanessa is weak, surviving only on the bits of Sofia’s blood flowing through her veins. And Charity is in limbo.
Seff’s bite around Mason’s forearm loosens until Mason pushes him off. Seff’s head lolls back as he, too, enters the state of limbo.
Only Jean remains standing, but I snap my attention to Awan instead. Mason’s skin gives off heat, making me aware that Awan and I are standing too close to him. Awan rolls his shoulders back as his skin sparkles bronze. The mountain lion protector takes shape in front of us and wastes no time before jumping into Mason.
Awan makes a sound deep in his throat as he struggles to maintain the connection with the protector. Despite his efforts, Mason gives off heat like a furnace. Tiny yellow embers glow under his skin, trying to break free.
“Mason, listen to me,” I say in a shaky voice. “You can control it.”
“Erm... Cami?” Bryar calls behind me, but I don’t dare take my eyes of Mason. In the molten amber of his, there’s so much anger, so much hatred that isn’t his—the consequence of hundreds of years of suppressed powers, of generations living and dying without a chance to claim their legacy.
“Cami!” Bryar shouts this time. “I don’t mean to complicate things, but...why isn’t she going into limbo?”
The question punches the air right out of my lungs. Fillan is biting Seff. Sofia clenches Vanessa’s hand in a bloodied grip. Eddie performs the life force charm to save Charity. But when my gaze lands on Bryar, my veins go cold, despite the heatwave emanating from Mason.
Jean’s face is an ugly contortion of her usual expression, twisted in madness and thirst. Her body twitches, teeth bared, eyes flashing red, just like in my vision.
“I’m guessing cold ones react differently to limbo, huh?” Bryar says in a brave attempt to sound chipper. “What do I do?”
“What you’re supposed to—feed her,” I reply, but Jean shouts, “No!”
Jean’s entire body jerks as she fights her vampire instincts. “If I feed now, I’ll drain her. I don’t have control in this state.”
“Babe, listen to me.” Bryar raises her hands in sign of surrender. “Let me just feed you a drop. Let me help you.”
“No!” Jean whooshes up to Bryar, then pins her to the wall, exactly like in my vision.
How I misunderstood it. Jean isn’t choking Bryar or trying to hurt her. She’s restraining her, and Bryar is the one almost cutting off her own flow of oxygen as she fights to save Jean. Mason’s sister must have made the same gut-wrenching discovery I have... Jean would let herself die before feeding on Bryar when she’s so out of control.
I suck in a breath, ready to go push Jean off and give Bryar a hand, but a sudden wave of heat clouds my vision. I let out a scream to create a barrier between Mason and the rest of us, hoping to stave off the rising heat. “Come on, Awan.”
The lion’s entire face is beaded in sweat as he soldiers on. He falls to his knees but keeps the eye contact with Mason, who seems to be burning from the inside and burning through the protector. I can’t let him.
“Mason!” I call for him in desperation.
With his back taut as a string, eyes firmly shut, and fists balled at his sides, he’s waging his own battle on the inside. Whether he can hear me or not, he can’t push out the protector in time.
My throat constricts. This one’s on me. I promised Awan I’d save him, even though deep down, I knew he was right. The spell left no loophole for the lion. There’s nothing I could possibly do to bring him back from limbo. My only option is to never let him get there.
The seconds drag out, but despite the awareness of Bryar and Jean’s struggle behind me, I keep my attention on Awan. I let him pour his healing energy into Mason until he’s about to collapse. Then I draw breath, readying my scream.
Awan’s eyes droop, but he whispers, “Don’t, Cami...”
Not that I intend to listen. My scream, a tight funnel of air, hits Mason right in the chest, but he remains standing. I wasn’t pushing him. The bronze protector drifts out of him, forced out by my magic.
“It’s not...done...” Awan falls to the floor, his tired eyes finding me.
“I told you—I could never let you die.”
He doesn’t have the strength to reply, but I breathe a sigh of relief when his protector jumps back into him.
That’s when the flames erupt.
I fall back, pushing another barrier out to protect the circle from burning to a crisp. Mason’s entire body is a bright torch.
“The last part...” Awan pants and coughs. “I didn’t finish the last part of his healing. Without it, he doesn’t know how to claim his powers...”
I snarl from the effort to keep the barrier between us and Mason’s deadly fire, but the weight of Awan’s words sinks deep into me. All this time we prepared to give Mason his powers back, but we forgot that powers don’t simply appear. They require a Claiming. And for someone way past their sixteenth birthday, that Claiming strikes at the first opportunity.
Now.
