From The Ashes

Chapter Forty-Six

I breathed in deep through my nose and willed the wind to settle. 

Quiet took over the field. The only thing that could be heard was the breathing of the wolves around us. I looked to my father once again and smiled, signaling to him that I was ready. 

He frowned and adjusted his stance. I noticed that clenched and unclenched his hands repeatedly- something he was known to do when he was nervous. 

Good. He should be. 

He lifted his arms to defend himself. I rolled my eyes and lifted my curled hand before extending one finger in his direction. 

A gust of wind whipped past me, blowing my hair forward and hitting him square in the chest.

He fell to the frozen ground hard but bounced back up quickly. He growled at me and lowered himself closer to the ground.

My gaze locked on his as I did the same, preparing myself for his attack. He ran at me and I watched the muscles in his left arm twitch.

I leaned to the side and dodged his first hit, then his second. He glared at me.  

What did he expect? I had been top warrior in Moonlight and had only improved my skills in my time at DarkBlood. 

I pressed my bare foot into the ground a bit and felt the Earth shake underneath me.

I lined it's path toward my father and watched as a large crack began to snake it's way toward him. He dove to the side, narrowly avoiding being sucked into the crater. I huffed in frustration.

Couldn't this just be over quickly? 

I noticed movement in the corner of my eye and glanced to the side. Valen had awoken and was rushing over to his brother. He murmured some questions to Aislinn.

She looked grim but nodded her head at him. Artemis let out a wail and burrowed herself against Valen. He wrapped his arms around her and patted her back. There was no expression on his stone face. 

I felt the air leave my lungs and hot pain seared through my abdomen. I fell backward onto the dirt hard, and my head hit the ground. I saw stars for a moment before quickly getting back to my feet. 

Dear old dad had made my distraction his advantage. He had hit me so hard in the gut that I was having trouble breathing normally now.

I reached my hand back and touched my tender skull. When I brought it back to my face, I could see blood smeared on my finger tips. My lips lifted into a snarl. 

"That's the only good hit you're going to get on me," I spat. 

"What? You can't take hand to hand combat anymore? I guess your powers are nothing special after all," he scoffed. 

I growled at him once more and directed the wind to sweep through the trees on the perimeter. I brought it back to us and sent it flying in his direction. He wasn't fast enough to avoid it this time.

 He threw his arms over his face for protection, but he was still pelted with stones and his skin was torn by broken branches.

He collapsed for a moment as a stone the size of a cantaloupe connected with his forehead. I could see the swell of a lump beginning to form and blood streaked down his face.

I didn't give him time to recover. I dug my fingers into the earth, searching for anything under the soil that I could use to my advantage.

There were no roots near by large enough to cause any damage, but I did feel something unexpected. There was running water not far beneath us.