Arwick (A Light Of Roria Sequel)

Chapter Eighteen

Staci

I covered my face with my hands, trying to make sense of what I'd just done. He was dead, and I killed him. I killed a man but had used dark magic to do it.

"Y-You aren't even human." Dropping my hands, I faced the door. I had forgotten about the guard who had kept watch with sick delight at my assault and was now staring at me in shock. It wasn't until his eyes moved across my face and arms that I realized my markings were visible on my skin.

"Woah," I said, stunned. The gray color swirled up my left forearm, crossing over my elbow, until it went underneath the lining of my black T-shirt. My right hand had the marks starting on my pointer finger that went beneath my cuffed wrist. The rest of my arm was mostly bare, except for a few random dashes of gray, never any longer or wider than my own thumb.

At first I didn't know how the markings had just shown up out of the blue. John had managed to hide the freaky things all my life, and I had wanted to keep it that way. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized his magic and the one I'd used were vastly different. Like oil and vinegar, the two couldn't possibly mix, which had to be why the conceal left me the minute I used dark magic.

When I finally looked back toward the guard, he was gone, and I assumed he left to blab about the news of another fairy, but this time he'd have to explain how I wasn't anything like the other fairy. I was the bad one.

As ashamed as I felt, something inside me still seemed so at ease with everything I'd done. I'd never felt so much hate in all my life. Then again nothing in my life had given me reason to hate that much. Not even when I'd been bounced around from foster home to foster home, never given the chance to know what home really meant. A flash of his hands on me came to mind, and I shook my head, trying to get the memory out, but instead I sensed that anger begin to rise again, and rather than pushing it away, I seemed to gravitate to it, ready to use that instead of what all my friends seemed to use instead: their faith.

"What is wrong with me?" My hands covered my face again while I pressed myself against the wall, wishing I could get the stupid chains off my wrists. Staring down at my cuffed hands, I wondered if divinity would have been able to cut through metal, before pushing away the thought. divinity didn't want me, and now that I'd used dark magic, it had dropped me like a bad habit (clearly since the conceal magic had vanished). But I wondered if something else could break the chains. Something that had already managed to keep me from further assault. I could see John's disappointed eyes looming over me while the rest of my faith-filled-why-is-it-so-easy-for-them gang appeared in my head.

"Oh, shove it," I said, as if my friends could hear me. "It'd be just one more time." I was sure after that, I wouldn't need to use it again. I just wanted the heavy chains off my sore wrists, and then down the line maybe I could whip up some pixie dust swords like Addisyn.

As soon as I concentrated on the anger from before, it pushed throughout my body at a shocking rate, freaking me out at how quickly I'd responded to something I knew was wrong. The pull to use dark magic was easy, and just like before, I felt a little satisfied by the power when the smoke emerged from my hand.

When the black blade became solid, I smashed it against the chain, but it did not break. With the second blow, I could feel the anger pushing me to keep at it, like it was alive and fighting for more control. I tried to push it out of my mind, to deny how good the anger felt, but it was just so easy to give in, and before I knew it, I was letting go, like a dam had busted free, letting the power move throughout me. It felt dark, cold, and isolated. But it also made me feel invincible, like I could lift a freight train or something.