Blades Of Destiny (Crown Service Book 4)

by Terah Edun

  “How did you defeat me time and again if your ‘visions’ aren’t real?” she finally said.

  He looked over his shoulder. “Who said they aren’t real?”

  She glared at him, stumped.

  It was true. He hadn’t said that. But wasn’t that the very definition of an illusion or a mirage? You only saw what you—or in this case, another mage—wanted you to see.

  Deciding that was as much as she wanted to know, Sara set her shoulders and said flatly, “Open the portal.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  And so he did.

  When she saw the beautiful encampment before her again, she almost cried. But she’d hold back her tears of joy until she actually made it home. Suppressing her joyous response was hard, but she did it as she plucked on the string of his magic, contentedly resting within her own. As it thrummed and the vibrations cascaded through her magic, it sent a sort of shock wave through her senses and, for the moment, melded her magic with his own, making her in control.

  Using that quickly, she surveyed the portal he had built and found that nothing was obviously harmful about it, and it wasn’t an illusion. It was, in fact, what he said it was: a gateway, created by one person, to another part of the world without once using the Aether realm or any of the known magical paths to get there. She was slightly impressed—slightly.

  And as she studied the vision he presented of home, she couldn’t help the silly grin that crossed her face. She was one, two at most, steps away from bad food, smelly bodies, and overbearing captains once more. It couldn’t have been a more desirous vision if she had dreamed it up herself.

  In fact, she was so enamored by the portal and her own surety in the magical bondage she had tricked him into that she forgot for a moment to be wary, not just of the magical entrapments he could ensue, but also the physical ones. As she swung out her sword in an uncertain step forward, too late, she heard him move behind her.

  Stiffening, Sara moved to counter his sidestep—fearing a knife in the back all the while—but she was surprised to find his hands quickly dart out and grip her waist with force.

  Holding her tightly as she froze, sword raised in front of her, he whispered in her ear, “I never lied to you, Sara Fairchild.”

  Then, before she could react, he pushed her sharply forward. Sara had nowhere to go but through. She fell into and beyond the portal and kept falling.

  Normally her fall would have abruptly ended with her face planted in the ground. But not this time, because just as her arms and then hands passed through the barrier, the destination changed.

  Instead of stepping out onto the path she had seen before, she saw empty sky.

  Sara yelled back, “You bastard!”

  But there was nothing she could do. She was already through the portal, and she damned well couldn’t fly back up to safety.

  So she fell, and as she did, she wished with all her heart to activate the cautionary backup she’d implanted in his magic. Part of her was thinking she should wait. But wait for what? He had clearly shown his true colors, and so, with a blast of her last bit of reserved magic, Sara sent her own gift back to the man who had signed her death warrant.

  She didn’t feel it hit him; perhaps she was too far away. But she would die with the satisfaction of knowing he would, too. Whoever he—Gabriel from nowhere—was.

  Then Sara was done thinking about anything but her death as she fell. Wind lashed her face fiercely as she saw the ground coming up at her. The sky was so beautiful and so cold at the same time. The brilliant blues of the atmosphere surrounding her contrasted with the coldness she felt across every inch of her skin as the air buffeted her, and still she fell. Because there was nothing she could do about it. No War Mage skill would turn her from a flightless bird into a predator of the skies. The only thing Sara could control was that she wouldn’t let herself scream as the sky swallowed her whole, but she wanted to.

  She had been so far up at first that the earth was just a distant dream.

  So when inky blackness opened up a hole in front of her, she was almost grateful.

  At least dying in this black hole would be better than splattering on the ground and shattering every bone in her body. Far less painful…she hoped. And she wouldn’t have to look another damned healer in the eye, hovering over her, poking, prodding, and ultimately failing to put back together, a woman who had fallen from the sky.

  Then the blackness swallowed her, and instead of death, she found herself falling into a void. She couldn’t hear anything. She couldn’t see anything. She couldn’t smell anything. She couldn’t feel anything.

  The only constant was the darkness. And the fact that she was always awake, always aware. That was until a tiny pinprick of light began shining in the distance. It grew brighter with every passing second until it was a big as a shilling, then as big as a wheel, and, finally, as big as a portal.

  She fell through that one with a muffled scream into open air.

  Bright blue skies and a rapidly approaching grassy mound below met her eyes.

  She didn’t have time to do much more than recognize her surroundings before she hit the ground hard. But thankfully, not from so far up that she shattered her bones.

  While she tucked and rolled, Sara was thrown down the grassy mound, more like a medium-sized hill, at top speed. She picked up velocity as she kept rolling, and she couldn’t stop because there was nothing to grab on to. Just grass and more grass.

  Then she howled in pain.

  And rocks. Sharp, stabbing rocks.

  Sara felt blood trickle down her side in the first physical wound she’d borne since this whole kidnapping scenario had started.

  When she finally made it to the bottom of the hill and landed half in a puddle of mud and half on soggy ground, she curled up into a ball and moaned. Long. Loud. Then transitioned into cursing.

  She felt like a goose that couldn’t fly and had been beaten all to hell, launching itself off a cliff.

