Burnt Devotion (Imdalind, #5)(48)

“He’s coming.”

I didn’t dare ask for clarification. There was so much more in her statement than calm, something that I was missing.

I let the fear fuel my magic as I turned from my friends, facing the trees that in a moment would become nothing more than flame. They would face the full extent of my magic.

They used to say that there was a reason the fire magic was taken from the earth, that those too foolhardy to use it brought so much destruction to the earth that it was nothing more than flame and glass, which only made me wonder why I had been given such a unique gift.

Why me with my temper and my terrible sense of right and wrong? Why had I been cursed with so much power?

Back then, when I had flared for the first time, it had scared me. That was when I had known.

Even with all the destruction I had done, even with all the death I left behind me, it was something I had never fully unleashed.

Until now.

The magic built to a raging inferno that devoured me from the inside out, a tangible force that pressed against my skin, against my skull, that moved into my bones and rattled them until they were going to fall apart, which was exactly what was happening.

It was a magic so strong that it devoured every fiber of my being. It controlled every part of who I was to work.

I was nothing but fire, nothing but magic. Nothing but destruction.

I could feel the flames licking against my skin, fingers of every color moving over my body and slithering across the ground like snakes that only I could control.

Snakes of flame that would destroy everything in their path.

I fought the need to scream out in pain at the power that had consumed me, my body shrieking as it became nothing more than the flame that dwelled inside of me.

My eyes snapped open as the army burst through the trees. What Edmund had meant to be his last line of defense froze in place as they came face to face with the witch that was bound in an inferno.

One small woman with a frame so small she could be a child standing before them in a gown of fire. It was a rippling serpent that moved over her skin like it was nothing then licked over the ground and devoured trees as if they were little more than pieces of tissue.

I could see the fear in their eyes. I could see the reflection of the demon I had become. I smiled, the magic growing as my excitement did, ready to take that last step and destroy Edmund’s final attempt to do away with what he viewed as his enemies.

“Hello, lovelies.” My voice echoed with a dead hollow, the magic rippling through me as though I had become possessed. The fire grew with each word, rattling through the trees as they sparked with flame, the clothing of those that stood closest to me beginning to spark and smoke.

I was nothing except fire.

The fire was nothing except me.

I smiled once more as the flame devoured me, as I screamed in pain and exhilaration, my hands flying toward them as the blaze burst from me. It spread from me in a fan of flame that shook the ground then seeped into the soul in a cylinder of heat that turned everything to ash, that destroyed what Edmund had sent, a warning of what he was truly facing coming right on its heels.

Men turned to nothing more than smoke, trees evaporating from the sheer enormity of the pressurized explosion. With the force of an atomic bomb, it spread away from me, eating the world into nothing but flame, the once proud forest turning black and white with char.

No one would have guessed that an army had stood before us.

No one would have guessed what I had really held inside.

I wasn’t even sure Ilyan had known.

Now he would.

There was a reason I had wanted this power bound. It had never been a danger to me. I had learned to control it beyond all else. However, it was a danger to the world, and if Edmund got his hands on it…

And now he would want it more than before. Now he would stop at nothing to get it.

If he had ever been successful in all the times he had tried, this was what the world would have become—this barren wasteland that I now stood in the middle of, the ring of fire that I had unleashed continuing to burn in a slow moving circle that would smolder until someone mistook it for a forest fire and came to put it out.

I stood amidst the ruin, the black and red burn of the soul, looking at what was left of the world and of people I had known so many years before.

I stared at it, my heart tensing at the reality of what I faced, of what I had done. A regret I had never felt before seeped through me like an unwanted poison, eating at me until I pushed it away. The pain in my soul began to lessen as I stood in the center of it all, the fire that had taken control of my body settling back into my blood as if it was nothing more than a gentle burn.

Still, I didn’t move, my eyes scanning over what I had done, fighting with myself over whether or not I had made the right decision.

Although, there was no turning back now.

With one last look, I turned to run, plumes of blackened soil erupting into the air around me with each step, the golden embers eliminating what tree skeletons remained. I didn’t even look, only ran, letting my magic move into the earth with each step, my ability tracking the line of destruction as well as the quick progression of my friends, the frightful reality of their close intersection twisting through my gut.

My heart sped up to a hectic pace as I ran, knowing that, if they didn’t move faster, the fire would reach them. Then, not only would they see, but they would be in danger of having the same fire burn into them.