Restricted Magic - Arc 2: The Competition

Chapter 14

Erin stood behind Isabelle, feeling frozen inside.

She watched the other girl panic as she looked around for the source of her voice. She had cast an illusion spell. The normally difficult magic was flowing easily for her as she convinced her target that she couldn't see her.

Strange. Erin thought calmly. I thought Aunt Elsinore said that illusion magic was connected to emotion. It's so simple right now, but I feel nothing.

She raised her hand, tearing reality around her. The world shifted around Isabelle. She lay on the ground, covering her head, moaning with fear.

Reaching forward, Erin grasped the young woman's ankle, stabilizing it between both hands before reinforcing her strength with magic and carefully pulling it out of joint. She screamed in pain, grasping her foot and backing away until her back was against a tree, her panicked breaths had whimpers of fear mixed in, her eyes darting around constantly as if trying to peer through the forest around her.

Still she saw nothing.

Erin took a long knife from her belt, her eyes cold, and plunged it into the girl's shoulder, pinning her to the tree.

"COWARD!" Isabelle shouted, her eyes wide with pain, sobbing uncontrollably. "YOU ATTACK FROM A HIDING PLACE BUT YOU'RE TOO AFRAID TO FACE ME?!"

Her other arm was broken easily, Isabelle screamed in pain and fear. "WHAT KIND OF MONSTER ARE YOU?!"

Erin dropped the illusion, instead coating herself in flames. She reached out with a burning hand and grasped the girl by the neck, lifting her off the ground. The knife remained in her shoulder and pulled out of the tree with her. The skin of the girl's throat underneath her hand blistered, the hair singing with the heat and curling away. Isabelle couldn't talk, couldn't scream, couldn't breathe. She could finally see her attacker, but it was not a girl... it was a creature from her nightmares, made of nothing but flames and hatred.

"You're right." Erin replied calmly, the crackle of flames surrounding her, consuming her, but still she felt nothing but coldness. "I am a monster. You shouldn't have touched me and mine." Her hand started to tighten on her neck.

"ERIN WAIT!!!!"

The girl on fire paused in her motions, looking up at the loud cry of alarm. It was Catherine, running quickly, her face pale. "Don't kill her!"

Erin stared at the older girl, trying to understand her words. "She hurt him. She might have killed him." The flames rose higher around her, and Isabelle let out a strangled shriek of fear.

"She's not the mastermind! This is not her type of scheme! Politics, yes! Gossip, definitely. But poisoning and sabotage? Someone is using her."

"..." Erin was hesitating; fighting the strong desire within her to simply close her hand, end the girl's life.

She's a threat. A voice whispered within her. She'll hurt me, kill those I love.

"Erin... please."

Better to end her now.

"Please, put her down... for Gerald, so we can catch who really was behind this."

At his name her eyes wavered, Erin for the first time felt a sharp pain in her chest, a sliver of warmth in the ice that had settled within her since she saw him fall. Slowly, she let the girl down, the flames sputtering and dying around her until it was just Erin standing there, her eyes still full of the promise of death.

"Don't let her kill me!" Isabelle cried out, trying to back away from the other girl despite her severe injuries.

"Talk." Catherine demanded, her voice uncaring. "Or I'll give you back to Erin to finish off."