Blowing Embers

Chapter 51

            Kallai focused on the words as she reached for the heat in her centre, letting it swim into her veins. She identified the chant as a variation on the light dagger spell, one that would cause the projectiles to rain down on them. Two other voices joined Azaz, as Eran and Makol began their own spells.

            She took a step forward at the same time that Shuu did, both their gazes latched onto Azaz. She sent a flaming rope to wrap around the bottom of his robes, setting them instantly on fire. He broke his chant off with a choking gasp as he frantically shook at his robes, trying to put out the climbing flames.

            A moment later his hands were at his throat, clawing at it. As he went bright red, his face contorted, Kallai halted the advance of her fire, frowning. When Azaz turned blue, she knew what was happening. “Don’t kill him,” she told Shuu, glancing at him.

            Her friend shrugged and flicked his fingers in Azaz’s direction. The boy dropped to the ground, gasping for air, shuddering as he sucked in all the oxygen he could. Neither Shuu or Kallai paid him much attention, already turning away from each other and towards the two still chanting.

            Kallai’s target was Eran, his face pale as he looked at her, his words trembling though he didn’t stop speaking them. Holding her hand out in front of her, she ignited it, letting him see the flames licking around her palm, lighting her face in its flickering light. Sweat broke out on his face, turning it shiny, but still he kept going.

            Knowing he wasn’t going to stop, and recognizing the spell as the same acid one Azaz had tried to use on Shuu, all those nights ago, Kallai brought her chin up. If he wouldn’t stop, she’d make him. Up rose the fire, enveloping her arms until she shaped it into twining ribbons . She lashed out with both hands, sending the fiery whips racing towards the boy. The first swung at his feet, making Eran stumble back, sweat dripping off his nose. The second wrapped around his waist.

            He screamed then, his chant broken, as the fire set his robes ablaze. Kallai called it back almost instantly, not wanting to hurt him, just make him stop. To keep him secure, she set a circle of fire around him, raising it until it was at shoulder height with him. She left him several feet on every side, so he could escape the heat, but gave him no option to escape. After all, he’d never done that for her.

            Kallai looked at Shuu then. He had Makol trapped in a miniature tornado, the last boy also on the ground, but grabbing his stomach instead of his throat. “What did you do?” she asked, moving closer.

            His reaching hand met hers, and he squeezed it gently. “The air stopping you not did like, so this time, air into fist I did shape. In the stomach I him hit, hard enough his air his lips escaped. With no breath, he to speak not able. And in the wind circle, his decisions he may regret,” he said, blue eyes meeting hers steadily.

            For once she returned the look and nodded. He glanced past her, briefly studied Eran, the nodded himself. “Good work,” he told her. “Him not out do let.”

            “You’ll have to release them eventually,” Sevilen said, walking over so he could stand beside them. “Speaking of which…”

            While Kallai and Shuu only watched, he turned around, eyes going straight to the men in uniform. “It’s my belief that, if anyone deserves to be locked away, it is those boys,” he said, waving his hands in the direction of Kallai’s tormentors. “If you would be so kind?”

            The Captain, his single sun clear on his coat, saluted. “Yes, sir!” he said, before leading several of his men forward from where they’d been standing, to one side of the crowd that was still staring open-mouthed at the scene in front of them.

            The soldiers split, two going to each boy, the pairs stopping just outside the magic containing them. “Oh,” Kallai said, flushing slightly as she realized the problem. “Sorry.” Even as the words left her mouth, she let the fire fall, pulling in back in a stream to reabsorb back into her skin.

            The feeling of heat against bare flesh made Kallai realize that she’d burned through the arms of her uniform, leaving nothing but some black scraps and a light powdering of ash in places. Going pink again, she brushed off the worst of it while Shuu released his tornadoes, the winds coming back to them.

            Kallai looked up then, watching intently and with a fierce feeling of vindication as her worst tormentors were manacled, the symbols on their bindings glowing bright for a moment. It was all the better for knowing that the anti-magic bindings had likely originally been intended for her and Shuu. But now it was the bullies they adorned.

            His blue eyes bright with more hate than Kallai had ever seen, his face contorted into a snarling mask, Azaz spat in her direction. “Don’t think this is over, bitch,” he hissed, face gone white with rage. “I’ll make you suffer for this.”

            One small part of Kallai still felt a thread of fear at the threat, but seeing him now, and knowing it was partly her magic that had put them there gave her courage and real confidence. “Go ahead and try,” she said, tossing her head. “Just know that next time, I won’t put the fire out.”

            The soldiers holding them saluted Kallai, Shuu and Sevilen again, before marching the boys out, to where, Kallai really didn’t care. As the whole tower returned to a deep silence, only the rustling cloth heard as people shifted awkwardly, the sound of shuffling footsteps broke the quiet.

            Every eye turned to see the headmaster trying to sidle back into the crowd. As the gazes reached her, she flushed, and looked away. When she glanced up again, and still found herself under the scrutiny of the others, she awkwardly cleared her throat and said, “I never liked those boys anyway.”