The warmth was gone.
The fire of Piraxis that had burned through my veins just moments ago died with Dad's last breath. Magic had betrayed me. It drew death in, and he turned himself into a shield of flesh just to protect me from the flames I'd summoned.
I crawled out from under my father's body, hands slipping in blood. The dagger at his belt gleamed in the firelight.
I pushed myself up. Stood. Fists clenched so tight my nails carved grooves into my palms.
"I'll kill you, bastards!"
A sudden heaviness settled in my lungs. Liquid. Fire was a traitor, but water, water would obey.
I reached out, my consciousness frantic, clawing at the nameless energy within. I searched for moisture. The air was dry, baked by the recent heat. I could sense it, trapped in the grain of the charred wooden beams, hanging in the oppressive humidity of the room, but it was a pittance. Not enough to move. Not enough to kill.
Damn it. I have to try. More!
I strained, pulling at every microscopic droplet. I felt the traces in the floorboards, the dampness inside my father's boots. And the blood. The vast, dark pool drenching the floor and soaking into my clothes. I reached for it all, desperate, starving for it.
The droplets condensed in front of me in a ball the size of my fist.
Not enough, more!
"Little brat, what are you trying to do?" Ronak sauntered toward us, the rasp of his tongue against the flat of his blade a sickening, wet sound. "This isn't a game."
My jaw locked, teeth grinding with enough force to shatter. More. I need more!
Then, the shift. Not in the room. Deep inside. A rupture behind my ribs. A flooding in my lungs.
I opened my mouth to scream, but liquid spilled out instead.
"What..." The word drowned. My mouth filled, rising behind my teeth. I swiped at my lips.
Clear. Cold.
Water.
But there's no water left to pull.
The realization hit like ice in my veins. I'd already drained the room. The blood. The beams. There was nothing left.
So where...? Where is it coming from?
From me. It's coming from me.
I'm creating it.
The impossibility of it should have stopped me. Should have made me let go. But Dad was dead on the floor and Mom was about to follow.
My lungs were full and I didn't care if I drowned. I pulled harder.
It didn't matter. I shoved the surging energy outward, even as my heart hammered against the ribs. I choked, vision blurring, knees buckling.
I can't breathe!
But I can use it.
Dad died protecting me. Mom was about to die.
I have to kill them. I have to protect her!
I focused all the water now inside my body on that floating ball in front of my chest. On a single point, right in front of my torso. All of it.
I pulled with everything I had. Energy without a name. Soul and hate.
I coughed violently, water spraying from my lips.
I'm drowning to give life to my power.
But the sphere grew. Dark with my father's blood. Churning. A heavy mass in front of me. Charged with all the pain I couldn't scream.
The bigger it grew, the emptier my lungs became. Water poured out of me, endless. I didn't care where it came from.
The air in the room grew cold. Electric. Floorboards creaked without anyone stepping on them.
"Where the hell... where's all that water coming from?" Ronak snarled, taking a step back.
From me. From my will. You bastard! From my will to kill you!
"Arek!" Mom rose from Dad's body. Her face was streaked with ash, tears, and blood, but it burned with fierce resolve. She looked me in the eyes — and the tears and blood on her cheeks lifted away, drawn upward by my pull, joining the sphere.
In the reflection on those blue eyes I didn't see fear of the unnatural monster I was becoming.
I only saw love. Absolute and pure love.
"Do it." Her voice broke. "For him."
Ronak snapped out of it. "Little bastard!"
He raised his cleaver, ready to bring it down on me. But he never got to strike.
Mirina was faster. With a movement that had nothing of the domestic grace I knew, she pulled the dagger from Dad's belt and lunged. A guttural scream tore from her throat.
The blade sank into the dog-man's massive thigh. He stared at her, eyes wide, completely caught off guard.
Ronak roared and dropped, clutching his leg. Blood hissed where it hit the floor, steam rising.
"Bitch."
"I won't let you hurt my son, filthy animal. I'll never forgive you for what you did to Tarin."
She kept talking without stopping. Her long hair waved behind her.
Mirina knew she didn't have a second strike. This was her only chance.
A shiver ran through my body. Cold.
She left the dagger buried in his flesh, circled the giant, and threw herself directly at Vrogat with her bare hands.
No.
The word didn't come out. I opened my mouth but only water came out, Water in my throat, water in my lungs
The boar turned his gaze to her at the last instant, his small evil eyes flicking between her and the enormous mass of water swirling furiously in the middle of the room, as if he couldn't decide which was more irritating.
The purple stone on his ring pulsed. A sinister beat of light that seemed to drink the room's darkness. Each pulse made the air colder, heavier, as if it were drawing the warmth out of the walls themselves.
