Caster

by Elsie Chapman

  “So can we get out of this oversized hot tub already?”

  It’s Wilson, way over on my right, kicking at the water. He looks oddly uncertain, dark skin flushed and without a sign of his typical swagger. His voice is a hollow echo as it rolls across the vastness of the bath. Behind him is Kylin. She’s staring up at the sky just as I had, her expression dreamy and distracted, and I want to yell at her to wake up.

  “What’s the matter, can’t swim?”

  I turn my head at the taunt. It’s Nola, standing behind me and at the opposite end of the bath.

  “Did I say that?” Wilson’s voice is churlish. “I highly doubt we’re here to swim, genius.”

  But I hear it in his voice. The heat’s already getting to him. The water seems to get even hotter as the thought crosses my mind. I take a step along the stone bottom. My legs are sluggish. My brain feels sluggish.

  “ ‘Nek’ means hot in ancient Xulaese,” Embry says. He’s standing on the thick stone edge of the bath so that he’s looming over us. “ ‘Sui’ means water and ‘fwong’ means room. Nek sui fwong. This is the hot water bath, right here. It’s built to fit up to five hundred bathers at a time. The water temperature is a consistent one hundred and nine degrees Fahrenheit. The average bather will begin overheating within five minutes.”

  “And you want us to battle in this?” Nola frowns and wipes sweat from her forehead. She takes off her eyeglasses and shoves them into the back pocket of her jeans. “What if we get heatstroke before the fight’s done?”

  Embry’s teal eyes are the same shade of the water but without the warmth. “Then make sure the other fighter gets it first.”

  Finch is off to my left. His laugh is low, a dark and dry and somehow knowing chuckle that slips into my ear. Despite the heat—it’s an envelope around me, already pressing too close, nearly smothering—I shiver. The laugh is the first sound I’ve ever heard Finch make during the tournament.

  Pav is behind him. Caught between silver and golden light, his complexion is nearly green. His panic spills from him, a kind of fever on its own to mix with the heat of the water. Invisibility spells are virtually useless if there’s any kind of liquid or rain involved, since it shapes around your form and gives away where you are. Which means he’s mostly left with just shield spells, his other go-to. And every single fighter here—and likely most of the audience as well—knows it.

  Who will it be tonight, Pav? Pav the Coward or Pav the Brave?

  And I’m Rudy the First. The audience wants me to be like that again, expects me to entertain and surprise them—I sense their demand like a pull from all sides of the room.

  I’m hot. Dizziness creeps close, circles me like predator to prey. My pulse thuds hard enough that I feel the great drum of it, deep in my ears. It pounds at my wrists, along my neck. The strain of dread pulls at me just as the audience does, and I am thin from it, about to snap. I long for winter and ice and the luxury of casting a chill spell through the water.

  Embry hops down from the edge of the bath to stand on the marble floor of the room. “There are six of you. Three duels, three winners, and your direct opponent is the fighter who’s drawn the same number as you. Go.”

  For an entire heartbeat my mind goes blank.

  Number?

  Then it comes to me, a headlight behind my eyelids:

  3.

  Another heartbeat.

  Your direct opponent is the fighter who’s drawn the same number as you.

  Who, though? I can’t remem—

  Another heartbeat.

  Nola drew the other 3.

  She’s behind me in the water.

  Another heartbeat.

  I take a deep breath and duck beneath the water’s surface.

  The bath is liquid fire. It engulfs me in clouds of seething, swirling jets of bubbles. The world in my ears dials down—to the thump of my own pulse, low muffled shouts, the churning of the water all around me.

  Everyone else is now thrashing around, too. They’re digging through wet clothes for their starters, fighting the weight of the water as they move because it’s become another enemy in the ring.

  I twist around in the water so that I’m facing the back of the bath. So I’m coming at Nola and she’s coming at me. Only her jean-clad legs are visible from down here—she’s still standing up, ten feet ahead and getting closer. Through the frenzy of churning liquid, her hand turns into a light brown blur at her side. She’s reaching for a starter.

