Sold

30: Dark Magick, Over-Control

My lungs tighten as I struggle to draw in my next gasp of air. The blue light I usually see is replaced with pure black tendrils clawing at me, burning my skin, and constricting my throat.

I've done this to myself, haven't I? Was...Berea right?

My heart clenches and my stomach sinks. Maybe I was wrong to hate her. Maybe I was wrong to think she was foolish and jealous of me. As my vision fades, I wonder if I'm too far gone. A memory of Master Synn petting my hair and holding me against his warm chest flashes through my brain. My decisions nauseate me.

Is it too late to go back to how it was? I close my eyes, warm tears running down my cheeks. I miss him. I miss myself. I just wanted to make my choices.

My eyes flutter closed and my limbs grow heavy as the black tendrils swallow my body.

The walls of magick on either side of me dissipate and I crumple to the ground, with black electricity swirling around my body. 

It really was their magick crushing me and my own magick suffocating me. 

My eyes struggle to fully adjust, but I see a blur of energy blast into Vylek. I turn my gaze to the source. 

Synn stands at the edge of the trees, his chest rising and falling as if he's traveled a long way in a short time. His long hair tumbles, disheveled around his sharp features, and his lips are pressed together tightly as he stares toward his brother.

My heart swells. I'm dying, aren't I? But at least I get to see him one last time...

At that thought, the dark magick cinches tightly around me, draining the warmth from my chest and the compassion from my heart until my blood boils at the sight of him.

Why the hell is he here? Fury claws my insides like a starving animal and I narrow my eyes as I watch him step into the clearing. I want to kill him.

He doesn't look at me.

"How the hell did you get out of your shackles?" Hyrda screams from inside the orb. Synn holds an emotionless expression as he pulls a key out of his pocket and tosses it to the ground below Hyrda's prison. Her hands quickly grasp toward her ankle and she scowls. "How dare you!"

"Try paying more attention next time."  His gaze slips toward me but never looks directly at me. "You're hardly better at controlling your emotions than she is."

Synn raises his hand to throw another jolt of power toward Vylek, but something stops him.

His father raises his hand, blocking Synn's magick. "I am weary of this, Mexynn. I am weary of you dismissing our name, dishonoring our brood, hiding away our magick, and escaping to the woods unwilling to tell us anything about its location."

"I am weary of you treating me as if I'm not your son." Synn's jaw tenses and his eyes narrow. "I am weary of you not teaching any of us the dangers of magick and proper control. Perhaps it wasn't enough to you that it killed the love of your life. Do you truly think she didn't regret what she did?"

"She did not regret it. It was everything we made together. We are the highest brood now. We are the future rulers of this continent and we could have expanded upon her vision had you not hidden the chrysallite!" He hisses, sending spikes of magick toward Synn, who narrowly dodges.

"You are a disgrace to your mother and I. You were not our child, never, and I'm going to treat you as if you weren't!" His voice raises, and wider spikes fly from his fingertips. One of them slices into Synn's thigh and he stumbles, struggling to deflect the rest with his magick. "I never thought of you as our child, and I'm going to treat you just how a traitor deserves!"

"Fine!" Synn finally screams back, clenching his hands into fists and raising them toward the sky. "Then I will treat you like I'm not your child!" 

Synn opens his hands and magick trickles from the heavens like puppet strings, weaving into circles and wrapping around his father as the spikes hit around his body, grazing his limbs and flicking blood onto the ground.

Synn's white eyes glaze over with red and the expression on his face is incomparable to anything I've ever seen. The strings of magick constrict his father, pulling so tight I can see his skin darkening. His father stops shooting bolts of magick toward Synn as the strings pull him close, and Synn looks him straight in the eyes.

"Goodbye, then, stranger." Synn's voice is like ice. 

He snaps his fingers, and the strings of magick slice completely through his father's body, instantaneously cutting him into hundreds of tiny pieces. 

Blood drifts to the ground and his flesh drops to the dirt as a pile of mush. Hyrda screams, and Vylek's expression darkens. 

Synn's gaze returns to normal and he peers over at Vylek. Neither of them speak. Instead, their fingertips fly toward one another, and both of their bodies levitate and constrict. I smile. 

This is the perfect opportunity.

I raise my hands and send forth as much of the black magick as I can muster, wrapping it around Vylek. His body shudders as the lightning encompasses it. I will it to penetrate every one of his cells, burning him, destroying him.

It follows my will oh so effortlessly.

Vylek releases Synn and tries to turn his hand toward me, but it's too late. His body shudders once more and he falls to the forest floor. Light bursts from every inch of his body, breaking through his skin in cracks and his body shatters, sprinkling through the air like glittering sunshine.

Hyrda screams again and I twist my wrist toward her, plucking each bone from her body as she pounds against her enclosure before falling un-moving to the bottom of her captive orb.

He's dead. He's dead. And she's dead. Just one more to go.

I turn my gaze toward Synn and his pale eyes stare back across the clearing.