I began with the camp, where not all the soldiers were yet awake, many were still sleeping. The fog on the surface of the water, and the lake itself made it easy to draw moisture to fill my needs. It began small, just enough to cover the ring of tents. Like mental putty, I drew part of the storm along the shore to the east, then leaving that securely in place, pulled more storm to the west. The storm was now several hundred paces long, but only fifty paces deep from the shore.
I drew more storm to the east and when I felt a mental barrier ahead, I shifted to the west again and did the same. I tried expanding to the east again and found it unsettling as the entire storm might collapse, so I paused. It was as large in either direction as I could make it.
I concentrated harder and increased both the size and number of raindrops. I felt the dampness in the air around me and my confidence grew. I gathered power and forced it together into a tight ball and squeezed until sweat ran down my forehead and my underarms were soaked.
The power I’d gathered exploded. Light flashed and could be seen right through my closed eyelids, worse than turning my head to the sun on a clear day. Immediately after, the explosion of sound struck like a physical blow.
“A little less, if you please,” Kendra said.
My ears were ringing so much her voice barely carried to me. I reformed the edges of the rainstorm where my attention had wavered, then drew more power for another bolt of lightning. This time, I used far less, and the results were minuscule in comparison.
That provided me a baseline. I again formed the ball of power to create lightning and built it larger. A jagged streak of lightning reached down and struck a tree at the edge of the army camp. The tree burst into flames that were quickly extinguished by the rain.
Several soldiers ran from their tents to observe the smoldering tree just before Kendra’s dragon landed. My mind was holding together the storm, keeping the rain forming and falling, and at the same time, creating more lightning, but through all that, I heard a few screams from men in full panic. I couldn’t help taking a peek.
Then, the dragon landed and screeched a higher pitched sound that penetrated to my bones. I shivered in fear and felt sorry for the soldiers. They were only doing their duty and didn’t deserve to die, which was why I couldn’t have entered their tents and killed them.
If one attacked me, that was different.
*We’re here,* Anna’s voice shouted in my head blasted away other thoughts.
*Run,* I told her.
*This storm is slowing us down.*
Without responding, I decreased the rainfall and created no more lightning. I muttered to Kendra, “They are ashore.”
“Tell me when they reach sunshine.”
“You should see them, soon,” I said.
I relayed that message to Anna, just in case Kendra couldn’t see them. A short time later, she said, *Sun ahead. We’re running as fast as we can.*
“They are in the sunshine,” I told Kendra.
“Stop the rain. I’ll take it from here.”
The rain quit, and my mind felt like a baby bird must feel on its first flight. The weight of the concentration evaporated like the water on the ground around us. I was mentally used up. Dizzy. The ground shifted and I knew better than to attempt standing.
Movement caught my eye, and the dragon had taken flight. It reached above the level of the treetops and flew low along the shoreline, dipping now and then to shriek and roar at soldiers in other nearby camps.
It made a wide turn over the water and flew back, skimming the trees. As I looked over the top of the hill again, men were running, hiding, huddling behind tree trunks, and one swimming. The long rowboat was ashore, but nobody was paying any attention to it. My dizziness eased.
With each scream of the dragon, I felt the fear in the tiny hairs along my neck and on my arms. My instinct was to run, as the others were.
“Come on,” I hissed at Kendra.
I intended to leap on the horses and ride away—but there were no horses where we’d left them, and none in sight. The tracks indicated they had charged away at full gallop, probably with either the sighting of the dragon or that first boom of thunder.
We ran. We went into the desert, keeping the sun on our left side. When our legs tired in the soft sand, we fast-walked. I turned to look behind us and found the dragon still sweeping back and forth, keeping itself between us and the soldiers that probably had no intention of following us yet.
Their officers would. As soon as they could reorganize their men, they would be after us.
As if to mock me, ahead grew a swirling mass of clouds so dark they were almost black and reached up as high as I could see. Lightning flickered in a dozen places.
A mage was behind us—and displaying his power.
I forced a wind to blow. The black clouds dispersed slightly, the lightning ceased. The clouds reformed.
I paused in my running. Did he want to impress me? I drew in a deep breath and forced air to concentrate inside the middle of the black clouds, along with all the energy I could muster and hold. Then, my anger turned to rage, and I gather more of each, before releasing it all at once.
The explosion and burst of air made it seem like pitch exploding in a campfire, only on a larger scale. The black cloud was no more.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The column of black swirling clouds and lightning was gone. I’d been warned by the mage. Surely, he didn’t expect to catch me in the maelstrom. However, if anything, it only speeded up my sister and me even though I’d warned him with my power.
I shouldn’t have. Now I had revealed that I had more magic than they had ever suspected. There would be no more warnings. They would throw all they had at me.
It increased my determination and fear at the same time. My emerging skills were no match for his, which were probably learned over a lifetime, while mine were almost nonexistent a month ago. I was as scared as much as impressed.
“Did you do that?” Kendra asked, her eyes fixed on the black storm. “Have you learned a new trick?”
“No. It was a warning for me.” Another thought occurred. “Didn’t you see that mage back there with your powers?”
“It wasn’t there. I looked.” Kendra huffed and puffed at my side. She managed to say as she looked where the black storm had exploded into nothingness, “Can you do that?”
“Not yet,” I said as if I would someday.
“Where are they?” She asked.
I knew she wanted to know where Anna, Elizabeth, Will, Coffin, and his sons were. I couldn’t concentrate well enough to reach out to Anna, as if she could tell me. Her best answer would probably be to tell me the Brownlands, or something similar. The other answer would be something like, “We’re in the desert, silly. Or, we just passed by a big rock.”
I managed to move my mouth and say, “Looking for,” then I gasped for another breath, “us.” My legs threatened to give out, my chest heaved, and I tried to keep up with my sister who never tired.
We were walking now, stumbling more than walking, and Kendra pointed to a small rise. From up on top, we might see our friends. It also meant we’d have to climb to the top. I was exhausted, mentally and physically. I pointed to the small valley between them and headed that way. Kendra didn’t object—but she cast a dissatisfied look at me that I ignored.