Forgotten Elements
Chapter 23

Parker and I shared a look that said we were fucked. Now, the big question was whether or not we should bide our time and attempt to escape or should we go on the offense. Which did she expect us to attempt?

“What the fuck happened to you?” I blurted out as I edged into the clearing, keeping my steps slow and measured as I avoided the large symbols. From the angle I’d been standing at before, I hadn’t been able to get a clear view of her face until now. I wished I could go back and forget what I saw. I should’ve expected it from the state of her body, but it still came as a shock.

Her face hadn’t been spared, and not only was it swollen, but it was entirely the puke green color. I could barely make out small slivers of her blue eyes that I think were aimed at me, but it was hard to be sure.

Parker kept close behind me with a hand resting on my lower back like he was afraid of being separated from me.

“I’m evolving, and I will soon have powers you couldn’t possibly dream of; too bad you won’t be around to see it.” Her powerful and booming voice had me covering my ears, and when I pulled my hands away, blood stained my palms as my ears rang. It wasn’t anything like when Emmy screeched, but it still hurt like hell.

“You won’t survive this; your body is already rejecting the magic.” Parker’s magic built up behind me, using my body as a shield so she didn’t see the spell. With all the magic around us, I doubted she’d notice the spell, or at least, I hoped so.

“To evolve into something new, first I must destroy what once was.”

Damn, I almost wished she was reticent with her answers. Not only were they crazy and made her sound insane, but the power lacing her voice and the outrageous volume was grating my poor ears.

“That’s not how things work. When you explode from too much power, you won’t evolve into anything new. You’ll be dead,” I yelled to be heard over my ringing ears, hoping to distract her as Parker finished with his spell.

A wave of gold light filled the clearing as a blast of magic flew at the woman. I was expecting her to go flying or at least get knocked over, but that didn’t happen. The blast hit her, and her body jerked as she closed her eyes and grunted, but that was it.

I sensed several tree roots moving toward us only seconds before they struck. In any other situation, I would’ve noticed as soon as the connection was made—it only happened when I was paying attention as I was now—but this wasn’t a normal situation.

Maybe it was because she was so connected to the elements, or maybe it was her increase in strength, but I was sensing her energy signature everywhere all at once. It overwhelmed my senses as I tried to keep track of what she was doing.

Even though I knew the roots were coming at us before they struck, I was unable to avoid them. I could only manipulate three tree roots at once, and that was on a good day. I wasn’t able to count the amount of roots she sent our way with how I was busy trying to stay alive, but it was a hell of a lot more than three. Two of them wrapped around my left leg, while three latched onto my right, stopping me from diving to the side. One wrapped around my throat, jerking me back as another stabbed me in the left side of my stomach.

Being an Earth Court elemental and getting stabbed by your own element was a sort of betrayal that was hard to explain. It would be like if a wolf attacked Jade or Ari. It may not make sense to others, but logic doesn’t always have a place in our world.

Not only did the root bring forth a world of pain in my side as it jerked out of my stomach, but it left behind splinters that would make healing a bitch until they were removed. Unfortunately, the splinters weren’t my main worries at the moment. As soon as the root made contact, I could feel it inject poison into my blood. Poison was a natural defense for many types of trees and typically only harmed whoever disturbed the tree. These types of trees tended to be even more difficult to control.

The root around my throat tightened to the point it cut off my air supply and cut into my throat. While I didn’t know the name of this tree without seeing it for myself, I had a few guesses as to the type of poison pumping through my veins, and none of them were good. If I was correct the poison would be somewhat fast-acting. Within five minutes, my limbs would stop responding to my commands, which would eventually be followed by unconsciousness until my organs began shutting down one by one. Even with the small amount that had been injected into my body, I didn’t have long, and we needed to get the hell out of here.

I was able to make out Parker’s magic, which was surprising with the cloying magic from the woman. Since I was no longer facing them, I could only assume Parker was fighting her, hopefully uninjured and not poisoned by the roots. But even if Parker was injured, I couldn’t worry about him right now, not when I couldn’t breathe. My priority had to be getting this root to ease its hold. With that in mind, I grabbed the root around my neck and began focusing on it and nothing else.

A numbing tingle had already begun, starting in my side where I’d been impaled, spurring me to fight harder. Despite her focus being in multiple places at once, her hold on the roots was near ironclad.

