by N. M. Howell
“I can’t sense it, Daughter. My ties have been broken.”
“Well, then it’s a good thing we have an actual piece of the portal then.” She removed the triangular shard from the pocket of her hoodie.
Kraevek started toward her. “What do you intend to do with—Raina!”
Before he could reach her, she slashed the obsidian-sharp fragment over the black scar on her hand. Blood flowed down the too-black surface, seeping into the stone. Raina stumbled a bit as the stone became dense black smoke. It lingered, holding the shark tooth shape for a heartbeat. With a flash, it vanished.
Wan red light coalesced above the broken rim. A vision gathered slowly. This view was as if a window had been assembled of broken funhouse mirrors, stained glass, and odd, hazy patches between. The sun was partially eclipsed by the moon. The meadow on the far side of the lake was now dusty, barren ground. Forest surrounding looked burned, leafless and dead. Yet there was no doubt, despite the damaged appearance, that they saw Oreálle.
Raina gasped as a great chord caressed her body, energy fizzing in her blood. She felt weightless and grounded at the same time; bold and timid in the sudden flow of Light magic.
“Gods and comets!” She shouted and fell to her knees. City air tasted of mountain breezes, the rumble of traffic a song, the magic flow was a summer sun after an eternity of winter nights.
Kraevek bent over, his hands clutching his head, moaning. His skin glowed from an inner light, the Fae luminescence blasting his Phaze apart. Raina realized her father had been away from direct magic for much longer than she.
Raina reached out to the calm surface of the lake. Nearly instantly, Mariea Raeyelle appeared.
“Raina! I sense the portal! Come home! Come home now!”
“I’m at the portal, Mom. I opened—”
Her mother stared past her, jaw dropping. “Kr’veşk?” she whispered.
“Manrieälle.” All the sorrow and hope in the world mingled in the sound of his voice.
Raina swiped tears from her eyes. “Go to her. Help her. Help them all.”
Kraevek climbed to the rim, stepped across. He moved no further. “I can’t! I can’t get through!”
Stilling her mind, Raina reached out, finding a thread, a tenuous connection to the other side with the Lord Fae gift her father bestowed upon her. Holding it fast in her thoughts, she reached out with her hand. Her bloody hand. When she grasped Kraevek’s, she felt nothing. Her father was no longer there. She could not see him through the broken view. Her mother’s face no longer reflected in the lake.
Her link slipped from her. She didn’t know if he had made it or not, if he existed in some hellish space between the dimensions. Even if the portal was opened again, it was still very broken. She took a reluctant half step back, a half step from her people, and into the human world.
A bump on her ankle startled Raina. She looked down. A brown and white rabbit sat up, looking at her with unblinking eyes.
“Jax?”
The rabbit hopped forward, butting her boot with its head. It hopped away a few yards and turned around to see if she was following.
Alarm sang through her. Was Jax drawing her into a trap? But as she watched, the bunny faded from view, flickering like bad TV reception. It reappeared, hopped back and forth. There seemed to be desperation in its twitching whiskers.
Something was definitely wrong with Jax. “Okay,” she told the rabbit. “Where is he?”
Luckily, the static-y rabbit didn’t have far to hop. Jax sat on the low wall around Bethesda Fountain, the Angel of the Waters statue looming above. The rabbit leaped toward him and disappeared. He looked up. And did a double take. “When did you go blonde?”
Raina reached up, ran her hands through her hair. It no longer felt like a haystack. Energy from the portal must have burned the dye right out of it.
“Jax, are you hurt?” She’d seen him burned alive not many hours before, yet he showed no sign of it. She stepped cautiously closer.
“Hurt?” He laughed, although it didn’t carry any sound other than bitterness. “Rainara, I’m sorry. You were so right.”
His features pinched. Jax drew a deep breath. “Hate. It’s like a drug. After a while, you become addicted. I’ve been consumed by it. Drunk with nithe. Have you ever heard that word?”
“Yeah…”
“It’s very old. It isn’t used much. But I’m filled with it—nithe, hate, evil. Gods beyond, what have I done?”
“Maybe I can help you, Jax.” She moved closer, heart stinging, lifting her hands to him.
