tiger shoots flare

An instant later, my brain caught up with what he was doing and I skipped a step closer to Nora, the manifestation of my soul dropping down on all fours around her and opening his jaws.

Heat and light gathered between blazing teeth and I kept my eyes trained on Keppel as he dropped down on his hands and feet as well, bracing himself. Quickly, more and more ice grew around him, as if to shelter him within an iceberg, and soon there was little left but a massive pillar of ice with a vague shadow held within.

“Flare,” I said quietly and the sphere exploded forth, not expanding until after it reached its target—and then exploding into a sphere of fire that dwarfed even the shielding iceberg. In held its shape for a moment before exploding in truth, shattering the ice as much as melting it and sending up massive columns of smoke and steam, waves of heat washing over us as it did.