I didn’t get a chance to finish my sentence. The three lords lifted Rhyzkahl’s blade and sent a seething mass of shadowy red rakkuhr arcing my way, far too familiar from my time in Rhyzkahl’s ritual. Still gripping Vsuhl, I threw up my hands in pure instinct to shield. The rakkuhr struck the blade, sending a shudder of remembered torment through me. Scintillating strands of ruby lightning strung between the blade in my hand and the one in Rhyzkahl’s, and I steeled myself for the pain that I’d been so well conditioned to expect to follow. Vsuhl leapt in my hand, dragging my arm upward, and with a single surge I felt it expand and consume the ugly potency, sucking the strands into itself with an ear-splitting whine that culminated in an ominous crack.
The three lords staggered back from each other. I jerked as the power slashed through the blade and into me. In the span between one heartbeat and the next every sigil on my body ignited in a sheath of pure agony. My hand spasmed tight on the hilt of the blade, and I instinctively called more grove power. I didn’t even think, simply reacted to fight off the attack, to stop the agony, pushing out and away as hard as I could. I was barely aware of the wall of power I struck out with, only dimly seeing that I knocked everyone in the courtyard flat, human, demon, and lord alike.
I sucked in a burning breath. The three different potencies coiled in a fierce maelstrom within me, like a volatile chemical reaction. These were not meant to exist within one person. It never should’ve happened. The natural perfection of the grove could not exist with the anathema of the rakkuhr. Had blade energy not immersed me, had it not entwined with the grove, the grove and the dark potencies would have simply existed together but separate, like oil and water. But that third power was the catalyst, the trigger, igniting a wrenching cascade of dissonance, like the swarm of bees madly dashing themselves into one another. The unified thrum from the columns shattered into a discordant wall of sound. The prismatic light of the sigils on the columns shifted to inky blackness
Shaking, I dropped to a crouch as I tried to pull it all back in. This was bad. This was really fucking bad. Eyes wide, I breathed in shallow gasps as I carefully pulled the power back, shoved it down. Each heartbeat seemed to last minutes, pounding through me like the tolling of a bell. As I felt the power settle within me, I slowly stood. I could do this. I could fix this. All I needed to do was let go of the grove. That would stop it.
But I wasn’t holding the grove power anymore, not the way I always had before. Now it rushed like a river through me, impacting the lava of the rakkuhr. I couldn’t let go of the river, couldn’t hold it back, and the lava refused to be cooled.
My skin burned, and I looked down, shocked and at the same time not surprised to see that the sigils glowed with a fierce red-orange light. I felt as if my body could barely contain me. I trembled, hot and cold at the same, but a heartbeat later realized that it wasn’t all me, that the entire courtyard shook with a deep tremor. A wind rose from nowhere, whipping my hair about my face.
Mzatal struggled up to a crouch. “Kara!” he shouted above the rising wind, shock and horror on his face. “Drop…the…blade!”
I panted for breath as if somehow that could cool the raging furnace within me. I struggled to ease my grip and drop the blade, but it was as if he’d asked me to drop my hand. “I can’t!” It was a part of me—not physically, but it might as well have been.
The worry in his face deepened to distress. “Idris!” he called. “Take it down! Take it all down!”
Rhyzkahl staggered to his feet, shock written across his features, and still clutching his blade. He started to move toward me, but I flicked the fingers of my left hand and sent him sprawling again. I didn’t want him anywhere near me.
“Kara!” Mzatal took a step closer to me, extending to me on all levels. He held his blade in front of him as if to shield himself from my power. “Kara, you must stop.”
I was trying. Couldn’t he feel that? Another tremor shook us, accompanied by the sharp crack of splitting stone. The demons had all gone to ground, huddling with wings folded close against the fierce gusts of wind. With unnatural speed, dark clouds shot through with purple lightning filled the sky. Rhyzkahl pushed himself back to his feet, teeth bared as he took a step toward me, posture bowed as if leaning into a heavy wind. The sigils burned and throbbed with the triple potency, and I knocked him back again, grinning ferally as he went tumbling.
My vision grew weird, as if everything was far too bright, but with no way to squint or shield my eyes. I felt Idris working frantically behind me, dispelling his circle and then peeling away the layers of my own diagram.
My breath hissed through my teeth. I felt and saw the power coming off me in misty tendrils. It probably looked cool as all hell, but I also knew it was seriously fucked up.
Kara!
“Here,” I whispered, clinging to Mzatal’s essence-touch. It felt as if the echo of our merged energies was the only thing holding me together at all. He took a step back as Idris dispelled the diagrams. Rhyzkahl stood again, blade held in front of him. As he took a step forward, the sigils on my torso flared, sending searing razors of pain through me. I felt the bindings, the wrenching of my shoulders, those ten heartbeats when he brought the pain.
Crying out, I lifted my hand. I only wanted to hold him back, but the power came from me in a heavy wave, knocking everyone flat again. Behind me, Idris let out a choked scream as he lost hold of the pattern. The diagram fractured with a whine that felt and sounded wrong. Light flashed over Idris in a discordant wave, and he crumpled in the grass and was still.
Gasping shallowly, I shook my head to clear it. Idris. I hurt Idris. Panic and terror clawed at me. I couldn’t even think with the cacophony of the columns threatening to vibrate me apart.
Kara!
“Here!” I cried out. My eyes found Mzatal’s. “Mzatal, help me. I can’t stop it!”
Mzatal struggled to his feet again, nose streaming fresh blood. “We will stop it, Kara,” he said in a calm voice that I both felt and heard. He took another step back, toward Rhyzkahl.
Amkir and Vahl both sprawled on the ground as though injured, while Jesral clawed up to his hands and knees. The black and violet clouds boiled overhead. Tremors rolled ceaselessly. The sharp bite of the air increased a hundred fold, setting hair standing on end.
Mzatal turned to face Rhyzkahl as the pale-haired lord moved up beside him. Their eyes met, antipathy and intensity literally sparking in the potency between them. The wind continued to rise to near hurricane strength. The ground heaved, and I staggered to stay upright. A massive crack of stone sounded above the clangor of the columns. Glancing left, I sought its origin, then stared in horror as the western tower lost much of its foundation to a wide crevice. The tower sheered vertically, half of its mass crumbling in a low rumble of stone on stone into the depths of the rift. Flashes of color marked furnishings, paintings, and statuary lost in the tumult. Szerain’s studio. His personal chamber with its hundreds of memories captured in sculptures. All gone. Even amidst all the tumult, my heart clenched at the loss.
The two lords continued to stare at each other for a half dozen heartbeats, and then turned in unison to face me as if they’d come to a truce. Mzatal approached me with Rhyzkahl a step behind. I focused on him, vision shifting strangely. The power burned within me, completely beyond my control, but with it came an awareness of everything. I knew every blade of grass, every stone, every lord. Amkir struggled to stand. Jesral staggered toward the downed Vahl on the other side of the courtyard. I felt every demon, felt Idris behind me—still alive, thankfully, though who knew how long that would last if Mzatal couldn’t help me stop this.