  Staying beneath the water’s surface, I yank a silver coin from the key holder on my belt loop. The skin of my face burns; my eyeballs burn. My chest is starting to tighten, lungs getting heavier and heavier with the instinct to breathe.

  Did Shire’s eyes feel like this when she died? Did she see fire from the outside as well as the inside, more of it than she’d ever seen before? Was fire the last thing she saw, felt?

  A wave of nausea hits me, the same kind that comes when I’ve been in the sun for too long. If I don’t stand up soon and cool off, I’ll pass out. I’ll drown.

  But I stay beneath the surface. I draw and cast. Shield. I’m already hot enough that I barely feel the fresh heat of magic climb through the stone bottom of the pool and into my veins. The water against my skin morphs, forms a kind of skin on its own.

  Then the pain of casting comes. And it’s pain the way casting magic always hurts outside the tournament—whole and deep, alive with its own pulse. It jolts through me, an ache that travels from head to toe.

  Dread goes off in my mind like an alarm. I’ve gotten too used to the Guild’s protection. This fight—I’m going to suffer.

  I tear off another silver starter and cast again. Air.

  Fresh oxygen propels into my bloodstream. The pressure in my chest goes from explosive to bearable, the urge to take another breath beaten back. A hard ache clangs through my skull at the casting, and it lingers, deep claws sinking in. I am nearly compelled to cast again right away, just to get a bit more breath, a bit more fighting time. But I need to save magic for attacking, to think about the cost of casting that’s going to pile up fast without the Guild’s protection.

  Nola’s already down in the water with me. She’s dunked herself beneath the surface, too. I see a silver coin drop through the water as she turns to face me—has she just cast a shield on herself? A second passes, and when I feel nothing, I know she must have.

  I drag my hand to my hip, reaching for a new starter.

  But Nola’s already got one in hand. She casts first, faster than me.

  A punch.

  She’s good with them. I should have remembered Teller, being driven into the sand. But I didn’t, so when the giant invisible fist crashes into my stomach, the impact catches me flat out. My shield spell falls apart. I’m driven backward through the hot water, my legs a numb blur of darkness through pale blue. There’s a single wild second where I can’t figure out who the legs belong to.

  I’m still moving backward through the baths as I fumble a white starter from my key holder. My hands are slow, clumsy—the word heatstroke flashes across my brain. Across from me Nola’s going for another starter, too, her hands moving just as sluggishly through the water.

  I’m faster this time. I draw, I cast. A thick, undulating ripple of pain spreads outward from my spine like thorns along a branch.

  Her hand falls from her pocket. Her entire body goes limp, as limp as I’ve cast her bones to go. Her eyes are flashes of panic.

  My lungs are burning again. There’s a high-pitched ringing in my ears. I need to breathe.

  I yank off another starter, gold this time. There’s a body on the bottom of the bath, gone to marble in the chaos of the water. The world wavers, flickers gray, and my chest has become a tightly wound bundle of agony—I need air.

  I draw. I cast.

  The panic in Nola’s eyes becomes a flood as her airway tightens. Her arms give a single useless twitch at her sides, their bones still too soft for her to move.

  Pain
floods me, a storm inside my body the way the pool is one outside. It’s the cost of casting, building faster and higher, threatening to break. I push back, imagine I’m a dam. My lungs are spilling fire. I’m about to black out.

  Nola has already begun to drown, unconscious and sinking.

  Knockout.

  I grab her by the arm—she’s deadweight, and terror that I’m too late stabs me like a dagger—and stumble to my feet on the bottom of the bath. I drag her face free of the water.

  Cool air comes and I’m drinking in huge gulps of it. Nola’s draped over my arm, still out. I draw another spell star and tear at another gold starter. I cast, despite knowing how it’s going to hurt.

  Nola coughs as her airway opens back up and air rushes in. Between gasps, she asks, “Why are you saving me?”

  “Because.” I’m still gasping, too. Agony is a swollen, knotted fist in my skull. “I’ve already beaten you.”

  Finch, Kylin, and me.

  We’re the last.