He reached out. Then snatched his own hands back.
“You’re glowing.”
Raina saw that he was right. Light magic flowed, and she glowed like a light bulb charged with current.
“Your face.”
“I know you’re strong Jax. Strong enough to overcome anything.” She stopped. Jax’ hands started to glow as well. Not the golden, bright glow of her own, but a dark, diseased orange. For a brief second, an image like a hologram surrounded him—claws and scales. Her eyes jerked to his face and caught the orange glow of his irises.
Jax took a long, deep breath. His voice dropped an octave, and he growled through his teeth. “You’re Bright Fae. I can smell it on you like scent on a roast.”
One instant, he was slumped on the fountain rim. The next, he was in her face. Smoke wreathed his head, heat coming off of him.
“The nithing is at hand.” Brimstone filled her nose as Jax’ skin took on the appearance of reptilian scales. “Time to die, little Bright Fae.”
29
Pumped with Light magic as she was, she still nearly didn’t duck the swipe of Jax’ claws in time.
Claws! He had claws on his—
She dodged, feeling the wind of a second strike.
“Jax, stop it!”
A shiver overtook him, his breathing quickened. His eyes returned to their natural black, his skin dark and smooth. “I can’t stop it. It’s like instinct now.” His features shifted, a scowling, scaled visage. “I have to kill you.”
Raina didn’t give him the chance. She raised her left hand, flipping the back toward Jax, her eyes seeing the color of glacial ice, her ears the whine of a mosquito. The Impel Exhort knocked Jax backward into the icy waters of the fountain. Steam hissed, and by the time Jax bounded to his feet, he was dry again.
It wasn’t due to his heat, she quickly learned. Her skin went itchy, mouth dry, eyes gritty. Behind Jax, the fountain pump burbled as the water disappeared. He hit her with an old favorite, a Zephyr of Desiccation. This time, it wasn’t to dry her sodden clothes, or the dewy grass. This time, if she didn’t break the spell, her blood would thicken and her heart stop.
Simple magic, unlike Fray Spells, was hard to counter with magic. There were no countermoves, no shields to commonplace spells. Fortunately, simple magic was easily halted by physical touch. She reached down, grabbed a rock, and pelted Jax in the chest. As the spell dispersed, she cast an Intent Transitive and remotely punched him in the nose. She followed with a Bludgeon Typhlotic to the gut—the old one-two.
Jax doubled over and fell to his knees. Almost at once, with no gesticulation, he let go a Zephyr of Conflagration. But, no! She barely got up an Adargo Dire in time. He wasn’t spelling her—he was breathing fire!
Her quickie shield didn’t hold back the intense heat, and her hands began to fry. She dodged behind the concrete rail at the bottom of the Bethesda Terrace stairs. She felt her hair. Singed. Damn it, just when she got it back to normal. In her anger, she decided to deal with Jax the same way she had the nithedrakes below The Arsenal.
Left hand fingers wide and twisting, she shot a Precipitation of Sand right down Jax’ throat. While he choked and smoked, she vaulted the rail and stood atop it. Altering the gesticulation slightly, she struck again, this time Precipitating Hoarfrost. While Derek was a mammal, and warm blooded, she might just send his dragon aspects into torpor.
Jax stunned her. Lifting h
is arms wide, they melted, elongated, and took on the shape of wings. With two thudding beats, he took to the air, the second Zephyr missing him completely.
So much for that tactic. She needed to get down and dirty. First, she leapt back behind the railing, avoiding another fire spew. Gazing up at Jax, she knew she had to time this right. She pulled a dirty trick from the Dark Fae bag, crossing open fingers over each other like a net. Tiger lily orange lit behind her eyes, the snap of alligator fangs in her ears.
Jax; flight faltered as the Snare Torrid formed a bright net around him. But Raina wasn’t done. She used one of the few spells Derek had learned, the one that let him leap atop the academy wall. Impel Accelension was simple magic, just a helping boost, really. When Raina hit the plummeting Jax with it, he bounced back into the air, so high she could barely see him.
