Celeste

  They circled me slow, like wolves scenting a wound. Smoke still clung to the air, and the glow from my hands had faded to little more than a tremor of light.

  When I pushed to my feet, the ground shifted under me as I fell back down. Eight sets of boots, a few horses pawing behind them. Men with bows slung and knives showing at their hips.

  One moved forward, smiling like a man who enjoys breaking things for sport. His eyes were small and cruel.

  “Pretty thing,” he said. “Looks like a prize.”

  I tasted iron from where I’d bitten my lip. My hands fumbled for the purse at my hip, for anything that could buy breathing room. My fingers closed on leather and found the coins still within. The world narrowed to the scrape of their boots and the whistle of wind through trees.

  An arrow thunked into the trunk beside me, close enough that bark sifted down onto my shoulders. The men laughed, low and easy.

  I shifted, inching one hand closer to the ground, and another arrow hissed, slamming into the dirt a finger’s breadth from my palm. The shock of it jolted up my arm.

  They roared at that, an ugly, delighted sound.

  I froze, heart thundering. Then, without thinking, my hand twitched again as I tried to steady myself. Another arrow shot down, burying itself so deep into the earth that the shaft quivered against my knuckles. I flinched, the sting of splinters nicking my skin.

  “Hands down, little bird,” one of them drawled, stepping closer with his bow still half raised. His grin was all teeth. “You so much as twitch, and we’ll pin you to the dirt before you shine.”

  The others murmured agreement, bows casually drawn, arrows nocked without hurry. They weren’t just surrounding me, they were savoring the moment, watching fear settle like a noose around my throat.

  The laughter rolled around me. I kept still, my palms pressed against the dirt, breath ragged in my chest.

  “Look at her eyes,” one of them said, voice low with hunger. “Like a cornered doe.”

  Another snorted. “Doe? More like a mare ready for breaking. Think she kicks when you climb on?”

  A third chuckled, notching his arrow with lazy precision. “Careful, boys. This one may bite when you touch her wrong.”

  The words drew another round of chuckles, crude and careless, and the air seemed to tilt. My stomach turned, but I forced myself not to flinch.

  They weren’t speaking of ransom or coin. They were speaking of me. Of what they’d take, piece by piece, until I was nothing.

  My throat closed, memories clawing up like hands from a grave. The cell. The stink of straw. The scrape of boots that had that mean same kind of laughter.

  No. Not again.

  If I let them close, if I let their hands on me, it would be the end.

  I gathered my breath, already feeling the faint stir of Light behind my ribs. My fingers shifted, curling for purchase in the dirt. I would blind them, burn them, tear a hole wide enough to run–

  The bowstring sang.

  Agony exploded through my hand. The force drove me sideways, cheek in the dust, my scream ripping raw from my chest before I could choke it back. An arrow jutted through the back of my hand, pinning it flat to the earth. The shaft quivered with the shock of it. Blood welled hot and fast, searing down my wrist.

  The men roared with laugher again, but this time the sound scraped crueler, like a pack of animals circling torn meat.

  “I said stay down, little bird,” the bowman said, his voice almost gentle over my ragged breathing. “Hands where we can see ‘em. You reach again, you won’t have fingers left to glow.”

  A second man stepped forward, a hungry grin in his eyes. “We don’t need her hands for what comes next,” he said. “Slice ‘em off. No more light, no more trouble.”

  The man stepped closer, knife already half out of its sheath, eyes bright with a greedy calculation. He bent–

  –and then the world cracked open.

  Hooves thundered, branches snapped, and from the trees burst figures cloaked alike, moving as one. They gave no warning cry, only violence.

  The air split sharp as a lash. One lifted his hand and a bandit was flung sideways, bow spinning uselessly as he slammed against a trunk. Another swept her arm, Fire blooming from her fists in a rush that sent three horses screaming, their riders scattering in panic. Ice snapped sudden and merciless, pinning a man’s foot to the ground. Steel found him a heartbeat later.

  I could only stare as the ambush turned, my tormentors undone by a storm of cloaks, casting, and blades.

  The knife hovered above me, its wielder flicking his eyes toward the chaos. That hesitation was enough.

  Pain and fury burned together, hotter than the shaft through my hand. I dragged Light through my chest, steady and narrow, the way Art had shown me.

  Condense, don’t scatter.

