Forgotten Elements

It was a little unbelievable that there was only one demon here with Neven—well, other than the dozen trolls and wyvern, but with someone allied with the necromancers, I expected more. It was either arrogance at his skills, or he wrongly assumed we’d be too focused on the man from the empty to come here. Either way, we’d use this to our advantage.

Parker sent a spell at Neven before he could attack us, which Neven easily deflected. I turned my focus back on the demon hovering over Ari. The demon sent a ball of hellfire at me, but I was able to dive out of the way, the flame narrowly missing me. As I rolled across the jagged ground and loose rocks cut into my back and shoulders, but I barely noticed it. I sent a gust of wind at him as soon as I made it to my feet and immediately followed that up by crumbling the ground under his left foot. It didn’t do too much, but it did throw him off balance.

Starling took advantage of his momentary distraction, throwing two daggers at the same time, one in each hand, as she came up from behind me. Both daggers hit him in the torso, one in the front of his right shoulder and the other low in his abdomen—neither anywhere vital.

I preemptively put up a shield of compressed air, figuring he’d retaliate, which he did moments after removing the daggers. The energy signature of the dark wave of magic was insidious and invasive, making me cringe when it slammed against my shield. My shield only lasted for a few seconds before crumbling under the weight of the spell.

Based on the intricacy of the markings covering the demon’s body, I’d known my shield wouldn’t hold for too long, but it held long enough for us to avoid the blast. The demons had a hierarchy, and while I wasn’t too familiar with it, it was common knowledge that the more intricate the markings, the stronger the demon was.

After sending several more spells and balls of hellfire our way, a couple of them just barely missing us, the demon decided to give up trying to use its magic against us. He closed the distance between us in no time. Because I was the one closest to him, I was the one that he attacked. His speed was unparalleled, making it so I was unable to avoid being scratched by his dagger-like claws. Burning white-hot agony ran down my forearms. It would’ve been my face had I not raised my arms in time.

Starling sent a blast of fire at the demon, hitting him in the middle of his back. It did some damage and served as a good distraction, but it wouldn’t kill him. Killing demons with fire took a lot of work and wasted a shit-ton of energy, which wasn’t something either of us could spare.

The adrenaline surging through my body took the edge off of the throbbing pain in my forearms as blood dripped to the ground, but it still hurt like a bitch. It was a good thing I wasn’t facing a blood mage. With how much I was bleeding, I’d be giving them all the ammo they’d need against me.

Gritting my teeth, I ignored my pain and tapped into the air, sending a gust at him. But this time, I didn’t let up, pinning him against the wall. As I held him in place and he struggled against the wind, Starling unsheathed her sword, releasing the blade and quickly chopping off his head.

My focus darted to Ari, and once I was sure her chest was still rising and falling with shallow breaths, I turned my focus to the others. Ander and Parker struggled to keep up with Neven, who masterfully shifted between the different elements. I knew he was a skilled elemental, but this was beyond what he should’ve been able to do. I didn’t think Magnus had this amount of skill and power. This seemed beyond powering up on stolen magic.

Rather than seek out his energy to see if his magic was indeed warped in some form or another as I suspected, I removed the lid from the bowl and connected to the elemental fire. With the men distracting him, Starling and I hung back, waiting for him to turn his back to us. Starling went first, holding out both hands as she sent a blast of fire at him. Even though I doubted he was prepared for an attack, it was still the best move to send fire at him that he wouldn’t be able to control. From the excess power and skill he displayed, it was best to err on the side of caution.

As he screamed and tried to use the air to put out the fire, I sent half of the remaining elemental fire at him. To my relief, he didn’t take control of the fire, and the flames quickly consumed him. For good measure, Parker and Ander threw several more spells his way.

It was probably overkill, but again, it was better safe than sorry.

As soon as his body turned to dust and the connection between him and the thing was severed, I used some elemental water to douse the fire before rushing over to Ari. She was unbelievably pale, her skin covered in purple bruises. Burns and welts covered her wrists and ankles where she’d come into contact with the silver cuffs.

Parker squatted next to me and held a hand over the cuffs on her wrists. They opened with a click, and I quickly removed them. For good measure, I tossed them off the side of the volcano.

The raw wounds on Ari’s wrists and ankles looked even worse now that the cuffs were removed. Not for the first time, I wished I had my kit or at the very least, one of my go-to healing salves.

I knew we needed to get back to the others—even with the connection severed, I doubted the man would suddenly be easy to kill—but how could we leave Ari behind when she was still unconscious?

“We’ll take care of her,” Starling said, kneeling beside me. “Go help the others end this.”

My focus drifted over to Ander where he stood behind her, meeting his gaze. His expression was solemn as he nodded.

Even knowing Ari was alive and would be protected, I was still hesitant to leave her in such a state. But at least I knew she was alive and her condition. The same couldn’t be said about the others, and with that thought, I climbed to my feet and faced Parker.

He already had a portal waiting for me to jump through. Unlike Wyatt, who hadn’t risked portaling so close, Parker aimed for right outside where the dark cyclone had once been but was now gone.

A relieved sigh escaped me when I saw all of them alive. They were far from unharmed, with blood staining their clothes and skin, but they all were still standing, surrounding a man in black robes. His hood was down, revealing a bald head.