The flames lick higher up, gathering strength with Mason at the center of their destructive might. We freed him, all right. Freed a set of deadly, combustible powers. And as much as I believe Mason would only use his powers for good, that matters little if he fails to claim them.
My lips tremble as terror crawls under my skin. “What do we do now?”
Chapter 32. Mason
I’m torn, no—ripped apart—by the varied sensations in my body and the storm of thoughts I can’t control. Without the charm and the curse that anchored it, my skin feels thi
ck, like a suit of armor. Seff’s poison burns through my veins, removing the trace that marked me as a hidden legacy.
But when Jean removes the compulsion, I’m overwhelmed by the fire waking deep inside me. I crave it. I need it like the air I breathe. I long to send it out into the world—free and uninhibited—a soldier to burn through any enemy.
And they are my enemies. Our enemies. Ancient hatred comes alive, stirring in my chest and threatening to burst out of me. They betrayed my kind. The other legacies tricked us, trapped us, let us fall into oblivion.
Today is their reckoning day.
As soon as the protector jumps out of my body, any semblance of control slips through my fingers. It was never my control, but Awan’s. The protector was healing my jumbled thoughts, helping me make sense of these abilities—new and familiar all at once.
Without it, the fire rises inside me like a wave. New embers fly about me after each exhale. If I push out a stronger breath, tongues of fire will whip in every direction. I should do it. They deserve it for the tyranny of the joint spell, for subjecting generations of our kind to half a life, locked away from our heritage.
The burning in my eyes and skin turns painful. If I don’t let the fire out of me, it’ll burn me from the inside. I need to release it, even if it brings down the entire building. So why am I fighting it?
I blink the bleariness away, trying to focus on the people around me. Awan stirs painfully on the floor, but he’s alive. Cami found a way to save him, just like she promised. But instead of her, my gaze finds Charity next. Eddie pulls her into a sitting position, squeezing her hand tightly. Her hair is disheveled and her face bloodied, but she’s alive.
They’re all alive. Seff rubs his face, still lying down.
Resting in Sofia’s arms, Vanessa still breathes, her chest moving up and down rhythmically.
Jean and Bryar are on their feet already. But once I focus on them, I realize something is very wrong. Bryar struggles against Jean, trying to push her off. Jean’s eyes flash red because she hasn’t fed yet.
My blood boils like tiny explosions going off in my chest. Heat clouds my vision again, but when I hear Cami call my name, I blink and focus on her in front of me.
“Mason, listen to me,” she pants, face reddening from the heat. “I had to pull the protector out of you before it was too late for Awan, but that means the healing isn’t complete. You need to control the fire, your power, your legacy. Or else it will consume you.”
“Bryar!” I manage to say before a plume of fire bursts out of my mouth. I clamp my lips shut, but Cami’s horrified expression tells me enough. I have no control over these powers and no idea how to gain it.
“Focus on me, Mason.” Cami keeps her voice soothing, but a sharp intake of hot air sends her into a coughing fit. “This is your Claiming. It’s a test to show you can accept and control your powers, that you want to keep them.”
My head grows heavy, and my movements feel sluggish. My entire body is melting from the heat I can neither hamper nor release without killing my friends.
I squeeze my eyes shut with a grunt. Control, control, control. But how?
The heat extends from me like another limb. I can sense it interacting with the others, grazing their faces. A quick whoosh, someone speeding through the heat, makes me snap my eyes open.
Jester barrels into the room to pull Jean back from my sister. “You’re welcome,” he says with a wink at Bryar.
My sister massages her throat with one hand. “Let her go. She doesn’t have much longer in this weird, zombie-like limbo state. She needs to feed.”
Jester scrunches his nose and shakes his head. “Well, my vampire blood won’t do much for her, and in this state, she won’t be able to stop feeding on you.”
My entire body lights up in flame.
“No!” I shout, but Cami hits me with a scream.
Instead of loud and high-pitched, it’s low. All its power is in the intensity of the air hitting me like a wave and pinning me in place. Cami’s scream pushes against me as if she’s somehow turning the air solid. It presses from all sides, snuffing out the fire on my skin. Beneath it, my clothes are charred black, holes burning into them.
“Claim the power.” Cami lets the pressure ease. Or she couldn’t hold it in place any longer. “You can do this, Mason!”
But my gaze finds Bryar again. I know my sister too well. There’s no way she’ll watch Jean die, restrained by Jester like a rabid animal. She’d never let her girlfriend wither out of limbo, even at the risk of her own life.
“Just hold her steady,” Bryar snaps at Jester and pulls out a knife.
His grip around Jean tightens. “It’s your funeral, Little Red Riding Hood.”
