Savior by Laury Falter Read Free Book Online Page B

grip as he swung me around and set me down behind where we were standing.
    “Stay here, away from the window,” he instructed and headed for the door before stopping to glance back. “I mean it, Jocelyn.”
    “I know.”
    Muffled shouts echoed through the bayou, finding their way up through the rickety floorboards, reinforcing Jameson’s request. They grew louder as he opened the door, unnerving me.
    I remembered Jameson’s warning… to save my energy because I’d lose it soon enough . The Vires purposely created these prisons to sap us of us our abilities. I also recalled something else Jameson had said, and although he hadn't initially meant it as a warning, it certainly applied now. Vires are immune. They have full influence over their abilities. I drew in a sharp breath as the conclusion I struggled with surfaced:
    Vires are powerful here, we are not.
    The instant I pieced it all together, the door closed behind Jameson.
    I rushed for it, taking four long strides and yanking the doorknob back before I knew what I was doing.
    Jameson was exposed now, and it terrified me.
    “Jameson?” I cried out, but he was already gone, his strong legs having carried him two docks toward the heart of the village.
    I released a frustrated sigh. Turning my attention to the shacks across the way, where our families were staying, I focused on the bodies moving in the dark.
    “Mother?” I called out, receiving no answer.
    I gave it four more tries, randomly calling out the names of both my family members and the Caldwells, only to be met with the sounds of rustling clothes, creaking docks, and faint, terrified whispers.
    Suddenly, my focus was sidetracked as flashes of light began skimming across the water.
    Those are too big to be mistaken for lightning bugs, I realized.
    They slammed into shacks just down the waterway, igniting them, and propelling flames that claimed homes along the banks. Smoke billowed and screams reverberated all around, but I was frozen, trying to process everything that was happening around me. I stood motionless as reality slowly began to sink in - Lives, mine included, were suddenly in danger, and for no reason at all.
    Then I saw something that took my breath away entirely.
    In the light cast from the burning wood shacks, a wave of people headed for me, hundreds of them. They paddled their canoes or leapt from dock to dock, clutching their family stones, not realizing in their haste that they would do no good here. Their terrified shrieks echoed through the night, uttering fragments of casts as they fled.
    “Blind in night, blind in day, send these Vires far away, send them…"
    “Eye of bat, tongue of toad…”
    “…Watchtower of the South…”
    The casts being spoken began to blend with more authoritative voices, ones that came down on me like the lid of a coffin, suffocating, terrifying.
    The Vires are here, I thought, as I slipped the hood over my head; but I did not step back to the shadows.
    “Incantatio incendo!" they shouted repeatedly. As they approached, their voices grew louder and flames danced on the air in front of them.
    I stepped out of the doorway so I could see better, just as they appeared from around the bend in the waterway. A solid line of them spanning from bank to bank levitated above the water, as if it were a black carpet laid down to greet them.
    In the midst of the chaos, I studied the shacks opposite me, terrified of what I might find. Several were already on fire.
    “No…," I said under my breath, and then repeated it much louder, “No!"
    Although my heart had been racing moments ago, in Jameson’s arms, it was beating rapidly now for a very different reason. Anger pulsed through me as I stood there, unable to help, watching for any sign of Jameson, my family, or the Caldwells to emerge, willing it to happen. The rage was so concentrated it made me tremble.
    The wood planks beneath my feet vibrated, as the horde of people caught up to me. I turned just in time to