Unbound by Katherine Hurley

Author:Katherine Hurley [Hurley, Katherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2016-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

LOGAN

I TEAR THROUGH the wind, moving faster than I ever have. Water lifts and sprays in my wake. None of the logical reasons to go after Belos matter to me right now. I just need to see his face when I overpower him. I need to see him acknowledge that I didn’t want his control. Why does he think that?

His words eat away at me.

It’s like I never beat him back, like that was a fluke, a lucky victory.

I can’t accept that.

I catch up with them on the western coast of Kelda. Kronos reaches back to me. His relief is palpable. He lets me in just enough that I can distinguish the energies of Belos, Straton, and Ludos. Belos scrambles for control, but I slide around him. I make myself a barrier between him and Kronos. Kronos seizes his opportunity and slips away into the Drift.

For a glorious moment, Belos, Ludos, and Straton are within my power. I wonder if I could rip them apart like this, blast their energies to nothing, let them scatter through the wind. But that’s not what I want.

I want to feel this with my body.

I let go of their energies, letting their bodies reform. The three of them bump and tumble across a rocky shore. I force my own body to draw together. The returning pain in my thigh is sharp enough to stagger me for a moment, then I seize on it. It tells me I am fully here. I will do this as a man. He will see me that way.

I draw stone and thin veins of raw metal into my hand, letting the sword take shape.

Belos, getting to his feet at the water’s edge, watches me approach. The Shackle dangles from his wrist, and my temper boils at the sight of it. When Belos shapes his Drift-sword, I feel a surge of satisfaction. Good. This is exactly what I want.

And that’s how he fools me.

I swing hard, realizing mid-stroke what is going to happen. He never raises his sword. He never intended to fight.

My sword cuts through thin air as he vanishes into the Drift.

I yell, and the wind sweeps out from me, a furious gale that feathers the ocean and sends Straton and Ludos flying like leaves.

Before they can pull the same trick as Belos, I seize them, every fiber of their bodies responding to my will. They are, after all, nothing but air, water, earth, and fire.

I strip the elements from them. I draw the air from their lungs until they can’t find breath even to choke. Their mouths gape uselessly. I strip them of water next, drawing it out through their skin, letting their bodies’ heat consume them. They shrivel like desiccated fruit, wrinkling and cracking. I increase their body heat further until they flake away bit by bit, fire burning the earth to nothing. When they are nothing but dust, I let them go, and the wind carries them away.

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