I took a step forward, shaking with rage.

“Stop right there.” Genriad said coolly. “Your skill with the sword is legendary, but according to my sources, you only have a small part of your power left.” He smirked and hugged Jasmine closer to his side. “And once that is gone, I’ll have nothing to fear from you. You won’t be able to stop anyone from killing you and obtaining the ancient Yald gift. But I’ll be the one to collect it. I’ll be the one to kill you, slowly and painfully, agonizing to the last breath you draw in, the last pitiful cry for mercy you are able to mutter. I will break this world along with you. No one will be able to stop my limitless and unconquerable gift, and I will build a new empire without the weak, emotional fools like you that make soft spots in the armor.”

His voice had remained steady throughout his tirade, but now it took on an edge of contempt, “You must realize by now that you have only two possible courses of action. Using the very last of your power, you could attempt to take me out with a quick slash of the sword. Of course, if you did that, there would be the high probability that you would hit your beloved little sister as well as me. Or you could turn around and walk out of here, run back to your squalid little castle in the mountains and wait for me to come and kill you.”

I took a deep breath, and managed to keep my voice from trembling with exhaustion, “What would happen to Jasmine?”

“Ah, of course she would receive the very best treatment in my future palace,” He angled toward Jasmine and raised one of her hands to his lips, his eyes watching my expression, “As befits the concubine of the emperor.”

My vision swam and spun, my ears roared. All that was clear in my mind was Jasmine’s hypnosis-induced blank expression, Genriad’s sharp, piercing green eyes, and the knowledge that I had to kill this man. The air turned hot around me, and the heat rose until I was encased in a burning shell of fire. I glared at Genriad, my vision having returned but now I was seeing in red. I shot my loathing at him through my eyes, unable to hear past the roaring wall of fire. I willed him to suffer, to be incapable of hurting anyone else as he had hurt me and Jasmine, I remembered all the pain he had put us through and willed that to him as well.

One second he was standing there, my sister in his arms, and smirking at me. The next, he was staring at me in awed horror, scared, terrified. And the next he was writhing on the floor, screaming as he burned. The more flames that engulfed him, the more my vision returned to normal, my skin cooled down, and the more I felt how truly drained I was.

The last lick of flame left me and I collapsed to the floor. My face was turned the wrong way to see what was happening, but I didn’t have the strength to move and now could hear all too well. Genriad’s screams were getting weaker, feebler, until they went silent at last. I heard a small gasp, and then Jasmine was beside me, helping me onto my back. Her eyes had a desperate look in them, one I remembered from in the forest.

“You’re so beautiful.” I wheezed. As she bent over me I was awed by how completely striking she was. Her hair was the darkest of ebony, a mass of gentle waves cascading down her back with a few short locks framing her heart-shaped face. She was paler than normal, but I couldn’t blame her with what she’s been through recently. The flickering light from the torches illuminated her wide, dark eyes and played across her smooth cheeks and perfect nose.

“Don’t be silly,” Jasmine was definitely back to her old, no-nonsense self, chiding me for silliness when I just killed a man. She gave a little smile, “What you just did there was impossible, you know that?”

“I guess not.”