Wicked Release(2)

There was no one there.

“Sarah Blackwood. Come closer.”

Her heart was pounding in her chest. Two voices now. Male and female. She sensed their compelling magic, though she still saw no one. Her heels dug in to the dirt as her body was dragged off the road against her will. One of them must be a Siren. It was, she remembered, a powerful ability. But how had their magic broken through?

This was new. Her lips murmured the long-forgotten words meant to fend off those who would compel her, but they had no effect. Proof that this was another illusion? Would she be forced into a battle with Magians now? But that was not the punishment. Hers was always to “suffer the death of a witch at human hands”. What had changed?

The voices mingled. Three. Then four joined as one. The layer of dust that coated the ground began to swirl and twist in front of her eyes. Not yet. She hadn’t seen her angel today. She had to look into his beautiful blue eyes before death took her again.

“Not yet!” she cried.

A male voice, the Siren, came through the funnel of gravel and sand. “Step inside to gain your freedom. Now, before the way out is closed.”

Freedom. It was the only word she needed to hear. She could not allow herself to regret leaving her angel. He would understand that she had to be free. She stepped into the miniature windstorm, knowing she had nothing to lose.

It solidified around her and began to move at a rapid pace. Her blood pounded through her veins, alive with possibility. Was it heading for the doorway she had managed to temporarily wedge open? Could she be that fortunate?

If she woke in her small bed once more, discovering this was just another illusion…it might truly break her.

Words of magic swirled around her, along with the angry shouts of her prison guards as they attempted to halt her progress. They couldn’t touch her. Couldn’t get near enough to hurt her, as if she were shielded. Protected with her father’s comforting power to keep her safe. Safe. Free. Unfamiliar and unlikely words that suddenly sounded possible. Sounded true.

Sarah prayed to all the ancient gods of her family that it was so. That she would be allowed to regain her freedom, if only long enough to right the wrongs that had been done to her family. Her friends. To succeed at the one goal that had kept her fighting back far longer than was natural or fair—vengeance.

There was a barrier blocking her way. The twisting shell around her banged against it once. Twice. Sarah focused with all her will on the wedge she had created, on weakening and unweaving the wall of magic that restrained her in the hopes it would aid her rescuers in their final push.

“No.” She fell on the polished wood of the hard floor in a crashing cloud of dust. It stung her eyes and throat and she gasped for breath. Did the collapse of the whirlwind mean they failed? Her hands slid on the unnaturally smooth surface. This was not her floor. This was not earth beneath her hands.

She crouched; balancing her body on her scraped hands and the soles of her ragged shoes, ready to flee if an enemy was waiting to strike. Had her captors released her because they were merciful, or simply devised a worse hell in which to contain her?

Sarah glanced through the strands of her dark, knotted hair. A small crowd of men and women stared down at her in silent shock. These were not her captors. “Where am I?”

The clothing they wore was of a type she had seen on occasion in her ever-changing cell. Women in long pants and shirts that revealed more than they concealed. Handsome men whose snug clothing left nothing to the imagination. She studied them each in turn, her gaze narrowing on one woman’s piercing grey eyes. The only thing in the room that seemed familiar. “When am I?”

Another crash followed quickly by a pain-filled moan beside her drew her attention. “My angel!”

They’d released him as well, she realized, but something was wrong. He was pale as the grave, his face covered in angry wounds. His hands clutched his side and she could see the blood spilling through his fingers.

Sarah slid across the floor, heedless of the others and replaced his hands with her own, applying pressure. “Fools. You pulled him out before the spell could revive him. Do any of you understand the magic you are playing at?”

She heard a female gasp, “Lorie’s hurt. Someone call the healers.”

“There is no time,” Sarah growled. “I believe I still remember…”

She let the memories wash over her, praying that her newfound freedom had returned all of her abilities. Images filled her mind. Children with broken limbs and fireside burns who’d come, wide-eyed, to the home she’d shared with her grandmother. The song she hummed to soothe them as her magic spun around her, stitching the bones back together and healing any trace of injury.