worse.
There had to be another way.
I refused to accept her path, to agree with such a fucked-up mentality.
This can’t be the solution.
My arms spread wide, my elements joining and thrashing inside me, urging me to intervene, to fix this. To help the Earth Fae trapped around her aura. To free my mother. To find another method of coexistence. To take down the bad influence who threatened the source of elemental good.
Heat engulfed my being, my fire stirring passionate and hot.
Ice cascaded down the walls and along the iron, penetrating the brutal energy and winding around it in wintry ringlets.
Rocks rumbled beneath my feet, answering to my call and vibrating with vengeful need.
A breeze kissed my cheeks, whirling in rapid circles up and down the corridor, searching for a way to break me free.
And my spirit thrived, my essence reaching out to all the dying souls floating in this dungeon, to lend strength for survival and life.
Vitality, I realized, calling upon the source as I closed my eyes. They need vitality.
Chaos erupted as Elana chanted foreign words, her own magic battling mine and springing deathly hollows all around us.
Visages of ghosts, howling in pain, painted the ghastly dungeon. Their mouths gaping in hunger as they slowly began to crawl into our reality, their presence disturbing the balance between life and death.
Everything began to shake.
The foundations of the building around us unable to hold because of such power and wrongness.
I grabbed my mother, calling the roots to fold around us, to craft an impenetrable hold, and demanded the souls beneath the earth to latch onto my essence.
They swam in waves, eagerly leaving Elana for the safe haven I created, my water flowing in a spring above my roots to hold the falling debris off of us.
But there was too much.
The power too great.
Energy hummed around me, my mother cringing beneath the violent onslaught. I couldn’t hold us much longer, had to do something, to save us all.
Darkness cascaded over my vision, leaving me to swim in a sea of black.
I screamed, my throat clogged with soil. Roots. Trees. Flowers. Plants. Life exploding around me, through me, consuming every inch of my being.
“Claire!”
My mates were calling for me.
My mother, too.
I thrashed violently, fighting off the vines holding me down and the smoky cloud drowning my spirit. Warm hands grasped my bare shoulders, shaking me.
Lips met my cheeks, my hair, my neck.
My name rent the air.
Words followed.
It was all a jumble, my body tangled in a frenzy of limbs and heat and elements.