“That’s enough,” Zerra says, swiping her hand through the air. An invisible force drives into my chest, throwing me backward as my stomach lifts into my throat right before I crash against the tile, my skin squealing along the slick surface. I gasp at the emptiness in my lungs, trying to suck in mouthfuls of air.

A shadow falls over me, and Zerra looks down. “I told you what you need to do,” she says, her blue eyes flashing. “You’ll get Herric back when I’m satisfied.”

Herric? What’s going on? Her expression is blank but for the pain pooling in her eyes. I study her for a moment. He hurt her. It’s then I realize she never had any intention of returning Nadir.

“Well, I’m not doing it!” I shout. I lurch to my feet, look around the room, making a decision. She’s taking him from me? Then I’ll take something from her. What Herric did doesn’t give her the right to do any of this.

I call on my magic, and for a moment, it struggles to surface. Zerra glares at me with her jaw hard and her eyes narrowed. I realize she’s trying to prevent me from using it. Gritting into my reserves, I dig into my power, drilling down into pulsing crimson rivers until I feel it swell, smashing through her walls.

She gasps as she stumbles back, and magic builds in my fingertips, crackling along my limbs. Before she can recover, I unleash fire while keeping the arks in my side view. Crimson lightning bursts out of me, filling the room with my screams of rage. A force knocks me to the side, but my magic continues, unleashed and wild. I couldn’t contain it even if I wanted to.

I hear a distant scream and someone cursing my name as I tumble through the air in a cloud of dust and stone and marble. End over end, I flip until the world snaps around me and the same white fog that delivered me here wraps around my chest and throat, constricting tightly before I find myself back on land.

More debris falls from above, pelting me with a hailstorm of sharp stings. Once again, I’m in a forest where everything around me is quiet. I scan my surroundings, looking for something that seems familiar. Where did she drop me this time? The only consolation is that I don’t appear to be near Rion and his army, though I trust nothing.

I don’t even notice I’m crying until a hot tear hits the back of my hand. I’ve lost Nadir. She’s never giving him back. She’s using him to replace Herric, who betrayed her in the worst possible way. I scrub at my wet cheeks, anger stirring inside of me like hot coals.