He plummeted down—no matter what had been done to him, a fall from that high would definitely hurt. At the last moment, he swooped toward her. Raina stood, aghast. Jax let loose a gout of flame. She dropped the net, held her breath, and hit herself with a Precipitation of Sand to douse the fire, then quickly turned it on Jax.
The net—of course! It worked by burning a captive who struggled. Jax was practically on fire. A worse thought occurred. Nithedrake naturally dimmed Light Fae magic. She doubted any Fray Spell would hurt him at all.
Jax landed, wings transforming into arms again. He ran at her, all out. She heard the noise and saw the glimmer of his Slash Bellow as he cast. Without the recent Light magic recharge, she couldn’t have gotten the Panoply Rubicund off in time. Still, the blow hit her hard enough to make her “oof” and drive her face first to the ground.
He was almost on her. She had no time to react. Raina knew what she had to do. Play possum. When Jax reached her, she turned the ruby armor inside out, trapping him inside. Jax tripped and rolled—the armor was hers, not his, after all.
He was now so physically strong that keeping him wrapped up gave her a pounding headache. Furious eyes took her measure. She wanted to flinch away from that hate, but she held him fast. But what now?
Raina heard a tiny voice in the back of her mind: Magic defies physics: physics defines magic. Would it work? Concentrating precisely, she let off on the force holding Jax’ hands rigid. As she hoped, he crossed his palms quickly past each other, a baseball-sized globe of light appearing. He launched. But he was encased by the outside of magic armor. The lunge bounced back at him, cleaving a long, bloody welt from his face down his neck, splitting open his shirt. Eyes rolling, Jax went limp.
She undid the armor, and Jax slumped to the grass. Orange scales appeared in the deep slash, stopping the blood. In a moment, his skin rejoined, as if it had a zipper.
Gods beyond, even with the Light magic supercharge, she trembled with exhaustion. She couldn’t go on fighting Jax, not with his nithedrake vibe dousing her strongest spells. He was superhumanly strong, he could breathe fire all night, and he could freakin’ fly.
The male of the breeding pair had been chained with that purple material. Raina didn’t know what it was, let alone where to find any. She didn’t have Derek’s slingshot, or the iron weapons of the Egalitarian Confraternity.
His eyes opened. Raina wanted to step back, but held her ground. They weren’t the glowing orange of the nithedrake, but the black of Jax’ own.
“Rainara, kill me now. I can feel the Slayer overtaking me again.”
“Kill you?”
“It’s the only way you’ll ever be safe. I’ll come for you again and again. You can’t stop me.”
She knelt beside him. “Fight it, Jax. Fight it off. You’re so strong.”
“You’re so close,” he growled through his teeth. Claws extended from his fingertips, his hands going hard and scaly.
“Jax, come on!”
With an inhuman roar, he leapt to his feet. Orange eyes met hers with predator intensity. After a moment, they shifted back. Spinning away from her, Jax threw his arms wide, extending them into wings. Seconds later, he vanished into The Ramble.
The others were still battling with the Slayers. Raina raced back along Kraevek’s route to avoid The Arsenal. She’d had enough of nithedrakes to last a lifetime. As she banged her head on a low water pipe, she thought the same was true for this whole underground nonsense.
In the ritual chamber, the pillar-gems had been smashed to sand, the rack ripped from its mounts. Chips and cracks decorated the naked stone walls. The hole beneath suffered similarly, although being a rough excavation to begin with, it was harder to see. Trini stood on the stairs, guarding the door with Derek’s slingshot. She lowered the weapon as Raina poked her head around the corner.
“Raina! Holy cow, you look like… Where are your eyebrows?”
Forsaken Gods, Raina thought.
“We have a problem, Lord Fae.” Melchior’s voice. She hurried down the stairs.
The first problem she noted was that, out of the six confraternity members, only Melchior and Belle remained. “Where are the others?”
Belle’s eyes darkened. “Lost.”
Raina couldn’t return her gaze. “The Slayers?”
“That’s the problem. We’ve found four of their dead. The others aren’t here.”
Her eyes scanned the dark hole. She saw no exit, other than the stairs.
“Where did they go?”
“Why, I wonder what would cause soldiers who live for battle to flee?”
