Sprinting between two wall-like roots, the water splashed round her before she finally bounced off one root to ascend over the adjacent one. She came down to land in more water, a patch of open space where the roots had parted long ago.
There was Alijah, his hands outstretched to the tree. Visibly sweating, he was a hum of magic as he expelled a jet of fire worthy of Malliath. The flames extended up the white wall of the trunk and turned the bark to black. From there, the fire climbed ever higher as if it had an insidious will of its own. Soon, branches were engulfed, setting the crystalline leaves alight until they shattered.
The sight of it enraged Inara. She buried Firefly tip down in the ground and flicked her palms out towards the tree. Responding to her magic, the water between the roots rushed forwards in a crashing tsunami. Alijah was knocked forwards, taken off his feet, and launched into the base of the trunk. Wasting no time, Inara then extended her arms to the burning tree and cast an outburst of water and sleet. It flowed from her hands in the same manner that the fire had been hurled from Alijah’s. Unlike fire, however, water didn’t have a life of its own.
As the drain began to pinch her hands, Inara stopped. There was only so far she could project her magic and Alijah’s flames were always on the move, seeking out new branches and stretching across the trunk. In relation to its hulking size, Alijah’s fire was no bigger than a single flame, but if she couldn’t stop it from growing…
Just the thought of it boiled her blood. Inara clenched her fists, preparing another spell. If she had to give it every ounce of magic in her bones then she would. Anything else would be giving up. Anything else would mean the end for Athis.
A blinding flash erupted from the base of the tree and caught Inara across the midriff. There was no fighting the power that threw her backwards and dropped her into the shallow water. Groaning, the Guardian quickly recovered and patted the smoking leathers over her ribs and chest. Then she set her predatory gaze on Alijah.
He was on his feet now, a black sentinel between her and the tree. “There’s nothing you can do!” he called confidently. “It’s over, Inara!”
Rising back to her full height, Inara looked from Alijah to Firefly. The Vi’tari blade was between them, standing proud in the ground.
“Don’t,” Alijah warned.
The command only served to infuriate Inara all the more. She broke into a mad dash towards the scimitar. Alijah threw up one hand then the other, each casting a spell of fire at his sister. Inara raised her hand and caught the first with a quick shielding spell, but Alijah’s magic was strong enough to shatter the shield in an explosion of light. Temporarily blinded, and determined to maintain her speed, the Guardian dived into a roll, tucking under the second ball of flames.
Emerging from her manoeuvre on one knee, Inara’s hand grasped firmly around Firefly.
Keeping her head down below the hilt, she threw her will into the crystal set into the pommel. The magic discharged by the crystal spread out like a disk and impacted Alijah’s hip, almost folding him in half before pushing him back into the tree with some force.
Inara rose triumphant, dwelling on the fact that the crystal in Firefly’s pommel had been a gift from Adilandra. Alijah, however, still found the strength to get back up, his jaw set.
“It wasn’t enough that you killed our grandmother?” Inara barked, hurling a blast of destructive magic at her brother’s waiting shield. “You had to kill magic too?” she pressed, casting another bolt. “Is there no one you won’t murder?” The Guardian advanced on him, her every question punctuated by another offensive spell. “Would you take Athis from me? Would you execute our parents too?” Now she was so close that Inara switched to slamming his shield with her Vi’tari blade. “How could you be so weak? You should have been stronger than The Crow!”
Alijah took it all and he never let his eyes stray from hers. His shield flared with every blow, but he concealed the effort of maintaining it. For a fraction of a second, Inara thought she saw something of her brother behind his flat expression, a crack in his armour. With two hands around Firefly, she ignored the glimmer of hope and continued to swing her sword. Her emotions were beginning to get the better of her, and they would only get in the way of what needed to be done.
“Look at you,” he said from behind his shield, his tone brimming with pity. “All that rage. All that power. You have no idea what to do with either of them. You should have joined me, Sister. I could have taught you things Gideon Thorn has nightmares about. Instead, you can only witness true power, never to be the one to harness it. Watch.”
With one hand, he kept Inara’s attacks at bay while, with the other, he unleashed a staccato of lightning upon the tree. Every blinding bolt tore into the bark and started more fires. The Guardian screamed with rage, threw her scimitar down, and thrust both hands at Alijah’s shield. The magic she channelled was undefinable in its physical manifestation, pulsing from her palms like the sun itself. Soon, Alijah’s shield arm began to tremble.
“That’s it!” he patronised. “Dig deep, Sister! It’s in there!”
“I am not your sister!” she yelled in his face. “I am… the line in the ground! I… am the shield in the dark! And you are nothing… but-my-enemy!” The magic surging from her palms flickered as her bones began to ache.
“Poetic!” Alijah shouted back. “But you’re going to need more than that to beat me!”
Inara gritted her
