He could hear the pumping of blood in his ears as the surrounding sounds got muted and dark. Focusing on pushing it through his body, he desperately tried to keep himself alive. Lord Loratyk was going to win. He was going to take Kaden out and then no one would be able to stop him.

He had been blessed by not one matriarch now, but several. He was their voice, their way to stop the darkness from taking over. If he was going to be their voice in the world, he couldn’t let that voice get silenced this early.

Fighting that darkness, pushing it down, wasn’t working this time. Too much was infecting him. He didn’t know how the lord was doing it but every time he managed to push the darkness out, more filled in. He was going to die in a forest with Anders, of all people.

The darkness was wrapping around him like the liquid he had controlled so many times before. A thought struck him. It was like liquid. Like water, it would mist and flow through him. It was in his blood, in his veins, just like water.

Using what power he could, he pulled the darkness away, like it was water. It slid out of his body, away from him. He could feel the cold tendrils being ripped away from him like a serrated arrow dragging through his body, damaging everything inside. His breath was heavy as he forced it out while crying out in pain.

The darkness was coming out; it was moving. He was controlling it. Doing so gave him an odd sense of power, of relief. Even as it was tearing itself away from him, being able to use it was invigorating. The darkness pooled out of him toward the ground.

He pulled himself to his feet, dragging his body back up. Standing there, swaying as the darkness drained out of him, he slowly rose his eyes over lord Loratyk. The man was standing there gawking as he held his hands out, trying to control the darkness. Slack-jawed, he looked as if his hands were trembling, trying to push the darkness into Kaden.

A smirk crawled across Kaden’s face as he watched the man struggle to control the ultimate evil. He could feel it slipping through his hands as it slid to the ground below. The darkness that he controlled was based on water and Kaden had been blessed multiple times by several matriarchs. Lord Loratyk had decades of experience on him, but Kaden had the massive power backing him.

“No,” Loratyk said breathlessly. “Impossible.”

Kaden pulled the darkness that connected the two of them to his hands and wrapped it around. He tugged on it to make sure he could manipulate it. In a quick movement, he jerked on it and Lord Loratyk stumbled forward. The darkness severed from him as he tried to catch his balance.

“How? You are pure! You haven’t touched the darkness!”

Kaden jumped down to touch the ground where the darkness was still pooling. He commanded it to go forward and grab hold of the lord. It did as he willed it, shooting back toward the lord, wrapping itself around his feet before pulling him down. Loratyk’s face crashed into the earth.

Controlling the darkness was hard for Kaden. He was feeling weaker and weaker each time he did so. He needed to get rid of it before he was forced to use all of his energy just trying to manipulate it. Away from them all, he flung it back into the forest. It still had a hold of Loratyk and threw him sideways into a tree before it let go and dispersed into the woods.

He groaned as he tried to stand up. Lord Loratyk hadn’t expected to have to fight when he had such a grasp on the darkness. He struggled to stand up as he centered himself. Eventually, he composed himself and brushed off the dirt that was now on his outfit.

“I don’t understand what just happened,” he muttered. “I can’t let you go free. Not after seeing what you’re capable of.”

Kaden shrugged and said, “I don’t think you understand, Lord Loratyk. It isn’t I who has lost his freedom today.”

The lord wasn’t about to waste his time sharing quips. He lunged forward, using the power of wind to propel him through the air. Kaden was barely able to dodge out of the way. Had he not, they would have collided into the ground. Whipping around, he turned to see the Lord flying back toward him with daggers of ice in his hand.

He was too fast for Kaden to hit. He could hardly reorient himself after dodging an assault. If he couldn’t hit him, he couldn’t stop him. Flying by again, Kaden screamed out in pain as a shard of ice cut his arm. Instinctively, he jumped out of the way again, right before a second one was about to hit him.

“You may have been blessed by matriarchs, but you still only have one power,” Lord Loratyk yelled mockingly as he flew by.

Kaden turned to see him flying right towards him. He wasn’t going to be able to dodge that onslaught. He would hit him head on. There wasn’t anything he could do. He tried to brace himself as best he could as the Lord barreled toward him.

A gust of wind blew him sideways, throwing him into the tree. Reese cackled and said, “He may be just a simple water boy, but he’s not alone out here!”

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His friends slid next to him, poised to fight. Evonne touched his arm and pushed her own water toward him. The wound sealed shut, and he was amazed she was already mastering the healing properties of water.

“About time,” he groaned as he rubbed the arm.

Sayori laughed and said, “Sorry, we took a wrong turn and Reese wouldn’t stop to ask for directions.”

He caught movement to his left and saw Iratoi escorting Anders away from the fight. When they took his father down, they needed Anders to fill the role he left. He had forgotten he had even been there while he was dealing with the lord.

Lord Loratyk grunted. “This just saves me the effort of hunting you all down later. You tried to stop us, stop the —”

Sayori didn’t wait for him to monologue before she kicked up a stone and threw it at him. He yelped as it hit him and Kaden heard her let out a satisfied laugh. Shards of ice flew out at them from behind the dust and Reese was already redirecting them through the air. The others could do so with control of water, but Kaden didn’t expect them to have that much control on their first day with the magic.

