The Cloud of Darkness (The Ingenairii Series Book 11) by Jeffrey Quyle

something that utilized one of the other ingenaire abilities he had developed over the course of his life.
    The first lion was completely free of its cage, and just feet away from the girl.  There was no time to think through a solution – Alec had to act on impulse.  He dropped his Warrior abilities, and called upon his Air abilities, then created a targeted downdraft of air, three simultaneous currents, and focused each of the powerful forces directly into the faces of the lions.
    The animals stopped in their tracks and snarled.  One rose up on its hind legs and swatted at its unseen assailant, while the other two snapped their jaws fruitlessly, trying to fight the force that they could not see.  Alec was approaching the battle scene, and he increased the force of the air, trying to not just stop the lions, but to force them to retreat back toward their cages.
    He slipped in through the gap between two of the lions.
    “Please don’t kill me,” the lacerta sobbed.
    “I’m here to help you, little one,” Alec replied, taking a position in front of the girl, and turning to face the lions.
    “Though we have not bit one another in the neck, we are friends,” he assured her.
    He focused on the air currents, making them wider and stronger, finally creating enough force to make the lions begin to backpedal.
    The crowd continued to cheer, surprised by the unexpected turn of events, but still anticipating blood to be shed.
    Alec switched powers with a nearly simultaneous dropping of the Air power and then adoption of his Light power.  He focused the beams of sunlight into narrow, intense bands that struck the ropes holding the cage doors open.  All three ropes suddenly flared with bright light and a puff of smoke as the strands parted, and the cage doors slammed shut.
    Then, to his surprise, his powers abruptly ceased to flow for a long pause, before they began anew.
    The crowd cheered again at yet another unexpected turn of events, one that seemed to be done by magic.
    “Kill it!” the crowd began to chant.
    Alec turned to the lacerta.  She was a girl, small, as lacerta females were inclined to be.  She was still chained to the post, and backed up against the post as she looked at Alec uncertainly, holding the edges of her tattered clothing tightly as if it could protect her from whatever blow Alec was about to inflict.
    The crowd grew silent, ready to see Alec deliver the coup de grace.
    Alec held on to his once-more flowing Light power, and stepped closer to the girl.  “Hold still,” he directed, as he lifted her hand with one of his, and stretched out the length of chain with the other hand, then commanded the Light energy to concentrate a narrow stream of sunlight onto a link of the metal chain.
    He had a momentary recollection of the battle he had fought with a lacerta army long, long ago.  Alec had fallen unconscious for a portion of the contest, wounded in a battle to save Imelda’s life, as they had fought to seize control of a lacerta army, so that it would listen to the commands of Rosebay, the exiled lacerta regent.  And in that battle, for the first time that any ingenairii could recollect, the Light ingenaire power had been used as a weapon.  After the battle, he’d listened to Shaiss recount the amazing event, telling of his own astonishment at the success.
    And the irony struck him, as he watched the metal chain link glow red, then smoke and sizzle and suddenly snap apart.  The power had been used against lacertii that first time, and it was now being used on behalf of a lacerta.
    “What’s your name?” Alec asked the girl as the remains of the metal link fell into the sand.
    “Bungacantik,” she replied.
    “That’s a long name for such a small person,” he smiled at her.
    “My friends call me Kecil,” she said shyly.  “What are you going to do now?”
    “I’m going to take you out of here,” he told her.
    The crowd sensed that they were being denied the violence they