Page 82 of Light Magic
“You’re the one who wanted the dagger.” I pressed a hand to my chest. “And now you are tricking me. Pretending to be at odds with Rhodes so I would take you to the dagger!”
“Smart and pretty,” Ylena said, not amused.
“What does that dagger do exactly?” I asked. If she wanted it so bad, she knew.
“As if I would tell you.” She scoffed. “Just know it’s enough to kill Adona.” She looked at Levi. “And any other supernatural. Isn’t that right?”
I looked at Levi. “You wanted the dagger.”
He pointed at Ylena. “To kill her.”
But he didn’t know about her rebellion. He wanted to kill her for leaving him and not looking back.
A little extreme, but Levi was extreme.
“Listen, Ariella, I never wanted to kill you,” Ylena said. “I never wanted to hunt you and put a reward on your head, but when you ran with the dagger, you gave me no choice.” She extended her hand to me. “Come with me now. Let me show you why we need to eliminate Adona and all these old, ridiculous rules, and start our society anew. I know you’ll understand, and once you do, you’ll join me.”
I stared at her, appalled. “Even if Adona is wrong and the rules should be changed, killing her and her supporters isn’t the answer.”
“That’s how every revolution starts!”
I took a step back. “I’ll never go with you, and I’ll never give you the dagger.”
She growled, light magic enveloping her hands. “I almost had her. I almost had the dagger, but you had to show up and mess with everything.” She threw a light bolt at Levi.
He was quick and deflected it with a darkfire bolt. “Let us go,” he said. “Let us go and I won’t kill you.”
Ylena laughed. “You can’t kill me!” She threw a huge light bolt at us.
Levi lifted his arm, creating a thin wall of shadows, as he reached for my hand and grabbed it. He turned to the portal, but the shadows parted and Ylena sent her magic toward the portal. It started small, like a tennis ball, but it grew as it got to the portal, and stretched like a net, swallowing the portal. It returned to ball size and then sizzled away in the air.
“Fuck,” Levi muttered. Holding my hand tight, he sent a cascade of darkfire darts toward Ylena—his freaking mother!—and ran with me toward the back of the inn.
“Wait,” I said, unsure we should wait. I felt like hitting pause on all of this. I needed time to think, to process.
“We don’t have time,” Levi said, squeezing my hand. “Just … let's get out of here. We can talk, argue, or whatever once we’re safe.”
Safe. From Ylena. The angel I had looked up to my entire life.
Levi’s mother.
I should be mad at him for this, for not telling me sooner, but this time, it was on me. I was the one who didn’t want to talk about our lives—even though he knew almost everything about mine.
We ran to the field where Ylena and I trained earlier. “Do you know where we’re going?”
“No. The plan is to run until we can hide, or until we find a car.”
There were cars at the front of the inn, but if we stopped and turned now, we would come face-to-face with Ylena.
“You don’t have another coin, do you?”
I shook my head.
We were halfway through the field when the targets made of light appeared before us, but this time, it wasn’t six. It was at least fifteen and they moved, with weapons made of light, closing in around us.
Levi suddenly stopped and pulled me closer to him.
“You have nowhere to run,” Ylena said as she joined the line of her light soldiers. “And you can’t possibly win against me. Just surrender.”