But my flame grew weaker.
I realized in dismay that I had no more magical juice left, just throbbing pain in my core. Embers of my fire sparked then smoldered as they died on my fingers.
The Demigod of Sea called off his storm.
I wobbled, waiting for the demigod to strike me down. My hands stretched like claws, ready to leave a trail of blood on his face when he came to me.
Instead of murdering me, he turned to Marie and ordered, “Call the healers. Now.”
Just then, Axel and Zak charged into the training hall, their gazes sweeping to me in utter shock.
I grinned at them savagely. I was but a standing, bloody meat pulp.
“What the bloody hell?” Zak thundered. “Who hurt her?”
Axel’s fiery eyes scanned the room, looking for threats, before alighting on me again.
“Who touched my Marigold?” he roared in rage.
My vision blurred as black dots danced before my eyes. I’d held on long enough. I still fought to stay conscious, though I’d now welcome a break from the unceasingly excruciating pain pounding in my skull, in my every cell.
I don’t know if Zak or Axel reached me before I fell on my face.
CHAPTER 12
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As if I was floatingabove my body, I saw myself curled up on the ground, my lavender hair spilling around my gory face. My left cheek split open, as were my lips. My left eye was a black circle and my right one a patch of swollen red.
I was a grotesque sight, but all I felt was a cold, detached emotion.
I must have died.
As I peered at myself more closely, I noticed that though broken, I was wrapped inside some kind of a protective bubble made of pale crimson light.
Axel, Theodore, and a healer crouched outside the orb.
None of the students were in the room. It was just the demigods, the priest, the healer, and me—my body and my ghost.
Axel touched the boundary of the bubble, and a slew of crimson lightning shocked him, throwing him back.
“None of us can take down her force field,” Theodore said. “We’d better stop trying and wait for her to wake up.”