The Iron Butterfly (Iron Butterfly #1)(61)

My mind was in such angry turmoil that I walked straight up to and then through the great winged doors before realizing that Cassiel had opened for me and I wasn’t accompanied by a Denai.

Turning to the great steel man, I whispered a quick thank you, before taking my seat along the bench. Instructor Weston announced his arrival with his regular clap of thunder, and I was proud that I didn’t jump. That pride didn’t last long when he told us to pair up for training.

Looking up, I saw Syrani smirking at me. “Are you ready, rat?”

Taking a quick glance around, I noticed everyone had already picked a partner. I had a gut feeling that Syrani orchestrated our pairing on purpose. We were supposed to test each other’s limits and I knew that this was going to get ugly.

“Let’s see what you’ve got,” Syrani smiled serenely at me. That was all the warning I was given and the ground shifted beneath my feet and giant pillars of stone shot out of the ground, knocking me backwards.

I gasped in surprise as I rolled out of the way of the falling pillar of stone. She was gifted in earth; somehow that wasn’t what I had expected.

Her tinkling laugh filled the air in challenge, “Come on, lil’ Thalia! Show your teeth!”

I couldn’t do anything but run when she caused a giant hole to erupt around my feet. The earth I stood on crumbled and fell away into nothingness, and I backpedaled to keep my feet on solid ground. But I kept sliding with the earth toward the hole.

Screaming, I reached out and caught a tree root and held on as my feet dangled over nothingness.

“Come on, Thalia! Show me how strong you are; show me what impressed the Adepts so much that they thought you worthy to train among us.”

Did no one see what was going on? Was no one going to help me?

More laughter rang in my ears and my anger started to build. Reaching hand over hand, I pulled my own body weight out of the hole using the tree root, and I stood back and glared at Syrani in challenge.

“Stop it,” I yelled.

“Make me,” she yelled back, and as fast as the hole in the earth appeared it disappeared and was solid earth again. Syrani walked across the earth and came to stand in front of me. She raised one polished finger and tipped my chin back so I could look into her eyes.

“That is if you can?” she finished.

Anger boiled over and I pushed her finger away from my face. I stood up straighter and did the only thing I could think of to fight back. I punched her.

Syrani shrieked in pain and backed away from me, wiping her nose to reveal a small trickle of blood.

I smiled crookedly at her.

“I don’t care what the SwordBrother threatens to do to me,” she spat out between gritted teeth, breathing in rage. “You are dead.”

The ground shifted again, became finer, softer and I started to sink into the earth as it hungrily pulled at my boots.

Quicksand!

This was not how I thought I would die. It couldn’t be, could it? The sand was to my knees and I turned and tried to struggle toward the edge of the sandpit.

“Come on. Do something!” someone shouted.

Then another voice picked up, “Fight her back.”

I glanced up through sand-filled eyes and saw that everyone else had stopped what they were doing to watch Syrani and I battle. What surprised me the most was that they were cheering for me.

The sand pulled harder and faster; it was up to my chest. Desperately I swam through the sand, trying to find some sort of foot purchase or hand hold. A clap of thunder alerted me to the presence of Instructor Weston and I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that he would make Syrani stop.

I stopped struggling and waited for help. As the pull of the quicksand continued, I searched the crowd and saw Weston standing fifteen paces away; immobile. He didn’t move a muscle to help me; his grey eyes were riveted to me.

When it reached my neck; I knew that no one was going to help me. No one cared enough to help; and that infuriated me. My breathing became ragged and I had trouble focusing, the sand started to fill my mouth and I could only scream with rage. I was not going to be made a victim again. I had one final breath of air and then I was under the sand. It was cool, dark, and slightly moist against my body that felt too warm, too hot.

Pain wreaked havoc on my body. If I could have screamed, I would have as searing light burned through my body into my soul. I heard a loud crack and I felt as if a piece of me was broken in two. Something was wrong, it didn’t feel right. I wasn’t surrounded by light but by darkness.

Power like no other surged through my body, my fingers and bones ached with the electric current and I burned with anger. I wanted someone to pay for hurting me.

I could see with my subconscious; I could see through the sand and see the worry among the Denai students. I didn’t care, I wanted them to hurt.

I saw the light that surrounded Syrani and I pulled at it, her power, life, and squeezed. I could see her panic and start to cough as she tried to catch her breath.

THALIA. This isn’t the way, Faraway’s voiced echoed clearly in my mind, calming me. You must not steal power from others or destroy them, it’s not right.

“Then how?”

You know how.

And I did.

Looking down at myself with my inner vision, I saw that my own inner light was not a bright, glowing white like the other Denai, but full of darkness and shadows.

The Denai power isn’t free. It has a cost, physically, every time they use it. And for whatever twisted reason, I was now able to steal another’s life energy and use it without depleting my own strength. No, not able to, wanted to.