"What do you think you're doing, bitch?"
It wasn't a slash.
It was a genesis.
The ring flared, a silver blade erupted from Vrogat's right hand. A sword became an extension of his arm, growing into the air with a metallic hiss.
A fluid movement. Surgical. Inhuman.
The dead-gray blade pierced Mom's chest, the cold iron tore through flesh and bone. A dull sound: thump. Tissue and skin giving way to the magic metal.
"Mom, NO!"
I gulped fluid, the words died in my throat. My lungs full of liquid produced only a wet, viscous gurgle.
Vrogat stopped the thrust halfway. The purple stone on the ring pulsed again and again, synced with my racing heartbeat.
"I have to admit, brat." His voice was calm as before while his gaze moved from my mother to the water sphere, then to me. "You know some interesting tricks."
He pushed the sword all the way through, smiling.
The sound of metal cutting through meat without resistance made my stomach turn.
The blade went completely through. The silvery tip emerged from Mom's back in an arc of cold metal and red liquid.
She jerked and spasmed. Her eyes widening with pain or anger. Or surprised about being stabbed? Like she couldn't believe it had actually happened.
Mom coughed rivulets of crimson liquid and drops of blood splattered on Vrogat's grinning snout and fangs.
She turned her head slowly and looked at me.
"A... Arek..."
Her voice barely a thread.
Vrogat pulled the blade out. Slowly and deliberately, looking at me with his small and ugly eyes.
The metal scraped against the rib, a sound of iron on bone and meat. Dark blood slid down the groove, warm and thick. Drops fell on the floor with small taps.
Mirina staggered backward, sliding onto her feet before collapsing on Dad's body. Her hair spread across his chest and for an instant, beneath the smell of blood, I still caught the scent of fresh-baked bread. Of home. Of her.
But she didn't fall completely.
Still holding herself up. Hands pressed on Tarin's body, head bowed, golden hair hiding half of her face, the other half stained with blood running from her mouth.
Every breath was a wet rattle that tore my chest apart.
She raised her gaze to me, her blue irises met mine.
And she smiled.
Teeth stained that dark red.
"Arek, you're perfect... as you are. Don't... don't ever change... for anyone."
She coughed. Scarlet blood ran to her chin.
"I... love you... so... so much..."
Her eyes filled with tears that never had the chance to fall.
"Always..."
Her arms gave out and she collapsed forward, sliding on her hands until she fell on Dad's body. She dropped on top of him and died as they lived, hugging and loving each other.
Like she wanted to embrace him one last time, and I knew that last hug was for me, too. Their blood mixed, Dad's dark blood, Mom's living blood.
Two pools joining on the wooden floor, still warm.
The air tasted of copper and something sweeter. Worse They didn't move ever again. Ever.
Mom...
Mom, no!
The water in my lungs wasn't just magic anymore, it was the weight of the world crushing me.
Something big broke inside me.
The pain was already too much to feel, so it wasn't painful.
Emptiness. A cold that started in my chest and spread to fingers, neck, and head. Like my blood had stopped flowing.
Magic knew what to do. I didn't.
The sphere floated in front of me. Enormous. Bigger than me. Trembling under my imperfect control.
"I k—kill—" Water pouring through my teeth "you—filthy—bastards!"
Ronak was lifting himself through the rubble, the knife still planted on the muscle of his enormous leg. Vrogat continued to smile, cleaning his face with his purple cloth.
I'll kill them.
I focused all my will on the mass of water.
Spin faster. Grow bigger!
The sphere jerked and spun fast on itself, starting to vibrate.
Harder. Grow.
The sphere changed, a hole tearing through its center from top to bottom, transforming it into a spiralling vortex of water. A maelstrom grew, a column of water that reached the ceiling and carved into the floor. Beams cracked. Boards lifted.
Now—spread out! SWEEP EVERYTHING AWAY.
The vortex expanded. A hydraulic shockwave that hit every inch of the room.
I stayed there, at the center of the cyclone's eye, unharmed.
The dining table in the living room, where we'd laughed, where we'd waited for Dad, shattered under water's pressure. The solid oak wood split in half with a dry crash, the two halves flipping in opposite directions. One leg broke off, rolling to Ronak's feet.
Chairs flew like projectiles. One smashed through the cupboard, reducing it to dust, while window glass exploded outward.
Ronak was hit full force on the dog-like face.
His massive body, that mountain of muscle and ferocity, lifted like a rag doll. The wave threw him against the back wall with incredible violence.
CRACK.
The wall cracked. A spiderweb crack spread from the impact point.