I don’t know what I’d been expecting after hearing Heath call him a thing and how terrified he’d been him, but this hadn’t made the list. His skin was marbled, with a mixture of the deepest black I’d ever seen and light gray. He reminded me of a stone statue in the way he was humanoid in shape and everything appeared anatomically accurate, but there was something off.

My comparison turned out to be accurate when I saw his face for the first time.

He was like our statues of the deities, with no discernible facial features. The guy didn’t even have any ears or eyes. This didn’t seem to slow him down though. He managed to evade Koa’s blast of fire—the blast seemed to lack the usual strength he displayed, which tracked with how exhausted he appeared. The man moved as if he could see and not just the attacks coming at him head-on. He managed to sidestep Jade’s attack from behind with ease.

Jade threw herself onto the ground when he reached for her, narrowly missing her arm.

“Don’t let him touch you,” Reed called out to us, wiping some blood dripping down the side of his face.

I didn’t ask why, figuring it had to do with him draining magic or something like that. Whatever the case, I heeded Reed’s warning as I watched Jade put distance between herself and the man.

“I thought you said he’d be weakened.” I looked over at Parker in panic, afraid we wasted our time and energy on severing the ties. This fucker just dodged Wyatt’s spell like it was nothing before sending a projectile of magic at Reed, which he avoided by dropping to the ground.

“He is, look.” Doing as he said, I looked over at the man in time to see his hand turn to black smoke for a moment before returning into the shape of a hand. “He’s struggling to maintain his shape. He doesn’t have enough energy to keep fighting us and stay in solid form. All we have to do is wait him out.”

With how it had only been his hand to lose its shape and only for a few seconds, I knew we had our work cut out for us. My magic wasn’t depleted, but at the same time, I was feeling the effects of controlling elemental fire. “I hate this fucking plan.”

“Save the fire for when he’s at his most vulnerable.”

Parker sent an energy ball at the man, pulling his attention toward us. As soon as his featureless face was pointed in our direction, he sent a blast of black magic at us. We’d been prepared for this, creating barriers to block the magic’s path. Parker layered his shield over mine, but it didn’t protect me from feeling the icy chill of the magic as it beat against our shields. It felt the way I imagined a gaping and sucking void to feel. I gritted my teeth as I fought the shivers racking my body.

The blast of his freezing magic kept coming, beating against our shields, trying to find a way through. I was beginning to fear our shields wouldn’t be able to withstand the attack too much longer, when the blast of magic finally relented. Both of his hands turned to smoke this time, and it lasted twice as long as before.

Each of us took turns distracting him, giving the others time to rest. We switched it up a few times, having a couple of us attacking him at once. Our main focus was on provoking him into wasting more of his magic while also not getting killed in the process.

Wyatt, at one point, was blasted back nearly fifteen feet and his landing didn’t look painless, but he managed to climb to his feet. Blowback from another spell sent me falling on my ass later on, but I was thrown back only a few feet.

By the time his entire body turned to smoke, my arms and legs were all but shaking, and I wasn’t sure I could keep this up much longer. His body was taking far longer to return to its humanoid shape. Parker touched my arm, and I took that as him signaling that it was time.

I retrieved the bowl from where I stashed it earlier, taking a deep breath to center myself. “Wait for it,” Parker murmured as I pulled off the lid of the elemental fire and reaffirmed my connection to the tiny flame.

“Now.” The man’s body became solid, and I threw the flame at him, watching intently as the blue flames engulfed his body.

As with Neven, none of us left anything to chance, especially when we didn’t know what to expect from him or the true scope of his powers and his limitations. Koa sent a continuous stream of fire at him, as did Reed. The moment his body tried to turn into smoke again, Magnus created a cyclone around him, keeping the smoke in place. While the cyclone disrupted Koa and Reed’s fire, it didn’t affect the elemental flames. Parker and Wyatt’s spells didn’t have any trouble going through the cyclone and hitting the man in the chest. The golden and purple waves of magic formed cracks in his marbled skin everywhere they made contact.

“Get down!” Wyatt yelled and before I could react, Parker pulled me against his chest as he yanked me to the ground and covered my body with his. I felt his magic as it rose, creating a barrier over us, and I added my magic to the mix.

The wave of magic crashing against our shields was a combination of the man’s frigid magic and a combined collection of our own. Its strength was potent, and that was putting it lightly. I hoped the others were able to shield themselves against the blast that was still beating against our barriers.

We waited for several long seconds after the explosion stopped before we let our shields fall. Parker was slow to climb off me, grabbing my hands and pulling me to my feet. Another relieved sigh left me when I caught sight of the others as they climbed to their feet, looking no worse than before.

My gaze shot over toward where the man had once stood only minutes ago. In his place was a new crater, although this one was nowhere near as big as the other. It was only ten feet in diameter and several feet deep. The dirt inside the crater and surrounding area was charred. Even though the explosion had ended, the air above the crater crackled from the spell and the elemental fire that I quickly snuffed out.

We surrounded the crater, careful to keep our distance as we wordlessly stared down into it.

“Please tell me this is all over,” Jade begged, clutching at Koa’s arm.

“I think I might cry if he’s not dead,” I muttered, trying to see if I could feel any traces of him but not finding anything.

Magnus swallowed hard as he continued staring into the crater, where the man had previously stood. “It’s over.”