  I let it loose in a single, focused burst. He glanced back down at me before it punched through his skull in a flash of white brilliance. He dropped backward before the knife could fall.

  I barely had time to breathe before another rushed me. A sword caught the dying firelight as he raised it high, his teeth bared in fury. My pinned hand screamed with every heartbeat, but instinct cut sharper than pain.

  I yanked the arrow’s fletching free from my hand in one savage motion. The agony blinded me for a heartbeat, then Ardor answered, raw and wild.

  Ardor flared, condensed and controlled, and when I cast, it struck him full in the chest like a hammer of light. He didn’t even cry out. Just froze mid-stride, before collapsing in the dirt at my feet.

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  The strain hit after. My breath stuttered, the edges of my vision graying, but I was still upright. Two shots, clean and precise. It hurt, but it didn’t drain me dry.

  For a heartbeat the clash of battle seemed to pause. The nearest of the cloaked fighters – one with a scarred brow, another with Fire still guttering at his fingertips – turned sharply at the flare. Their eyes cut toward me, not with confusion but with recognition, as if they hadn’t expected to find me shining in the dirt.

  Then the fight swallowed the silence again, Wind shrieked down the trail, a wall of Ice shattered under a hammering blade, flames curled bright against the tree line. But the weight of those gazes lingered, colder than the blood dripping from my hand.

  They had seen. Not just a desperate woman fighting to survive. They had seen me cast.

  One of them, hair in a rough bun, gave a short nod before turning back to the fight, as if the flare of my casting had shifted some measure his mind. Another, a woman with ash smudged across her cheek, spared half a smile, quick and gone in a heartbeat, before she swept Fire into the undergrowth to drive the last bandit down.

  They hadn’t spoken to me, but the weight of their attention lingered even as they pressed the attack. Their eyes did not harden. They widened, some with surprise, others with a flicker that looked almost like respect.

  One man in particular drew my eye. He stood taller than most, a broad-shouldered figure whose presence seemed to cut its own space in the chaos. His skin was dark, his hair long and pale white, dreaded locks whipping with each motion; even younger than the streaks in his hair suggested. He moved with the quiet command of someone long used to others watching.

  His blade flashed, not wild but calculated, every strike paired with the sweep of air that bent to him as if it belonged. A slash of steel sent a gust howling, Wind snapping hard enough to twist him from the saddle. With the same motion, the man shifted his grip and swept outward, a controlled gale forcing another opponent off balance just long enough for his sword to find flesh.

  He fought without pause, Casting and blade woven close, though I could see the effort in it – the half-beat where his hands had to command the Wind before his steel followed through. It wasn’t seamless. Not like Art.

  Art’s movements had been fluid, as if the air itself chose to move with him, carrying him where he willed without pause. This man commanded it, bent it, but he never was it.

  And yet, something in the cadence of his strikes, the way the air sharpened his blows, the rhythm of Wind and steel, stirred a memory in me. Not Art. Not even close. But enough to make the ache of his absence sharpen in my chest.

  The clash dwindled to fragments, shouts fading, steel clanging fewer and farther between. A handful of the cloaked fighters broke off in pursuit, their horses tearing through the trees after the men who had managed to mount and flee.

  “Run them down. Leave none breathing,” the tall man with the white dreadlocks commanded, his voice carrying steady over the fading chaos. He didn’t shout. He didn’t need to. Half of the men moved at his word without hesitation, the ground trembling under their hooves as they vanished into the trees.

  The air smelled of smoke and churned earth, the remnants of Fire and Wind still unsettled in the branches. For a moment I could only stand there, hand throbbing, the afterburn of Ardor still clinging to my skin. Then my memory struck me.

  The gelding.

  I stumbled past the fallen men, past a bow and the twisted wreck of a shattered spear. My boots slipped in the dirt as I reached the place where he’d gone down.

  He lay on his side, flanks heaving, blood pooling dark beneath him. His eyes rolled white with panic, nostrils flaring ragged against the dirt. The arrows still jutted deep, one at his shoulder, one sunk cruelly into his ribs. Each breath was a battle he was losing.

  I dropped to my knees beside him, dirt and blood soaking through my cloak. My good hand pressed uselessly against his neck, against the shuddering pulse there.

  “You’re all right,” I whispered, though my voice broke. “You did so well. Better than I deserved.”