Ronak slid to the ground, motionless, the cleaver falling from his leg with a metallic clang.
Vrogat was still standing.
The wave had hit him, but he'd resisted. His feet still planted on the floor, his drenched clothes sticking to him.
He raised both hands in front of him.
"Enough games, brat."
Flames from the fireplace moved to his palms, almost extinguishing the fire from the logs.
He didn't throw them like balls but made them into flaming walls tall as the ceiling.
A wave of orange heat that evaporated the water. Dense steam filled the air, turning everything into thick white fog.
I couldn't see anything anymore, except that orange glow advancing relentlessly toward me.
A heat wave hit my face. The air became fire and my skin started pulling, the painful tension before the real burn.
They'd killed them. In front of me. There was no way to bring them back. But I could make the ones who did it pay. Kill them, Mom had said. The last thing she asked me. I'll do it.
I pulled more water. From my lungs. From the blood. From myself.
HARDER.
A second wave erupted. Bigger. Colder. More furious.
Gurgling in my lungs became a high-pitched, unbearable whistle. I spat more fluid—pure water, crystalline—that spread across the boards, but I didn't stop. I couldn't. I kept pulling, ripping the little remaining moisture from the air, from the soaked wood, from every single fiber of myself.
For them. Only for them.
The waves crashed against Vrogat's flames. Fire and water collided in the middle of the room in a roar that shook the house's very foundations. Steam exploded in every direction, a white blinding wall that erased the world.
"IMPOSSIBLE!"
Vrogat's scream cut through the roar. For the first time, his calm voice was gone, replaced by a note of pure terror. "A brat can't..."
But I could. I can!
Water advanced. Flames died: first at the edges, then at the center, suffocated. The liquid mass knew no mercy.
Then they disappeared completely.
The wave swept over Vrogat, lifting him off the ground like a broken toy. It dragged him backward, throwing him against the opposite wall with such force it cracked the solid wood. The entire house shook under the impact. Ceiling beams creaked while dust and splinters rained from above like dirty snow.
A wall split and plaster crumbled.
Vrogat collapsed to the ground, a shapeless heap of soaked clothes and twisted limbs. And in the silence that followed, I heard a rhythmic sound on the floorboards. A broken tusk, rolling.
I fell to the ground gasping. My lungs on fire, burned by the water that had finally stopped accumulating. I vomited the last wave of water, clear as glass, trembling violently.
I was on all fours on the wet floor, chest heaving.
The tusk rolled until it hit my thumb, stopping there, like an unwanted war trophy. Wind and rain outside seemed worlds away, drowned out by my heart's deafening beat in my ears.
Thum-thum. Thum-thum.
It was over. And it had just begun.
Constant dripping of water falling from the ceiling. Wood creaking under the weight of moisture. The wind whistling through broken windows.
I picked up the broken tusk. It was cold as ice.
I looked at my parents. The world seemed to have lost its colors, reduced to a scale of grays and flickering shadows. I staggered. My legs, drained of all magical energy, gave out under my small body's weight. I collapsed to my knees on the wet floor, not caring about wood splinters scratching my skin.
Mom and Dad were still embracing even after the maelstrom, like they'd decided to face eternity together forever. Motionless. The blood had stopped flowing, diluted by the vortex's water into a pinkish pool that reflected the fireplace's dying light. Their hands were still intertwined, pale fingers gripping at nothing.
"No..."
My voice came out broken, a hoarse whisper that didn't even seem like mine.
"Please... no..."
I reached out a trembling hand and placed it on Mom's shoulder. Her skin was so cold. A cold that didn't just come from water, but from that total absence we call death.
I hoped for a tremor, a heartbeat, a sign that my sacrifice had served some purpose. But there was nothing. A wind's whistle came through the broken windows, mocking my pain.
A shiver. Too sudden.
Then, a sound.
A dry cough, followed by a gush of water.
My heart skipped a beat. For one absurd moment, I hoped one of them had come back. But the noise wasn't coming from the heap of burned clothes and gray skin in front of me.
It was coming from the cupboard's wreckage, in the room's dark corner.
I looked up, eyes burning with tears and dryness. A shadow was moving among the broken table's remains. Ronak, the dog-man, retching up the water I'd forced into his lungs.
Blood dripped from his temple, probably where he hit the wall, but he was alive. His bestial nature kept him standing where a normal man would have died instantly.
And if he was alive...
From the other side of the room, another sound. Broken glass.
Vrogat was trying to get back on his feet, one hand pressed to his jaw where the tusk had been broken. The purple stone on the ring still pulsed, weak, but alive. Like him.
"I can't kill these beasts. They will kill me."