I hope this works.
Angelique’s knees, hidden by her dress, shook, and her palms were clammy as she held her magic steady, letting more and more goblins pour into the area.
A few more goblins released arrows—one coming so close to Angelique’s cheek, it whistled as it shot past.
Angelique held her ground with her sharp, prickly magic at her back while the din of the goblins’ cackles and the steady thrum of their drums grew so loud, she could feel the noise in her bones.
The front line—made up almost entirely of tall mountain goblins—was nearly on her.
She felt horribly alone, but she didn’t allow herself to take a step back as they bore down on her.
The goblin directly in front of Angelique threw a spear at her, aiming for her heart.
Angelique raised a hand and released the smallest bit of her magic. It caught the spear midair and kept it there, hovering within an arm’s reach.
The goblins directly in front of Angelique slowed down to squint at the spear. They must have recognized the work of magic because they turned on their heels and tried to flee.
The rest of the horde hadn’t paused, however, so they trampled the terrified few as they converged on Angelique.
Angelique’s heart pounded faster as she loosened her core magic. She raised her arms and stretched out her fingers as she directed her silvery magic so it spread out over the goblins, in a glittery veil, converging on their weapons.
Angelique felt each individual weapon that her magic wrapped around and consumed.
Every blade, club accented with spikes, and arrow was a pinprick in her mind, filling her consciousness like a prickly sea. It was an odd sensation, to have her consciousness covering an entire area. Each weapon her magic covered brought back a zap of feedback, and Angelique soon knew the count of every armament in the goblin army from general numbers all the way down to the specific weight of individual spears.
Slowly, each weapon pulled free of the goblin that wielded it and rose into the air. Arrows, crude knives, spears, rough swords, clubs studded with nails—every—goblin weapon hung above the army. Some of the knives cut themselves free of belts and pouches, and the arrows rose from quivers in thick bundles.
The area was so cluttered with weapons and dusted with the glowing silver of Angelique’s magic, it was hard for her to see much of the army, but she felt how far back her magic prowled, asserting authority over everything with an edge.
Briefly, Angelique’s lower lip trembled as she realized just how big the goblin horde was and just how much magic she was using.
There was so much. Her magic drifted farther than her eyes could see, past layers and layers of trees all the way to the last goblins bringing up the rearguard.
And still her magic tugged at her, rubbing around her ankles and swimming in her chest, slowly spreading cold through her body.
More. It wanted more!
Angelique stiffened her spine, forced her chin up and kept her eyes open as she raised the weapons higher and higher. She wouldn’t falter in fear of the goblins…or in fear of her own magic.
The goblins stopped their forward progress. Some—like the cave goblins—screamed in anger as they hopped up and down, trying to grab their weapons. A tiny percentage of the goblins huddled low to the ground and suspiciously peered up at their confiscated blades.
They pounded the drums with extra force, as if that could make the weapons return. But Angelique could barely hear it above the buzzing in her brain caused by the feedback from all the connection points her magic had forged in engulfing the weapons.
When the weapons had reached roughly the height of a two-story house, even the dumbest cave goblin seemed to realize they were beyond their grasp.
The forest turned eerily quiet, and the goblins gaped up at their hovering weapons with fear.
It had been theorized that she could defeat an army by herself, but she had always refused to test the guess. It had been a final hold out—a possibility that just maybe she wasn’t the powerful monster made for bloodshed that all her instructors claimed she was.
Even though her foe was goblins, she took no pleasure in killing them and no pleasure in the vast strength of her all-consuming magic.
She was glad to save the elves, but she knew in her heart this was the end of an era, the end of her innocence.
Angelique dropped her arms, feeling defeated.
“So may it end,” Angelique whispered.
She triggered her magic, which dropped the weapons with pinpoint precision on the army, tearing the goblins to shreds in their messy formations.
Goblins gurgled and shrieked, but that single use of her magic had wiped out more than half of their immense army.
The goblins that were able to flee turned on their heels and ran, but they were too late.
Angelique sent out a pulse of her core magic, and again all bladed and pointed weapons—no matter their size or material—rose into the air.
The coolness of her magic and the way it eagerly wrapped around her fingers was intoxicating.
It took only the smallest flick, and her responsive powers dropped the weapons again, slaughtering more of the goblin troops.
With her magic crashing across the battlefield, no goblin escaped. Angelique swept the area, her power splashing farther and farther as it searched for more goblins.
When she had successfully slain the entire army, Angelique cut off her magic.
It fought her for a moment, desperately sinking its cool, powerful sensation deep into her bones.
Angelique forcibly peeled it off, then paused.
Her mind had settled as her awareness of all the goblin weapons had faded.
She nodded in acceptance and took a step back, intending to turn around to face the elves, when her price slammed into her gut, making her stomach flip.
Instantly, she fell to her knees and painfully retched, her entire body shaking at the strength of it.
Every mage had a price or a limit on their magic.
Limits were limitations in the operation of the magic—rules that one had to follow. Evariste had a limit—he couldn’t open a gate in an area that had been desecrated by black magic.
Angelique had a price—a cost she paid every time she used an extensive amount of magic. For her, it was an intense, awful sickness that made her terribly weak and open to attack.
The sickness didn’t last as long as it had the first few times she used great amounts of her core magic, but it was still just as painful, and it was awful enough to throw her to her knees and drive her to the limits of her strength.
“Angelique!”
Angelique’s second retch jolted her entire body and made her cough and cry once it had briefly subsided. It was so hot, so nauseating that Angelique could barely tell upside down from right-side up.
When someone crouched at her side, it took a soft hand on her shoulder for Angelique to realize it was Quinn.
“I hate this,” Angelique panted. “I hate my magic.”
Quinn rubbed Angelique’s back. “Thank you for…saving…us.”
“Quinn?” Themerysaldi’s voice punctured the haze of sickness that clouded Angelique’s mind.
Angelique registered the blonde solider had tipped over and collapsed on the ground moments before another spasm in her stomach made her retch.
“Quinn!” Themerysaldi shouted. “She reopened her shoulder injury!”
“Anyone with a scrap of magic—you are needed!” Lady Alastryn bellowed in a voice that was very un-Lady Alastryn-like.