All of them peered into the dark at the far side of the room. A silhouette appeared in the wan glow of the nithedrake eggs.
“Perhaps more fitting foes appeared?” Merit Sharp appeared. In the crook of his right arm, he carried what looked like an enormous, trillion cut aquamarine, save for the clouds that swirled below the facets. “Perhaps a gateway was opened for them Lord Fae?”
Gods beyond, the portal, busted as it was, still stood open. The Slayers were headed there. Or were they? Jax had already been at Bethesda Fountain, only yards from the academy. With growing certainty, Raina felt the Slayers were already there.
“Why, Sharp? You’re an intelligent man. If you wipe out Oreálle, there won’t be any more magic for either the Light or Dark.”
Sharp smiled. “That’s where you’re wrong, Lord Fae. I’ve heard the arguments. The portal is like the floodgate of a dam. Magic flows from there like a river, like a trickle from the tiny natural portals still in existence. We’ve made studies. It’s not true. Magic is not like water. Oreálle is not ‘uphill’ from this dimension, as it were. Oreálle is a drain, a place where magic swirls away into nothing. Magic flows into Oreálle, not the other way around. That’s why the Light Fae must return there, or die. If magic comes from that pocket dimension, one would merely need to stand in its path to reap its benefits.
“No, my dear, your luminocentric view has clouded your reason. The Slayers will rid the artificial little dimension of those nasty creatures, and then close it down for good. Magic will not come back to the Earthly realm, it simply will not flush away as quickly into the sewer the Bright Fae call home.”
“You’re wrong.” What could Raina tell him? She’d stood outside the portal, bathed in magic. But, no, she stood halfway between the realms.
Sharp shrugged. “Regardless, we won’t live to see which of us is correct. I have the remaining confraternity here, as well as an unknown Lord Fae. It would be in our best interest not to let you interfere.
He hefted the huge jewel in his damaged arm. “Ever.”
“It’s only a rime crystal, Sharp,” Melchior said. “What are you going to do, snow us to death?”
“For a Dark Fae, Melchior, your thinking is very limited.” With that, Sharp awkwardly tossed the stone toward the oversized nithedrake eggs.
As it made a lazy arc through the air, Sharp closed his eyes.
“Get down!” Raina cried, and cast the largest Targe Viridescent she could manage. Trini, Belle and Melchior caught on, following suit. Still, when the blizzard-housing gemstone cracked into an
egg hotter than melting steel, the explosion shook the bedrock walls before everything disappeared in brilliant sapphire light.
30
Raina couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. She struggled, and felt the tickle of dust drop down her hoodie. Stones scraped against her exposed skin. Her knees would not bend. She was buried alive.
Panic raced through her. Urging herself to motion only made her feel the fire in her lungs burn hotter. Could she spell her way out? She had the power to Impel Oblige pretty big objects, but tons of loose rubble? Maybe if she could see the rubble.
She had to make it back to the portal, to protect it from the Slayers if she could. To do that, she needed to get a grip right now. Fray Spells only worked well against opponents. Gravel packed her so tightly, she couldn’t tell if she were head up or head down.
From above, she heard a low rumble. More dust and sand poured into the neck of her hoodie. Okay, she was head up. Wiggling, she managed to move her arms a little. If she could get her hands up, and gesticulate, she might find a spell to free herself.
Again, rocks crackled and shifted overhead. More sand, more dust. Thankfully she couldn’t breathe, or she’d be choking right now. Now she felt motion. Someone digging? Muted voices called her name. Fingers brushed her hair. Did they feel her?
This time the rumble sounded like thunder, the falling sand like rain. Like precipitation—a Precipitation of Verdigris. Someone wore the stones to dust with a disintegration spell. Long moments dragged by, her body twitching with lack of air. She felt hands again, and managed to grab hold. With a tearing heave, her body came half out of the debris. Raina gulped air, choked, gulped more air. Rubbing dirt from her eyes, she saw Trini and Melchior.
“Belle?” she croaked.
“I’m fine.” She stood a few feet away, looking at a hole in the ceiling. That was where the steps had come down, Raina realized. This rough chamber had been nearly buried completely. “Looks like we can still crawl out.”