Dawn of Ash (Imdalind, #6)(112)

Everything I fired at him was deflected without so much as a thought.

“Pathetic,” he barked, his magic shooting right to where I was about to dodge, hitting against a small pile of trash and sending it into flames, as though he knew where I was going to go. Because he does, I realized with a start.

I did, too. After all, I had seen this before. I had done this before. I had watched the world move in a wave of sight and reality. I had battled Wyn, seeing her move before she did it.

Knowing what to do.

Just as I knew now.

With one blink, my eyes plunged to the black of sight, my magic swelling as the vision overlaid reality in a seamless prophecy.

Sain moved from point A to point B moments before he actually did, and this time, I was ready—my magic was ready.

With one surge, I attacked. With one surge, I hit him.

“Wonderful,” Sain crowed the moment I glanced at him, my heart thundering in my chest while the reality of what was about to happen increased. “Don’t hold back now. I want to feel justified when I kill you.”

“If I let you.” I attacked as he did, streams of color and magic, walls of fire and smoke. Everything shifted and shuddered around the dome he had trapped us in, the magic moving so fast I was amazed I was able to keep up, my magic and mind both in the present and future in perfect harmony. Everything worked seamlessly.

The shadows of two realities were moving one right after another, my magic moving to mimic what he was doing, what he was going to do, just as he did to me.

He stuttered effortlessly from inside the dome, his body disappearing and reappearing so fast that, if I hadn’t been paying attention, I would have missed it. Instead, I turned, deflecting his attack as he moved back to where he had started, his grin wide.

“Good,” he sneered. “Perhaps you do have the ability, after all. But it takes more than seeing to know what to do.” His smile spread for the briefest of moments before his attacks began again, the complicated motions increasing as Ilyan’s screams of fear and pain moved through my mind, mine moving to join his.

Desperately, I turned toward Ilyan’s shout, toward his pain in a need to help him. That one move, one misstep, caused me to miss Sain’s attack as it moved into me.

A burn plunged through my body like water on ice. I gasped at the sensation, turning to him as I stumbled back, my attack moving toward him in a pathetic attempt to counter.

He only laughed as he side-stepped, another attack moving toward me as a shadow of myself appeared behind him. I watched the movement of my future self, not sure I had the strength, but I followed unquestioningly and stuttered from one point to another, appearing behind him as I had in sight. Jerking my hand forward to attack, he turned, an attack of his own moving right into my gut. His magic flared as he, too, stuttered. This time, he moved away from me, leaving me standing, heaving as my magic tried to dispel the pain.

As my magic began to fade.

“Joclyn!” Ilyan screamed. His magic moved through me in vain as his own pain filled me, the sounds of magic attacking the barrier rumbling around us.

“Oh no,” Sain tsked, the sound reverberating as I watched him through watering eyes. “You were doing so well, too. You just forgot one thing: sight is a guide, not a road map. In fact, didn’t you say that a few minutes ago?”

Without warning, he attacked again, magic slamming into me and throwing me into the air and against his barrier. I tried to fight the hold, to fight his magic, but his attack still raged through me, everything weak and sore as he easily took control.

Sliding down the firm surface like an egg against linoleum, I cringed, still trying to fight before I crumbled against the ground.

“Don’t trust it,” Sain growled as he walked toward me.

“Joclyn!” The sound of Ilyan’s fist against the barrier became a loud, hollow pressure inside my head.

I knew I was done for. Judging by Sain’s smile, he knew it, too. He wasn’t going to hold back.

I could hear Ilyan and Ryland as they fought in vain, their mad attempt to defeat an undead foe ending at nothing.

We were cornered.

Squaring my shoulders, I stared at my father, trying to pull through his attack to gain enough power to attack just once. I wasn’t going down without a fight.

It couldn’t end like this.

It wasn’t supposed to.

“What?” Sain sneered, his magic pushing against me. “Aren’t you going to beg?”

“Girls don’t beg.” The voice came from behind me, loud, angry, and stronger than I was certain anyone else could manage at the moment. “We kick ass.”

As though someone had opened up a flamethrower inches from my face, Wyn’s magic erupted from beside me, breaking through the barrier like a needle to a balloon. The translucent prison fell away as fire exploded inches from Sain’s feet, the flames licking around his ankles in what was obviously meant as warning.

Sain’s eyes widened at the sudden change, his demeanor shifting. For a moment, I swore I saw the sniveling father I had known for the last few months—a rat cornered by a cat.

“But you can beg if you’d like,” Wyn said as she came up beside me, her hand still raised before her, the powerful heat of her magic emanating around her like a space heater. “Not that it would do any good. For you, Sain, I would show you what my magic can really do.”