Ancient Magic (Dragon's Gift: The Huntress #1)(58)

I dived to the side, barely missing being struck by it. I lunged up and threw my bolt at him, praying.

It hit him square in the chest. He shook and fell, his body alight.

I sprinted to him. It’d been a small bolt. Was he dead?

I skidded to a stop near him and straddled him, my hands around his throat. They hit a thick metal collar, but it didn’t strike me as odd when I felt his magic. He was alive. Which I could have guessed since his electric cage still buzzed over my deirfiúr. It should fade when he died.

He looked young—not more than twenty. He had black eyes and would have been handsome if his magic didn’t feel so awful—dark and polluted. It washed over me. It felt like drowning in tar made up of people’s evilest impulses. Though strangely, it didn’t feel connected to him. Like it was separate. It made no sense.

I shook him. “What do you know about me?”

His eyes fluttered open, then widened.

“FireSoul,” he hissed.

“How do you know?”

He just laughed. His dark magic pulsed, making me want to retch. It felt like it reached inside of me and twined about my insides, squeezing.

“Tell me or I’ll kill you,” I demanded.

“You kill me, he kills me. What’s the difference? It would be a blessing.”

“Who is he? Do you work for someone?”

His black eyes rolled in his head. “He hunts you. You are the hunted now, Huntress.”

“How do you know that name?” Only my deirfiúr knew that name. I shook him hard and he coughed.

“The scroll,” he wheezed. “I read it. Master will be pleased to know where you are.”

“Master? Who the hell is that? Why does he want to know where I am?” Fear chilled my skin.

“Master hunts us all.” He stared up at me with blank eyes.

“All?”

“All of us. FireSouls.”

Us? It hit me then, with sickening clarity. The collar. His immense power. He was an enslaved FireSoul. Possibly enslaved by the man from my nightmare—the one who’d kept me in that dark stone room.

It was monstrous.

My gaze caught on his collar. There was a large latch on the front. It enraged me.

I pushed on the latch. The collar popped off.

He sucked in a harsh breath. The dark magic that had pulsed from him surged from the collar, washing over his body. Suddenly, his own magic felt purer, cleaner. It smelled like the desert and tasted like oranges. But the tar of the dark magic still covered it, sick and evil. His skin darkened, turning gray, as if the evil magic within him were rising to the surface.

“Does he know where I am?” I asked.

His gaze met mine. His eyes had changed from black to blue. And they were clearer. As if his mind were no longer fogged by the collar.

“No,” he whispered. “Why he…needs the scroll. To find more of us.”

“But you were in my shop.”

“Not for you. For the chalice. He wants it. Shadow demon failed… He sent me to track it. I did not know what you were…until I read the scroll.” He was gasping between words now.

“You haven’t told him about me, then?” My heart beat so hard it tried to break my ribs.

“Was going to tonight…when he meets me.”

“He meets you here?”

He jerked his head in assent. “Not allowed at his compound. FireSouls find the treasure, bring it here. He meets us. He doesn’t…want us knowing where he is. But now, never have to see him again. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Death. Removing the collar.”

“That killed you?” Horror welled in my chest. I’d killed him by removing it?

“No. It’s…good. I was dead as soon as he put it on me. He can find me anywhere with it, but removing it releases the dark magic. Poisons me…” A hacking cough wracked him. He sucked in a ragged breath. “But you freed me. I wanted to take it off, but I couldn’t. Forbidden…impossible for me to remove myself. But you’ve given me a gift.”

His life had been so terrible that he believed this was a gift? “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ll be free. There is no other way to be free once you wear the collar.”

My mind spun with the horror of what he was saying.

“I can help you. Get you a healer,” I said. “My friend heals.”

“There is no healing this.”

He was right. The gray was rising closer to the surface of his skin now. I could still feel his magic—bright and pure—but it was failing to keep the darkness from taking him.

“Take my magic,” he said. “Use it to save yourself.”

Tears burned my eyes. “What?”

“You’ve killed me, FireSoul. Now take my magic. My gift…to you.”

A lump rose in my throat. I didn’t want to. It felt dirty—not his magic, but the act of stealing from him as he died. I didn’t want to take someone else’s magic, much less that of a boy whom I’d killed.

“He comes for you,” he wheezed. “You need strength. You must fight. Take it.”

I sobbed, tears blurring my vision. “But I killed you.”

“You have to. Make my death mean something. Use my power to defeat him. He comes for you… Even without the scroll, he will find you.”