  His ears flicked once at my voice, then sagged. His body trembled beneath my touch, his hooves scraping weakly at the earth.

  Around me the last of the fighting fell silent, the cloaked strangers gathering, their work done. But the world narrowed to the gelding’s labored breath, to the cruel stillness that was waiting just ahead.

  Bootsteps crunched soft behind me. I didn’t look up until a shadow fell across the horse. The cloaked woman crouched nearby, her dark braid pulled back tight, soot still streaked across her cheek from the casting she’d flung into the trees. Her eyes softened when she saw the horse.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, voice quiet. “He’s gone too far. Let me… end it quick for him.”

  My chest seized. The words ripped from me raw, louder than I meant. “No!”

  The woman startled back, hand half-reaching for her knife as though I’d struck her. For a moment she only stared at me, uncertain. Around us, the others turned at the sound, some with brows lifted, other frowning at the outburst.

  I lowered my gaze, my throat burning. My hand shook where it pressed against the gelding’s hot, shuddering skin. He groaned once, a sound that cut deep into me.

  I couldn’t lose another, not after he’d done so much to get me here.

  I swallowed hard, and when I spoke again my voice was steadier. “I can save him.”

  The words landed heavy in the silence. The woman’s eyes widened, confusion flickering there. A few of the men nearby exchanged glances, their expressions unreadable. Even the tall man with the white dreads turned his head, his gaze searching me.

  I removed each arrow and pressed both hands to the gelding’s wounds, the blood slick and hot beneath my palms. My breath shook, the ache in my pierced hand nearly blinding me, but I pushed past it. This wasn’t Ardor I reached for. Not the sharp, searing brilliance I’d flung at men moments ago.

  I reached deeper. To the other current I carried.

  The quiet one.

  The steady one.

  The light that rose was not harsh but warm, a glow that seeped into torn flesh instead of burning through it. It poured from me in a tide that carried pain away with each pulse, knitting skin, closing ruptured vessels, mending what steel and arrow had ruined.

  The gelding thrashed once, his scream breaking into a whimper, then stilled as the glow spread. His breathing evened, each pull of air less ragged than the last. Blood slowed, then ceased, the wounds closing under my hands until only scarred flesh remained.

  The gelding’s sides rose and fell. His eyes rolled once, then blinked clear, and he turned his head weakly to press against my arm.

  Silence followed.

  When I looked up, the cloaked fighters had stilled. Some wore wariness in their eyes, others something closer to awe. Even the tall man with the white dreadlocks lingered on me, gaze unreadable but fixed, as if weighing the truth of what he’d just seen.

  The gelding’s sides rose steady beneath my palms, his trembling eased into a ragged calm. I sagged against him, breath coming in shudders, every ounce of strength drained with the Casting. My pierced hand throbbed as if fire still smoldered in the wound, but it was nothing compared to the hollow ache left in my chest.

  If I drew again, even a whisper of Light, I knew I’d fall.

  But he was alive. And for now, that was enough.

  The cloaked strangers had gone quiet. They stood scattered among the fallen, some wiping blades, others stooping to strip the dead of coin or weapons. Their eyes kept sliding back to me, not cruel, not mocking, but heavy with something I couldn’t name.

  The woman with the braid broke the silence, her voice low with wonder. “Two affinities…”

  Before I could lift my head, the drum of hooves carried through the dusk. The riders who had given chase thundered back into view, their cloaks snapping in the wind. They slowed as they rejoined the band, spattered with mud and blood, but upright, their faces set in grim satisfaction. One tossed a severed sash to the dirt as proof enough of their work.

  At the head of the returning riders was a powerfully built man with long, dark blonde hair that fell in loose waves, with a few braids woven into the beard framing his jaw. He swept a gaze over the scene and arched a brow.

  “Someone wanna introduce the lass, or are we all just starin’ at her for fun?”

  A few of the others shot him sharp looks, as if they wished he’d picked a better time. But the tension didn’t break. It just shifted, tilting toward me again.

  The tall man with the pale dreads turned to the riders, then to me. He looked younger than the streaks of his hair, but there was weight in him, the kind that made the others wait on his word.

  He took in the gelding rising unsteadily, the glow still fading from my hands, the stunned hush clinging to his people.

  His gaze locked on me, sharp and unflinching.

  “You’re an Aberration.”