Bloodspell (The Cruentus Curse, #1)(62)
In a cloud of snow, the skier skidded to a halt about forty feet away from her. Victoria felt the air shift. She feinted to the side just as a blast rocketed past her head. Magic! She gasped as she hit the ground and rolled left. Another blast melted the snow right where her head had been seconds before. She vaulted to her feet and crouched, unleashing a powerful blast of magic of her own, which the skier easily dodged. Victoria felt the air shift around her again and realized that the barrier was back. That meant that the skier couldn't use magic against her while the bubble was in place! Then again, neither could she.
Victoria could feel the blood boiling under her skin, begging her to release it, and she brutally forced it back. She needed to use her head and find out who the attacker was and what his purpose was. If she let the blood have its way, who knew what would happen?
The skier moved down about five feet and appeared to be watching Victoria intently. Then in an unexpected move, the skier pointed his skis downhill and started to come directly toward her as if for a physical attack.
Victoria realized that there was no way she could reattach her board and try to out-race the skier. She just wasn't that good, and since she couldn't outrun the skier in her boots, that left only one choice, magic, and if worse came to worse, blood magic. She pushed against the barrier and felt the same unyielding flexibility—it was incredibly strong magic, she thought, unwillingly impressed, but now also completely desperate.
In the seconds before the skier impacted, Victoria braced herself, digging her nails into her palms, and felt the blood fill her eyes as she let it loose, the magic bursting into the barrier in a blast so potent that it melted the snow at her feet instantly. The barrier exploded into emptiness as if it had been made of nothing but air, the atomic force of the blast knocking the skier head over heels almost a hundred feet up the mountain.
Victoria felt the ground beneath her feet rumble and alarm underscored the brief relief of having bested her attacker. The rumbling grew louder! She looked up the mountain at the ominous cloud of white that was rushing her way.
Avalanche!
Her breath caught frozen in her chest as the giant tidal wave of snow, triggered by the resulting shockwaves of her magic, bore down upon them. Victoria watched in horror as the snow covered the motionless body of the skier in a matter of seconds and headed toward her in a monstrous white cloud. Her mouth hung open in a soundless gasp, the fear decimating.
Think! Victoria told herself urgently.
The blood was still racing in her veins, but she felt curiously weakened, which she had never felt after magic use before. As her hands drifted toward her neck for the amulet that wasn't there, she realized that she was weak because without it, her complex spell had absorbed her own energy. She gritted her teeth and pulled herself together. Without the amulet, Victoria didn't know if she had the strength or the clarity to teleport off the mountain completely. But it was the only option she could think of.
She pulled her remaining energy into herself, surprised by the sudden rush. Strange. It was more powerful than she'd expected but she didn't have time to dwell on it. Victoria focused, clearly envisioning her bedroom in the condo. She completed the preparation process and started to cast the spell.
"Tran—"
The blood in her veins whistled and Victoria froze. She knew that feeling—it was blood magic! And her blood's magic thrived on sacrifice!
Victoria's eyes snapped open in horror, and although the break in concentration didn't alter the spell, what she saw around her certainly did. Rows and rows of dead, blackened trees on either side of the trail in perfect symmetry around her, like the victims of a precise flash forest fire. She gasped. The teleportation spell slipped away from her even as a flood of white covered them.
Before the force of the snow hit her and sent her tumbling forward, Victoria did the only thing she could do—she grabbed her snowboard and braced herself, crouched and facing down the mountain with the board against her back. With the last remaining energy she had inside of her, she held strong to the earth building an invisible magical wall behind her. She felt the snow rush over and past her like a white river. Then the world darkened and disappeared completely.
Victoria knew she was still alive if only from the excruciating pain in her leg. She couldn't see a thing in the darkness but could hear the harshness of her breath in the small cave she lay in. She forced herself to breathe slowly knowing she didn't have much time before the oxygen in the tiny cavern disappeared. She needed to think. Fast.
The mountain personnel would have seen that there had been an avalanche, so once the snow settled, they would most likely send rescue vehicles for the few remaining people on the mountain. Victoria didn't know much about avalanches but she was hopeful that the trees would have dissipated much of the force before it reached the lower mountain.
Her leg was sticking out at an odd angle, obviously broken unless she had some other bendable ability she didn't know about. She didn't want to move too suddenly as she had no idea just how much snow she was sitting under, so she gingerly tried to shift her weight and winced at the sharp pain shooting up her leg. Victoria had no idea how long it would take to replenish her natural store of magic without killing anything around her, and she felt the panic surge in her belly. Then again, if it was a choice between her and a few trees, she could probably live with the sacrifice.
Victoria concentrated on healing her leg. The effort drained her, as she had to consciously prevent herself from taking any energy from the living things all around her. She could kill whole colonies of ants for a smidgen of energy, hundreds of birds, trees, anything that had life in it. The price of the blood magic was all the power in the world just at the cost of a conscience and a soul. Hers.