Drawn to the Flame- Book 1 Council of the Light Series

3

"Boom." She said, her hands rose and her fingers spread out to show the explosion. "Killing everything within thirty miles. The land won't be inhabitable for hundreds of years."

If anybody else had said that, he would have laughed at them, but it terrified him. Her people were barbaric, her world made little sense, and he'd seen things that he couldn't comprehend. The Humans of Earth had created their own magic, but in doing so had developed the ability to kill people with frightening ease. Thirty miles. That was horrific. "Can you make things like that?" His hand inched to his dagger, but it wasn't there.

Beatrix shook her head, "No."

"Can you make the elektrisate?"

"Electricity, and no."

"What can you do?"

"Nothing." Her face contorted, she pressed her hand to her side and studied the blood. "How much did I bleed?"

"A lot." Clarence decided she wasn't a threat and returned to study the farmhouse. "We're covered in gore and you look odd. If we ask anybody for help, they will turn us away and report us to the Druids."

"Druids?"

"They police the portals and administer the Council of the Light's laws. If they find out about you, they will get the Necromancers to interrogate you and then they will kill you." He watched her digest what he said. "Necromancers are-"

"I know, they control dead stuff."

"They do much more than that."

"Why do they want to kill me?"

"Nobody knows Earth exists. The Council of the Light will either want to keep it that way, or use you to learn Earths secrets- either way they will torture you for it and eventually kill you."

"I've put you in danger?" Not the question he expected her to ask after telling her that she was the one very much in danger.

"You're alive, that's what matters." It would be better to kill her. "But you're speaking a dead language."

"Should we be speaking Joining Earth Standard?" she asked.

"It is the standard language across the Transworld Network, there're thousands of worlds. We need to understand each other."

"Thousands?" she muttered as she checked her side again. "All like this one? All like Earth? You said we are in Ireland- My world had an Ireland."

"Not like Earth. No." The breeze lifted his hair from his neck, it was so hot it was making it hard to think.

"What's your name?" She asked.

Clarence considered lying, but his name wouldn't mean anything to her. "It's Clarence O'Leary, though I wouldn't use my surname around here. I go by the name Ren Green."

Her eyes flicked up, missing nothing. She touched her side again, her skin glistened with sweat.

"Can you walk?"

She took steps forward and her face said, 'I can.'

"I'm going to rob that farmhouse," he told her.

"Now?" another unusual response to somebody declaring their intention to commit a crime.

"Later, tonight when everybody is asleep. I'll get us some food and some clothing and try to work out how to get us back to Gelding Town."

"Gelding Town is where you live?"

He pointed at a copse of trees, "let's get some rest in the shade."