  Soon enough, though, she realized she wasn’t alone.

  As voices drew near, she struggled to her feet. When her left leg nearly collapsed underneath her as even more pain shot up from her leg, she looked down in confusion.

  That confused state was quickly rectified when she saw a shiny shaft of white bone poking its way out of her shin. She didn’t faint, but she did shift her full weight to her other leg and hobbled over to a nearby tree so she could brace herself.

  Panting heavily at the effort it took to get to the tree when the enemy was bearing down on her, Sara called out to the darkness.

  When it didn’t answer, she cried, “Come on! Don’t let me down now. I need my sword!”

  The darkness that allowed her to transform was the only way she was going to get a weapon in her hands in time to fight back.

  “Please!” she said. “I need you.”

  Tired was the darkness’s only comment.

  Sara nearly laughed her head off.

  “We’re all tired,” she said. “My damned leg is snapped in two, I’ve been set on fire, and some crazy kidnapper named Gabriel thinks he can prove my father’s still alive. Give me something.”

  Whether it was, her pleas or just the nature of their partnership, the darkness answered. It enveloped her with a thin mist, and seconds later, she could call up her sword again.

  “Ah-ha!” Sara cried triumphantly, brandishing the weapon. It certainly made her feel better.

  Smiling now, she moved around the tree as best she was able to, to brace her broken leg against the trunk and use her opposite hand to fight with.

  “It’s a good thing I’m ambidextrous,” Sara muttered as she shifted the sword to the hand she usually preferred as her shield arm.

  Settled in and shoulders straight, Sara stared down the road that led away from the little mound she had been dropped so unceremoniously on. She could already see the team of horses and riders galloping for her.

  But she couldn’t make out any colors and sigils
from this far away, and for some reason the power and sheer magnitude of abilities that she’d been allotted in her first transformation as War Mage seemed to be missing in action here. She wondered if it was because, as the darkness said, it was tired, or was it because of something she hadn’t done this time?

  First change hard, the darkness chimed in, unasked. Second harder. More practice.

  Sara blinked and didn’t bother answering. The riders were almost upon her, and if it was practice she needed, well, practice was what she was going to get.

  10

  Heart thumping as she tried not to favor her bad leg, Sara squinted up into the bright light of an afternoon sun that was already high in the air. It was a beautiful day, and that was precisely the problem. No clouds, no shade, just a glare that was shining down on her upturned face.

  She was also alone next to a grassy hill that offered no shelter, clearly visible to any enemies coming for her, and there were plenty. Even squinting downhill didn’t allow her to get a good look at the group approaching, which meant she was going into this fight half-blind.

  They were also too far away for her to get a good look at the banners they flew, even if she could see, her magic was at such pathetically low levels that the normal tricks of the trade that every mage who expected to go into battle or work in the arena knew, like how to scry an enemy from a distance, were impossible to use.

  Still, she did the best she could to prepare.

  Cursing the fact that she couldn’t use her free hand to shield her eyes from the light just happened to be part of that preparation, because she was hobbled and she knew it. It didn’t help that while one hand was keeping her upright, the other was being used to hold the only weapon she had that would keep the enemy at bay. For some time, at least.

  As nervousness settled in her stomach, Sara wondered how long she had been gone.

  From the angle of the sun in the sky, only a few hours. But who knew if it was the same day or not? Weeks could have passed while she was trapped in a purgatory made by an insane mage.

  Gritting her teeth, Sara decided that if she ever got kidnapped again, she’d make sure to bring her jailer back with her. She owed Gabriel a few solid punches, and he owed her a hell of an explanation for all that time wasted.

  As the riders got closer, she heard the neighs of the horses over the thunderous sound of their hooves coming down hard on the open path. It almost sounded like music to her ears, which was odd, as hooves on earth shouldn’t make that much sound. Then she realized what was a dirt path closer to her actually turned into paved stones further away. That was the first bit of good news she’d had all day.

  Jaw clenched, Sara could at least rationalize where she was now, which was the imperial roadway. It was practically the only thoroughfare that she knew of that was guaranteed to be paved stone rather than a strictly dirt and grass. Maintained by the empress and her ascendants as a service to the empire, it was considered the main arterial vein of the empire, where caravans and travelers and, most importantly, Imperial Armed Forces could make their way from north to south with some assurance of both safety and quickness.

  That was the good thing. Well, that and the fact that most likely the individuals bearing down on her were not Kade forces or their ilk. The Kades tended to strike in lightning-fast deployments and at night, if they were fielding their own forces. If not sending in actual deployments, their magical attacks out of nowhere were still fast and still assured that no one knew they were coming. It was a good—and gutless—way to harangue your enemy and keep them on their toes. Sara, of course, preferred the time-honored tradition of fighting hand to hand and facing your enemy instead of hiding in the shadows, but no one had asked her.

  Swallowing deeply as she leaned forward a bit to squint and make out those pennants snapping gaily in the wind above the riders’ heads, she knew that she was going to get her chance to go hand to hand now. She was only slightly assured by the fact that they wouldn’t kill her…straight away. But with the number of enemies under her belt growing by the second, and even people with her own camp who had bones to pick with her, she wasn’t quite sure what kind of reception she’d find from this welcoming party.