“Oh, when have I ever run from a wolf?” Bryar graces him with a wicked grin before slicing her left palm.
Jean’s eyes flash even brighter at the sight of blood. My skin flames on again in anticipation of the dreadful risk my sister is about to take. Bryar lets blood pool in her cupped hand and brings it to Jean’s lips. With the last remnants of her sanity, Jean presses her lips together to refuse, but Bryar tilts the cupped hand at an angle to make her drink.
Faster than even Jester can react, Jean snarls and bites Bryar’s hand, right over the cut. Her cheeks hollow as she sucks in the blood, making Bryar yelp. Jester fights to hold Jean back from attacking Bryar, but even with his help, Bryar’s hand is trapped between Jean’s deadly jaws.
“Jean!” some of the others call out her name as they come to it, but the cold one is too far gone. She cares about nothing but the blood that gives her life.
Helped by the ancient knowledge now restored in my mind, I sense there’s only one thing strong enough to make Jean stop. My fire.
The murky room lights up with the dancing flames, covering my skin again. They tickle, rather than burn my invisible but very thick drake hide. Tongues of raging fire lick the air around me. Awan crab walks backwards to put some distance between us.
On the contrary, Cami stands her ground and produces another scream with which she tries to smother my fire. My flames flicker, then flash brighter, feeding off the anger roaring in my chest. With palms toward me, Cami struggles to manipulate the sound wave she’s holding in place.
“Stop...” she pants. “You need to trust the others will help Bryar. Focus on claiming your powers.”
Her words reach me through the heavy haze of the heat, but it’s as if my mind can’t fully comprehend their meaning. The fiery rage inside me is so familiar. I’ve carried it with me all my life without understanding it’s a part of my legacy. Perhaps the most dangerous part.
Cami stares at me with tears in her eyes. Her hair flies back from her face at each of her next screams, but try as she might to put a lid on my flames, the barriers of thick air she sends at me can’t put out my fire. Lips trembling and face turning red in blotches, Cami lets her arms fall beside her body. A single tear rolls down her smooth cheek to the corner of her mouth.
“I’m not going to fight you.” She blinks slowly, letting new tears wet her face. “The joint spell was a mistake I don’t intend to repeat. We need to be better than this. We need to not be afraid of your kind.”
Fire gushes out of me without her magic to keep it restrained. It makes me feel powerful, unstoppable, dangerous. Cami takes a step toward me, making me gasp. I fight to maneuver the flames closest to her out of her way before they burn her. The effort makes my face twitch. These are my powers. Why won’t they obey me?
Wide-eyed, Cami doesn’t balk, but takes a step closer again. I grunt, pushing the flames away from her. They extend to the sides, leaving a thin corridor through which she edges closer to me, step by step.
The rage flashes inside me again, but I swirl it around—a tornado inside my heaving chest. I can’t let these powers hurt Cami. Never.
I grit my teeth to keep the flames away from her, but she’s too close now, mere inches from my face. My newly recovered fire drake skin is aflame, co
mpletely out of my control. Extinguishing my body feels impossible.
But Cami reaches a pale hand toward my face. I want to scream for her to run.
“I believe in you,” she whispers as her fingers break through the flames and touch me.
Everything inside me twists in agony. Cami’s fingers burn to bloodied red within seconds. She whimpers, tears of pain in her eyes, but she doesn’t pull away from me.
The rage monster snaps its jaws inside me, but something stronger rises to challenge it—the desire to help, to protect, to love. I fear I’m about to go nuclear as I fight to hold onto this fragile hope.
My flaming skin feels stronger with every breath. Perhaps even strong enough to pull and trap the fire inside me. I envision the flames being sucked into me and my skin cooling once they’re snuffed out.
Cami screams from the pain of her burns. I scream with her, willing the flames safely inside me where they can’t hurt her. My chest swells. My ears ring as the fire swirls in a deadly tornado around us. It funnels into me until I consume it to the very last ember.
When I dare to open my eyes, Cami’s bloodied hand is still on my face. The fire didn’t burn her elsewhere.
She wheezes as she pulls me so close to her that our lips almost touch. “Your powers are your own now, Mason.”
I look down at my hands to make sure my skin won’t burst into flames again. Instead, it’s cooling, like lava.
“Your hand...” I say hoarsely.
Cami winces in pain, but then tries to smile. “It’ll be fine. You did it, Mason. We all did it.”
My gaze drifts from her to Bryar, who is safely out of Jean’s grip now. Seff and Fillan stand by her while Jester keeps Jean restrained. With color returning to her face, though, she doesn’t seem to want to fight him anymore.
Heritage: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Elmwick Academy Book 3) Page 23