  The three of us are still standing in the bath. The crowd around us is on their feet, cheering and clapping. The sounds of our names come at me as shouts and yells, and the ring of noise encircles me, presses close, makes me feel like I’m drowning again. My heart is loud in my ears, beating in a wild rhythm that matches my still-hungry breathing, the jagged pain that fills my head.

  Shut up.

  I want to beg. How all their noise hurts. But the crowd keeps cheering.

  Shut up!

  My eyes scan faces, desperate to see Piper, Embry, even Oliver. Anyone I know who’s talked to me and can remind me I’m still someone else, someone outside this fighting ring. To remind me I’m Aza Wu and how I exist outside these terrible ancient baths.

  But I see only strangers. Just those who came to see magic, and if that magic has a cost, then they will accept that, too. Because we’re casters of a banished magic and this is our world now.

  I drop my eyes to the side of the room, hating everyone here.

  Pav is out of his marble state, sitting stunned on the stone floor. It was him at the bottom of the pool. Eliminated by Finch. No surprise there.

  Wilson and Nola sit near Pav, equally hunched in defeat. They’re still soaked and water drips off them back onto the floor.

  I begin walking out, needing to get out, to get away. Water has never been heavier as it drags at my legs. The pain of casting that final breath spell to save Nola is still alive inside my head, has become one with my bones and muscles. Bruises form all over my body. I long for sleep, for recovery time.

  Behind me, the water stirs again as Finch and Kylin follow.

  Then Embry’s at the front of the crowd again, and everyone falls silent, confused. He’s supposed to have left by now, already back with the rest of the Guild somewhere. His disappearing at the end of a fight marks the end of that round.

  I stop moving. So do Finch and Kylin.

  What now?

  My brain’s like taffy in the sun as it struggles to recall the ending of the story of Valery the Bleeder, Max the Deceiver, and Otta the Swift. Did I ever learn it in school? Who won between Valery and Max? What happened to Otta? How did those three greats declare their battle done?

  “You see, Valery thought he’d defeated Max,” Embry says. “But Max was known as the Deceiver for a reason. He’d cast magic within magic—if Valery ever broke the spell that made Otta love Max, Otta would turn on Valery. And so the battle continued, this time with three.”

  The water in the bath turns icy. The bath shrinks, becomes half the size it was, turns into a rough oval.

  “Here in the lungh sui fwong is where they fought,” Embry continues. “The cold baths.”

  The glass dome disappears. A massive painted arch takes its place. I get a glimpse of painted figures before the last of the silver moon fades from my eyes and only dim torchlight flickers from the walls.

  Embry says, “Only two casters will be moving on tonight.”

  Kylin moves first. She draws and grabs at the surface of the bath. Casts.

  Freezing water climbs in a wave and slams down. Again. The waves fill the air with their roar. It’s the sound of the world’s coldest beach.

  I’m knocked from my feet. Knives of ice pierce me all over as my side skids along the bottom of the bath. Stone scrapes and pulls at the silk tied around my arm. I hurl my weight to one side, trying to grab hold. Water dives into my nose and mouth.

  The waves keep coming. I can’t see anything past them. I cough out ice water. I’m still scrambling for a starter with nearly frozen fingers when I slam into the side of the tub.

  Stone tears my knuckles open and the water around my hand streams red. There’s no pain, though, since my hands are so cold. The crowd’s shouting, loving the full magic that has turned the baths into a storm at sea. Kyyylin, they scream.

  But she’s made a mistake in her rush to cast first, in casting for repeated waves. It’s too wide of a spell with not enough of a focus. She should have cast only with enough magic to affect Finch and me. Now her magic will be slow to recharge, on top of her already hurting. More than anyone else, I could have reminded her to cast with caution.

  The waves build beyond her control—higher, faster. A second later, and all three of us are dragged under, and the world is nothing but blue and ice and struggling to breathe.

  Oh, Kylin.

  A wave crests, breaks, crests again. Through the water still rushing at my ears, I hear the crowd, cheering.

  Finally, I surface all the way, and I look over for Kylin and Finch.