  Commander Karina, for instance, dead for a week or more, would have liked nothing more than to take Sara down a peg for disappearing on the job. Captain Barthis, who had mysteriously given her a reprieve, even promoted her, would have some choice words for her after leaving mid-attack, and Sara wasn’t precisely sure what her excuse would be.

  Saying she had been kidnapped had a much lesser chance of being believed when she showed back up on the fringes of her encampment with nothing more than a broken leg to show for it. It sounded ludicrous even in her mind, and if someone like Karn had come to her professing to have escaped from the clutches of a madman, she would have inspected him first for signs of lunacy. But that was neither here nor there at the moment.

  Instead, all there was to be found was a nervous stomach tight with fear. She didn’t like it, but it was what it was. Because with this leg and the pitiful amount of magic currently at her disposal, she was most assuredly going to lose to the at least nine riders coming directly for her in a cloud of dust.

  Being hobbled and outnumbered against individuals who were clearly warriors, judging by their protective clothing and the trained horses they rode, tended to make one pragmatic about such things.

  Cursing as nervousness rose in her belly and she tried to see those darned pennants, Sara finally got a glimpse of red on a purple background.

  And not a moment too soon, as she was gripping her sword with palms that had been going slick with sweat.

  As the first rider reined in front of her, she watched as a messenger looked down at her with an impatient gaze.

  “Are you Lieutenant Commander Sara Fairchild?”

  Licking suddenly dry lips, Sara was tempted to reply, “Who wants to know?” but at the moment, she didn’t have a death wish.

  So instead, she straightened her shoulders as she looked him directly in eye and said, “Yes, that’s me.”

  She was waiting to hear who he was. Who they were.

  None of the faces were familiar to her. Although she clearly recognized the sigils on the pennants as markings of someone important. Someone even connected to the imperial family, judging by the lion boldly stitched in a rearing posture for all those beholding it to see and wonder. But she didn’t recognize the colors…at all. Red on a purple background wasn’t the Red Lions or the Corcorans, or even the empress’s soldiers. So…they weren’t part of the Imperial Armed Forces or the Mercenary’s Guild. Which left something or someone she didn’t know.

  Sara’s hand tightened on her sword hilt as she began to get more nervous. She hated surprises, and would have almost preferred that Captain Barthis had shown up on a steed, foaming at the mouth, and furious at her. At least then, she’d know what it was she was in for.

  With these strangers, it was unclear.

  Finally, not liking the silence and deciding it was now or never, Sara said, “I’m looking to make my way back to…whichever Imperial Armed Forces camp is closest now.”

  After the ravine-creating attack, she had heard that the captain had wisely split off at least two regiments, which were more than reconnaissance and less than full reinforcements in the event of another attack. She supposed that was a good thing, because at the very least, they would have been away when she was unceremoniously blasted out of her tent.

  In answer to her original query, the man facing her said, “That would be the main one.”

  He didn’t give any more detail than that, but it was all Sara needed.

  Nodding confidently, she said, “Then it would be helpful if you conveyed me to the empress’s encampment, which I assume is just a few miles south of here.”

  She might not have known precisely where she was, but she did know where all the encampments and offshoots of the forces were placed, thanks to her captain’s map, and if he said the m
ain one was nearby, it could only be in one direction from this road, which, judging by the barrenness nearby, was a few miles off, minimum.

  Meanwhile, they didn’t respond to her request for transportation assistance, but neither did they swing down from their horses and try to skewer her.

  Taking that somewhat as a sign of goodwill, she continued hesitantly, “It seems you’ve come from that direction, at least, and your assistance would be greatly appreciated in taking me back to my duty station.” She added, “I’ll also be sure to note your helpfulness in my report to the head of the Mercenary’s Guild.”

  There was silence from the riders. Glancing from face to face at the three closest individuals to her, Sara saw quiet fortitude but no real expressions otherwise.

  She’d long ago checked out their tack, and she’d noted it was well made but worn. Whoever these people were, they’d ridden their horses hard enough that they were covered in sweat from exertion and splatters of mud.

  Breath held, Sara tried not to wince as her leg kept up its adamant protest of pain and demands that she do more than just lean her weight against a tree trunk. She either needed to fall down on her backside soon or…nothing. There were no alternatives. She was backed up against a tree with nowhere to go and no way to get there even if there was.

  Then things changed, if only slightly so.

  Sara watched as a woman urged her horse forward.

  Close. Closer. Too close.

  She had to know that the steed’s head was within striking distance of Sara’s sword then. But by the same token, the woman’s pike could spear Sara where she stood upright, gamely grasping a tree trunk with all her might and upholding a rapidly wearying sword arm.

  It was a draw. The rider could have easily attacked Sara from a distance with the weapons she had strapped to her body. Out of the corner of her eye, Sara saw at least one archer within the group, as well. So it went without saying that if they wanted her dead, she would be dead. Which was good for her. At least their current positioning indicated a desire to parley face to face, and perhaps even some respect for who or what she represented.