The Lord used the wind to carry him into the trees, bouncing from trunk to trunk. Reese snickered and said, “I’m going to show him what an expert in wind can really do.”

With a burst of wind, he was off and into the trees himself. Using the air to propel him from one to another, quickly catching up to the lord. The rest of them didn’t wait to follow as they sprinted to catch up. The two of them got further and further ahead. Kaden worried he’d lose sight of them if they didn’t do something.

A wall of ice shot up within sight and they quickly reached Reese, standing there with his arms outstretched. Loratyk was trying to pull himself out of the wall, struggling to do so as the ice kept wrapping around his hands over and over again each time he freed one. Reese was cackling at what he was doing.

The lord screamed, and the wall shattered. Shards of ice flew out everywhere, and they all had to crouch and hold their heads. Kaden could feel it cutting his clothes. Lord Loratyk was standing there, breathing hard and visibly irritated.

“I hate the youth,” he said through heavy breaths.

“That’s okay, we hate you too,” said Reese before he threw another powerful gust at the lord, throwing him off his feet.

He hit the ground hard and Sayori was quick to bind his hands and feet in stone this time. Screaming in frustration as he tried to pull his hands out of stone, he cursed their names several times. Unlike the wall of ice, he wasn’t able to break open the stone. Stone was far harder than ice, and he was learning that the hard way.

He yelled and screamed as the four of them closed in on him. Kaden leaned down so the Lord could tilt his head up to him. Shaking his head, he said, “why’d you do it, Rychus?”

He didn’t reply, he just glowered at them.

“You were a lord! One of four that basically run this whole country! What more could you have wanted?”

“I could have been king.”

Kaden stood back up. King. He wanted to be the king of the country in title, even though he was already managing a large swath of the land and people on his own. The greed and audacity of it baffled him.

“And the Ambassador? Why involve him?”

He let his head fall back into the dirt. “He had higher ambitions than me. We learned long ago we both had lofty goals and how we could help the other.”

The greed that infected these men’s lives. They had used people who wanted change and a better life for those less fortunate to satisfy their own whims and greed. The manipulation they so carelessly threw around was insane to Kaden. How any one person could have so much and want more was wild. The king was just the same with his gold and his silks. The only difference was he wasn’t out there actually murdering people for his riches.

The darkness began to swell in his heart, feeding on those feelings of anger and disgust. He could feel them being inflamed, feel them getting stronger. He took a step away from the Lord and waved to his companions to continue instead. Letting the darkness infect him more than it already had would give Lord Loratyk a win.

“So I learned something interesting about your king’s castle,” Sayori said as she leaned down to look at the Lord. “You have sounding runes all over the damn place.”

The lord’s eyes widened.

Smiling, she said, “We made sure there were several in Kaden’s gear, you see?”

Evonne, soft-spoken and sweet Evonne, leaned over and said, “Vixenta Cronley is flying in the sky between here and the keep, channeling magic right now. Do you know why, my lord?”

His eyes narrowed at her.

“Lord Cronley and the King have been listening this whole time. It took Kaden a bit to get it out of you, but we got our answer for who set up this attack.”

Reese leaned down and said, “Your poor son Anders was very upset about your behavior. He came to us personally. I am also a lord’s son. It’s a really hard place to be. I feel for the guy. You seem like a terrible father.”

He spat on the ground and said, “he is dead to me.”

“Oh, he almost died!” Reese laughed. “That darkness of yours nearly cut him to pieces. You are so fortunate that Iratoi keeps saving his ass.”

He merely growled in frustration at them.

“Don’t worry. He’s probably going to lead your family name now, seeing as how you’ll be stripped of everything. That’s going to be awkward for him to navigate but, you never know. He seems plucky.”

Kaden rolled his eyes. His companions were having far too much fun taunting the lord. He took a deep breath and rejoined them. Anger wasn’t going to rule him, not today.

“What were you doing with the dragons?”

He still didn’t know how they were being corrupted as they were or how he got the power he had. A horrible thought was bouncing around his head, but he needed to hear it.

“I was trying to force a connection.” He just admitted outright.

Kaden closed his eyes and shook his head. “You can’t force a connection.”

“Obviously, I found that out. But I was able to control them this way. It took a few sacrifices to get there, but eventually, I was able to order them about.”

“Sacrifices?”

He cackled. “You don’t want to know.”

Kicking dirt in his face, Kaden yelled and leaned down to the lord, noses nearly touching. “What did you do to them?”

The crooked smile the lord had on his face made Kaden want to slap it right off. “I don’t think I’m used to the taste of dragon yet, but they leave a powerful after effect.”

His stomach dropped, and he could feel himself about to retch. The rest of them backed away, trying to compose themselves. The man was truly evil and corrupted.

“You’re going to suffer, lord Loratyk. I will make that my mission to see that you suffer for the pain you’ve personally caused.”

“They’re just creatures. Get over yourselves.”

Reese kicked him in the exposed side and the man yelped in pain. “I hope they kill you.”

“Death would be too kind,” said Evonne.