Fire Breather

96.

Xaden's pov

EVERY nerve in my body screams from the pain of incineration, the heat from wielding too much for too long burning me alive. But worse than the pain is the defeat.

"It hurts, doesn't it? Nearing burnout?" The Sage walks a slow circle around me, mere feet from the ravine I had to cross to prove I could cut it in this place. "Magic does like everything in balance. Take too much and she'll consume you for overstepping."

I tear at the bonds he has wrapped around me, invisible strings of power that bind me like my sister when she was forced to watch Axel die.

Gods, that look of heartbreak on her face hasn't left me since the moment I saw it.

I refuse for her to look like that again, especially over me.

"You strike. I block. You throw. I dodge." He sighs, dragging his staff in the dirt behind him.

Just like my fucking nightmares.

Except the sweat dripping down the back of my neck reminds me that this is very much my reality. That Blaine and Violet are beneath Basgiath, fighting to raise the wards; that Tairn and Nim are picking off the wyverns tearing at Sgaeyl above me to keep her from my side. What is it about me that fails the females in my life?

"So, I'm going to give you one last chance to make the right choice so we can get this over with," the Sage says, stopping in front of me and smiling up at me with those eerie red-rimmed eyes and spider-webbed veins. He retreats a handful of steps, then taps the staff on the ground.

Gravity claims me, and I fall, passing my feet and slamming into the ground on my hands and knees. But then my vision darkens for a moment before clearing again...with a view of the wardstone chamber. I'm seeing through someone's eyes.

That's Blaine—my baby sister is on her knees, a crimson red hand on the wardstone, imbuing it with her head leaning against it, sweat covering her shaking body with Brennan crouched down a few feet away, trying to talk to her. But even I can see—through Violet's eyes—that Blizzy is nearing burn out.

My heart beats erratically as I helplessly watch Blaine brace her other hand against the ground and freeze for a heartbeat, her eyes flaring at what she can feel under her.

"No." She squeezes her eyes shut. "You will not die."

"You can't do this, Blizzy!" Violet sluggishly turns her head to Sloane who watches our sister with tears in her eyes as she runs into the chamber.

Oh gods, Blaine is going to kill herself to save us.

To save me.

That's my job, the promise I made to myself and our father.

I'm supposed to save and protect her.

"I'm sorry," Blaine whispers, opening her eyes to watch Sloane, and then she looks over her shoulder at my crying Violence with exhaustion burning across her features. "Tell Xade I'm so sorry and tell Garrick I love him."

No! No, no, no.

She can't do this. She can't give up her life for ours.

Gods, please no. Not her. Not my baby sister.

When my sister looks away and down at her hand on the ground, my heart stops at the sound of Nim's roar somewhere behind me.

Horror floods the pathway, and my vision darkens, taking my sister away from me.

I blink and breathe deeply, feeling regret and fear fill my body as the battlefield comes back into my sight around me.

"I told you once that you'd turn for love," the Sage says, holding his arm out. "And so you shall."