Page 97 of The Lost Elemental

I shook my head and moved to Phoenix. My breath was shaky as I released it.

Phoenix leaned forward. “We’ve done this before and you let out all your power. It’s perfectly safe.”

I nodded but still jolted as the flame erupted from Phoenix’s palm. I stared at it, reminding myself it was a part of Phoenix and then lowered my hand to cut through it.

A circle of flames erupted around us, and my breath caught in my throat. It’s just Phoenix. What me and Phoenix make together. It can’t hurt me. A second later the fire was gone.

“Tie to the Kingdom of Ash.”

I almost started crying right there. I’d made it through my affinities. I hadn’t combusted. Maybe there was hope I wasn’t a Nova after all.

“I told you that you could trust me,” Phoenix said softly.

“Which is why I put my life in your hands.”

He didn’t touch me, but the look Phoenix gave promised lots of that to come.

I grinned down at the floor as I walked to stand in front of Riven. I lifted my hand and with it my eyes. They locked with the glacier ones opposite mine.

There was so much I couldn’t read in those eyes. But the one thing I could see as clear as day was rage. I swallowed back my hurt and waited for Riven to move. He didn’t.

“Mr. Zephyr,” Acker prodded.

Riven gave his head a small shake and then lifted his hands. The moment his air touched my skin, everything within me exploded. Those sparks that had disappeared within me flared to life in an inferno that I knew would swallow me whole.

Panic gripped me and I could only say one thing: “Run.”

A crack of energy split through me and then I was hurtling into the dark.

49

I was swimming in a cascade of colors. It made sense when I thought about it. The elements were made of all the colors of the rainbow. So why wouldn’t that be the source of the energy that fed them all?

There was a hum all around me. In the air. In my body. In the voices.

Voices. Some part of me wanted to swim towards them. The familiar honeyed-whiskey of Kai. The rough yet gentle timbre of Atlas. The smoky rasp of Phoenix. I even wanted the cool smoothness of Riven.

That had me frowning. I didn’t want Riven. Not after the library. Or the cruelness at the royal dorm. Not after he made me care and then stabbed me in the heart.

“She’s frowning. Is she in pain?” Atlas asked.

Phoenix let out a low growl. “If she’s hurting, I’m going to fry every nerve ending in Riven’s body.”

“I think she’s trying to wake up,” Kai argued.

I struggled to open my eyes. I wanted to see them. My Golden God. My gentle giant. My smoky demon with a heart of gold.

I blinked a few times, the bright light making me wince.

“Turn down the lights,” Phoenix barked.

Someone did as he ordered.

A woman looked down at me. “How do you feel?”

I squinted at her. I was pretty sure it was the same woman who had helped me after The Revealing. Groaning, I tried to sit up.

“Easy, Pip,” Atlas said, moving in behind me. “You’ve been through a lot.”