Sometime during my fight against the roots, the wind had picked up as a flash of lightning lit up the sky, and a crack of thunder followed only seconds later before it began pouring. As if all of this wasn’t bad enough, the ground began rumbling.

The realm had already been unstable, but now it was increasingly worse. It was like the countdown to the implosion was going into overdrive. If I had to guess the cause, I’d say it was because she pulled more from it than she should. So far, the drain she’d been performing was slow and steady, but that wasn’t the case now. Rather than slowly pulling, she was now yanking. As a result, the elements were attempting to right themselves at the sudden loss.

There was one benefit from this though. Now that the elements were rebelling, her focus was split even further as she attempted to rein them in, and her hold on the root loosened. The only problem was they weren’t easy to control. It was akin to a human attempting to ride a bull if it were jacked up and dead set on killing them. There was also the fact that I was on a time limit—both with my dwindling oxygen supply and the poison working its way through my body.

Black dots started filling my vision as my lungs burned, begging for oxygen. I’d managed to gain control of the root, just enough to loosen it around my neck a fraction, but it allowed me to take a shallow breath. It wasn’t near enough, but it prevented me from passing out.

By the time the numbing tingles hit my thighs and upper rib cage, I’d loosened the root enough for me to slip out. My focus dropped to the others holding me captive, and I let out a tired sigh before I went to work on them. Now that I was able to fully breathe and think clearly, I had a somewhat easier time with the others as rain pelted my skin, the intensity near bruising.

Lightning flashed across the sky fairly often now, followed by thunder almost right away, but none of them had hit anything until now. The lightning slammed into the ground only a few feet away, and the impact rocked the earth, sending me flying backward.

With the poison pumping through my veins and slowly numbing my body, I had a harder time standing up.

My gaze sought out Parker, but it was hard to see through the sheets of rain. If it weren’t for the blasts of light coming from his spells, I probably would’ve never been able to replace him over ten feet away. I tried shouting his name, but it did no good.

The numbness had reached the middle of my calves, making it nearly impossible to run through a torrential storm. When my legs finally gave out, I expected to painfully crash into the ground, only it never happened.

Parker caught me and lifted me into his arms. I didn’t sense any weakness in him that would suggest he was poisoned, and a wave of relief washed through me. His lips moved with words I couldn’t hear, but I didn’t attempt to figure out what he was trying to say.

Rift, I mouthed to him, hoping he’d understand. There was nothing more we could do here. The woman had sent the realm into overdrive, and the implosion was now a ticking time bomb that would go off in hours rather than days.

The numbness was now almost at my feet and in my biceps, and soon, I wouldn’t be able to move my body. We needed to be out of this realm so I could tell Parker my theory as to what this poison was and how to treat it.

He didn’t waste time in creating the rift or jumping through it. The rift hadn’t been all too stable, but he managed to stay on his feet as we landed in a new realm. A good thing too, since my entire body was completely numb, and I had only minutes until I passed out.

I vaguely noticed a vivid violet sky above us and multiple suns, that were smaller than our sun.

“Parker,” I murmured through numb lips as my head lolled against his shoulder. “Poison.”

“I know,” he said softly. “I’ll take care of you.”

With my body weakening from the poison, I hadn’t noticed someone approaching until they spoke, but even then, the sound was slightly warbled. “Who are you, and how the fuck did you enter our realm?”

I attempted to lift my head as he came into view, not wanting to seem like easy prey, but it was useless. My eyes must’ve been playing tricks on me because I could’ve sworn he had purple hair that reached his ears. It didn’t matter how much I blinked, the purple hair remained.

Silvery-blue eyes met mine as he took in my pathetic appearance. “She’s been poisoned.”

“I know,” Parker bit out, not bothering to hide his frustration.

“She needs an elemental to heal her,” the man said as his eyes tracked over my body in a clinical manner.

As they spoke, my eyelids grew heavier. It became nearly impossible to stay awake. When I wrenched my eyes open, I realized I must’ve missed a chunk of their conversation because we were now moving, with Parker following the man who was now running.

Parker kept talking to me as he ran, telling me everything was going to be alright. My vision began blurring as it became a struggle to focus on his words. The last thing I saw was his panicked expression before I fell into unconsciousness.