she’s running through the Forest of Lights with a beautiful boy. The
next moment, the sky turns dark and he’s dead in her arms. The girl is
filled with anger and hate, and she runs into battle with her people.
The leader is a wild-haired woman with a crescent moon inked into her
forehead and hands that spark like lightning. The girl is ready to
fight the shadow creatures. The girl is ready to take back Los Lagos.
But when they reach the mountain pass, they are betrayed. The
Shadow Bruja knows they are coming. She has red eyes and a face as
white as the moon. Alta Bruja Kristiсe blasts the Shadow Bruja with
lightning, but the Shadow Bruja keeps going, striking down everyone in
her path. She rides a saberskin onto the path, the creature scaling
the walls. She leaves a trail of death behind her. Her pack of beasts
rips people apart with their claws.
The girl has one chance. She has a weapon of her own design-a
glove with a palm covered in metal spikes. The girl’s fist hits the
Shadow Bruja’s face. There is blood. A terrible laugh. The Shadow
Bruja in turn, rips out the girl’s heart. The Shadow Bruja devours it.
She devours every heart around her.
Kristiсe is wounded. She’s bleeding out. She’s lost everything.
She uses the last of her power to punish her traitors. She gouges out
their eyes and then curses them-for their outsides to reflect their
monstrous hearts…
The Shadow Bruja resurrects the blind men. She gives them power.
She binds them to the roots of the earth. She binds them to her.
I jump out of the memory and scream. I scream until I’m out of
breath. I scream until Nova has to shake me.
“Alex, what did you see?” Rishi asks.
But I can’t answer her. Shadows move around us and stones fall to
the ground as the mountain shakes.
“Go!” Nova shouts. We run down the path, but a hulking figure
jumps from somewhere above and slams into the ground, rattling the
earth.
We have to retreat. I grab Nova’s and Rishi’s hands and start to
run back the way we came from, but a second figure appears. They now
block our path in and out. One of them walks closer to us, and as it
steps into the light, I can see it. The creatures Kristiсe punished
and the Devourer saved.
His skin is the green of aging leaves, and his body is covered in
thorny vines that move like extended limbs. He raises his hand, and a
vine slithers out of the center of his palm. I can see the remnants of
the man it once was. Its face is distorted and black veins are visible
beneath its skin. In its open mouth are black gums and pieces of
broken teeth. Gouged eyes are a mess of torn flesh. They don’t need
eyes to see. The blind giants.
The giants charge at us from both sides, and the earth trembles
under their feet. They shoot vines from their palms to trap us. I
create a shield to stop them. I grit my teeth and reach for more
power. My arms tremble; my blood rushes to my head. Their vines are
laced with the Devourer’s dark power. It burns right through my
shield. I direct all my magic into an arrow of lightning. I aim it at
the nearest giant. It rips through its chest and electrocutes him.
“Now! Run ,” I tell Rishi and Nova. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Two giants replace the one I killed. They land feet from me and
close in. I dodge vines that want to pierce my heart.
Fire, the voice tells me.
Heat blisters my skin as I conjure flame. I close my eyes and hiss
at the air as I say the words of El Fuego, Bringer of Flame. “Rain of
fire! Birth of ash!”
I grind my teeth against the searing pain in my hands. I hold
balls of white-and-red flames in my palm. I blast them at two giants
that attack me. Their blistering screams become echoes as my fire
burns them to a crisp.
Vines snap around my wrists and pull me back. Another giant
appears from the shadows and takes hold of me. My muscles and bones
strain against the force. A six-inch thorn hits my shoulder. The pain
slices through me, and for a moment, all I see is red. Then, the
pressure is gone and I fall forward.
“I got you,” Nova says, coughing and wheezing the smoke from his
lungs. “I got you, Alex.”
He pulls me up.
“Rishi! Where is she?”
One of the giants is still alive. It crawls toward me, tripping on
the bones. Since it’s on its knees, I can look into its decrepit face.
My hands are wet and soft with blood pouring from my blistered palms.
I find the anger, the fear in my belly, and I scream it out into the
giant’s face. I’m a siren, a banshee, howling in the wind. All I have
are my hands and my power. So as the giant reaches me, I throw a punch
straight into its torso. My hand breaks through its meaty skin,
scraping against bone until I wrap my hand around its heart. I squeeze
and twist, but it won’t come free. The creature groans, then falls
lifeless to the ground, pulling me with it.
“Let go,” Nova shouts. His hands are on my shoulders.
I don’t understand what he means until I realize the reason I
can’t break free is because I’m still holding on to its heart.
My body shakes from head to toe, the recoil crippling me to the
ground. Nova grunts as something knocks him to the side. But Nova is
fast and jumps on the creature’s back. He grips the giant by the
throat and struggles to choke it.
There’s a shadow, another creature coming for me. I push myself
up. Face the giant. I conjure a ball of flame and hurl it at him. Its
skin catches on fire, but the giant keeps advancing. It growls as it
pulls back its arms, ready to shoot me down with its vines. I crawl
over bones and jagged stones, shielding my face with my arm, but then
there’s Rishi, jumping from the ledge above. She cracks the giant’s
head open with a whack of the mace. Her dark hair is matted to her
cheeks with sweat and blood. I force myself to get up.
“It’s not over, Ladybird,” Nova says, panting.
“Alex,” Rishi says.
The three of us stand back to back to back. More of them climb
down from the mountain walls. There are so many blind giants I can’t
keep count, and they close in.
The sky trembles above us, matching the rhythm of my heart. I see
lightning break across the sky, and I know what I have to do. The
power inside of me urges me to reach for it. Every cell in my body
wakes up with electricity.
I grab hold of the lightning with a tight fist, feel its current
hit my heart. I am an element. I am the storm. The lightning is a
whip, and I lash it at the giants. Suddenly, the world is vibrant,
overexposed. When my lightning hits the giants, they break apart, all
burned limbs and shattered bone.
The explosion blows me back. My ears ring and my skull throbs. I
land on top of Rishi and Nova. I call for my mother. Pain sears from
my skin down to the core of my bones. I try to push myself up but
can’t. I am dead.
No, I am death .
The inside of my eyelids is red. Hands, warm and strong, hold me
and carry me. I don’t even have to look. I’ve already memorized the
way his heart beats against mine.
Nova buries his face in my hair and then something settles over
us. I can feel shadows and fear fill his heart, though the darkness
has surrounded him from the moment I met him. I cling to him because I
can’t seem to move. It’s the worst recoil yet. How does anyone live
with this pain?
“We made it to the other side of the mountain. We’ve made it out,”
he whispers, but I know there’s something wrong.
The wind is cold and carries the scent of cinder. My senses are so