  They’re across the bath. She’s in retreat, one arm bent at an unnatural angle—Finch must have cast a spell to break it. And she’s too pale, the icy cold working its way through her.

  He looms over her, about to cast again. Kylin’s on the verge of elimination and he knows it. One more spell, a final dose of magic, and he’ll be in the final round.

  Dread comes in a flood. It makes me as cold on the inside as I am on the outside. The water’s a roar and the crowd is shouting and I’m trying to get to my feet.

  Is this what it was like for Shire? Had she already been backing away, and still Finch had come?

  A new wave of water builds.

  I yank off a gold starter. My fingers are icicles, thick and unbending as I force them to draw. I cast.

  Against the icy water, the heat that climbs my legs is excruciating. It burns upward and into my veins, a red fire billowing in my mind.

  Finch flies backward. My magic drives him through the water. He hits the edge of the stone tub with a deep thud.

  The crowd erupts. Rudy, Rudy, Rudy—

  Pain is a sheet of lightning behind my eyes.

  The icy wave crashes down.

  I claw at my starters from beneath the water. I tear off another gold coin. The wave flattens and Finch is still in the water, trying to stand up. I cast again, unable to care about the lightning still shooting across my brain, how there will be more now.

  He falls back into the water as his muscles seize, exactly as I meant them to.

  The coldness that had been dread filling me now feels darker, sharper, sweeter. Control has never felt so close, my magic never so touchable. When more lightning flashes behind my eyes, I barely blink. I can only think about destroying Finch.

  Because that fine line between honor and dishonor—I can’t stop it from shifting.

  I toss away the gold coin and grab a white one. I cast.

  Finch has dragged himself up to lean against the edge of the bath, and he screams as his bones shatter.

  I stagger my way through the water. Kylin’s waves are fading, her spell run out. She hasn’t moved, is still standing in the bath. She’s shivering even harder than I am, still cradling her crooked arm. Just behind her, Finch is still slumped against the stone tub, frozen by pain as much as he is by the water. His eyes are wide and stunned—he’s never looked more vulnerable.

  When I reach them both, I loom over Finch the same way he loomed ove
r Kylin. One more spell and he’s out. New pain of my own comes, as pointed as knives in my guts.

  I’d meant for it to go full circle, for me to beat him in the final. I’d meant to poke around in his brain and find out answers for all my questions. But what does it matter, if I still beat him? If he still dies for killing Shire, for nearly killing Kylin?

  The audience is one huge roar, amplified by all the marble and stone. I can’t tell if they’re cheering more for me or for Finch. A part of me wishes I could tell. That maybe if I could hear chants of Rudy the First and nothing else, then I wouldn’t need to do this. But everything’s happening so fast, and magic is just a different kind of roar in my blood, urging me on.

  I draw, then tear free a silver coin.

  The line shifts and shifts and shifts.

  I cast.

  Finch becomes an inferno. I burn him from the inside out—for all the water around him, it can’t stop what it can’t touch. I watch him burn and wonder why my heart stays frozen. Why I don’t feel satisfied when this is supposed to be payback.

  The sound of the crowd changes, turns slightly uneasy. I’m not supposed to be like Finch, who can live with the cost of magic. I’m supposed to be all about the show, here to entertain.

  “You’ve surprised them.”

  Kylin says this. But her voice is Finch’s. She grins, and it’s with Finch’s green eyes.

  My mouth goes dry, and I blink.

  Because it’s Finch standing where Kylin was. Or where I was made to think Kylin was.

  It’s not Finch in the water, burning away. It’s Kylin.

  “A disguise spell,” Finch says softly. There’s venom in his voice, stinging my skin.

  The crowd realizes what’s happened and their cheers are thunderous. The swell of the noise rolls through me, and I want to be sick for all the longing I hear in the audience.

  Shire, did they cheer like this when it was you? And there I was at home, furious with you for leaving me behind.

  I’m numb. Ice is everywhere and everything. Kylin’s body slips beneath the surface of the water and a sob wrenches free from my throat. She was about to eliminate Finch and I stopped her. Because of his spell. And now—