Spellslinger (Spellslinger #1)(100)

Ra’meth brought his own hands up, fingers shaping the shield that had so effortlessly protected him from my earlier attacks. He looked disappointed.

The explosion flew at him, the flames ragged, like claws grasping at the invisible barrier of his shield. ‘I told you, boy,’ he said, ‘there’s more to magic than –’

His words were cut off as the two spells collided. The air all around him turned into red and black cinders as if his shield had begun to burn from the inside out. Then another rush, as it collapsed completely, and the fire of Chitra’s life and death raged all around him, the blood-red flames biting at his clothes, his flesh. I heard Ra’meth scream once, then he fell silent in a heap on the ground.

Chitra’s blood had given voice to the rage of her people.

I looked down at where Ra’meth lay on the forest floor. There was an almost perfect circle around him where the shield had kept out most of the blast until right before it collapsed. I waited until I saw the rise and fall of his chest to make sure he was still alive, then I reached into the pouches in my pocket for more powder to finish the job.

Something was wrong with my vision. The forest, or what remained of it, was still right there in front of me. Burnt trees and the charred corpses of men and squirrel cats littered the ground. Nothing moved, and yet, when I closed my right eye and gazed out through my left – the one with the shadowblack marks around it – the violence came to life. Screams of pain, of rage, of dying echoed in my ears. I shuddered, not because the sights made me sick, but because they made me feel good.

‘Intoxicating, isn’t it, kid?’ I turned to see Ferius Parfax walking towards me, leading two horses with her.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I replied, and turned my attention back to Ra’meth.

‘Your sister’s going to be fine, in case you’re wondering,’ Ferius said. ‘Squirrel cat’s alive too.’

It felt as if the marks around my left eye were moving, writhing under the skin, cold and yet burning at the same time. It made me feel alive. Powerful. ‘What about you?’ I asked. The words sounded as if they were coming from someone else. Someone weak and stupid. Someone who was in danger of forgetting that his enemy was at his feet, his life in his hands. My fingertips brushed the powders in my pockets. In a few seconds I was going to end Ra’meth for all time. I wouldn’t fear him ever again.

Ferius rolled her shoulders back, then tilted her head from side to side. ‘I’m a little sore. Nothing I ain’t used to.’ She walked over to stand close to me. Too close. ‘Come on, kid. You proved you’re the big man. Time to go do something real.’

Something real? She still didn’t know when to stop mocking people. I looked down at the man who’d murdered my uncle, who’d tried to take over my clan and tried to kill my sister. ‘I have to end him.’

I felt Ferius’s hand on my arm. ‘You want to end him. It’s not the same thing. Look at him, Kellen.’

I did. Scorched hair and skin showed through the burnt patches in Ra’meth’s robes where the explosion had broken through his shields. He was still unconscious, but I thought I heard him groan.

‘Wait long enough and maybe he’ll wake up,’ Ferius said, practically whispering in my ear. ‘If you’re real lucky he’ll reach out a hand, maybe twitch a finger. You can tell yourself that he was about to cast another spell.’

‘He might.’

Her hand squeezed my arm. ‘No, he won’t. Not with those injuries. It’ll be months before he can work a spell again, and you know it.’

‘Shut up, Ferius,’ I said, my eyes still on the form of the man at my feet. Say something, I begged him. Make a move.

‘You’d be within your rights,’ Ferius said. ‘I’ve travelled the length and breadth of this continent and there ain’t a court anywhere that would condemn you for what you’re about to do.’

‘Then why are you talking me to death?’

She spun me around to face her. ‘Because the Argosi don’t got no country, kid. But we got our own ways, and this ain’t one of them. You have to decide now which road you want to walk.’

‘It’s the shadowblack,’ I pleaded, wishing she would get away from me. I had to force my hands to stay in my pockets even as they itched to come out and toss the powders into the air and put an end to her annoying, self-important, incessant philosophising.

‘The shadowblack?’ She laughed. It was a strange sound, and I knew something about her in that laugh. Ferius wasn’t laughing because she thought this was funny. She wasn’t even laughing because she wanted to. She was laughing because this was how Ferius Parfax told the world she refused to be afraid of it. ‘Imagine if you could just go and catch a disease that meant you could do whatever you wanted, kill whoever you wanted. No guilt, no accountability. Now, wouldn’t that be just fine?’

‘I’m not imagining this!’ I shouted, wishing I could make her leave before I did something I’d hate myself for. ‘The shadowblack is real. It’s in me!’

She grabbed me by the neck with her other hand, squeezing. Damn, but she had a strong grip. ‘We all got ugliness inside us, Kellen. Yours is worse? Then fight harder. Figure it out. But don’t you ever pretend you don’t have a choice.’