“Are you being serious right now?” Magnus asked, his voice filled with agitation.
Sephi separated her pinkie from her other fingers, and the dog opened its mouth. “Oh no. You’ve made him mad.” She started making barking noises.
Echo clutched her stomach and laughed so hard, tears coursed down her cheeks. The Green’s laughter only seemed to piss off Magnus further.
“What is this?” he asked. “What are you doing?”
“It’s my way of declining to have a dick measuring contest,” Sephi said, suddenly serious. “You and your precious Council forced me to be here. I didn’t volunteer. So I don’t have to prove myself to you or anyone.”
His lip curled in a sneer. “I didn’t want you here, either. The Council didn’t listen. It seems my objections were justified. You bring nothing to the table.”
Anger pricked her skin like a million needles, and her temper boiled over. Her hands carved sharp symbols in the air, but the shadow rabbit and dog remained on the tree trunk, held there by magic. No longer mere shadow puppets, they morphed from crude approximations to detailed versions of terrible beasts, and their flat forms gained volume.
Snarling fangs sprang from the demon dog’s jaws like spears, and its eyes glowed red like the fires of hell. The bunny’s face twisted into a scowl of fury, its ears extended and lashed out like snakes, and it unleashed a hideous scream from its fuzzy mouth.
The shadow creatures surged from the tree in Magnus’s direction.
The campfire blazed up in a swirling tornado of fire, and the ground in front of Magnus crumbled away so he stood on the edge of a thousand-foot drop. His eyes widened, and he took a single step back. But then he planted his feet and didn’t move, even when the hulking shadow creatures circled him like predators. They had no substance, so they couldn’t really hurt him.
Magnus pointed at Sephi in front of him. “It’s a nice trick, Blue, but I won’t be fooled by your cheap tricks.”
Sephi released the spell, and the illusions disappeared. All but one.
Magnus wore a cocky grin. “See? I told you. All flash and no substance.”
The image of Sephi dissolved in front of him. The shadows, fire, and sinkhole had been a distraction, allowing her to create a duplicate of herself while she turned invisible and crept behind him.
Sephi pressed the blade of her dagger to Magnus’s unprotected throat. “Surprise,” she said.
Magnus inhaled sharply. For a stalwart warrior like him, the reaction was tantamount to pissing himself. Sephi found it deeply satisfying. Having won, she let the dagger fall to her side. Magnus turned to face her, and his body vibrated with rage. His hand dropped to the hilt of his sword.
Sephi lifted her blade and dropped into a fighting stance.
“That’s enough, you two,” Echo said. She held a vial of cloudy blue liquid in her quivering fist. “Stop, or I’ll stop you.”
Unwilling to find out what the vial did, Sephi spun her dagger and sheathed it in one smooth motion. “Fair enough. We should probably get some rest.”
Expending that much power at once had drained her physically, and weariness seized her. She wouldn’t let Magnus see how tired she was, though. Her pride wouldn’t allow it.
Magnus’s hand fell away from his sword with a grunt. “Agreed. I’ll take first watch.”
“Thank you, Magnus,” Echo said.
The women rolled their mats out on the dirt and settled in. Sephi sighed contentedly at how good it felt to relax, even on the lumpy ground. She rolled onto her side, facing the road.
She didn’t remember falling asleep, but sometime later, the sound of soft hoof beats woke her. Her eyes blinked open in the darkness. A sleek black horse stood on the road. Instead of a mane, sickly green flames licked at the creature’s head without burning it.
A night mare.
Sephi had read about them, but she’d never seen one. To her surprise, she felt no fear or panic. If anything, she felt drawn to the creature.
She glanced behind her. Magnus sat by the fire, wide awake, but oblivious to the mare or to Sephi looking at him. She sat up, and he still didn’t react.
Getting to her feet, she approached the night mare. She didn’t know why, but it felt like the right thing to do. The black horse knelt in the road like an invitation. She threw her leg over its back and settled in. The beast’s strong muscles flexed as it stood.
Then the night mare galloped away into the night with Sephi holding on for dear life.
Chapter 8
The horse moved with impossible speed. Around her, the forest and the road blurred and then faded away. Sephi rode through eternal darkness, an empty void where nothing existed, like the space between waking and dreaming.
A pin prick of light appeared on the horizon like a distant star. The light grew bigger as they approached it until it was so bright, Sephi couldn’t bear to look at it. She closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands.
When she dared to open them again, the night mare was gone, and Sephi was trapped in the past.
She was in her old bedroom. A carved wooden magpie perched on her bedside table, which meant this was the day of her fifteenth birthday. Her father, Asterion, had placed the bird there while she slept. She traced her fingers over its smooth curves before stashing it in the pouch at her waist.
An intense tingling radiated from between her shoulder blades. Standing in front of the vanity mirror, she lifted her shirt up and contorted her body so she could just see the fresh lines of her tattoo on her back. Her eyes traced over the three branching spirals of the triskelion shape, which matched the shape of the Citadel. Crushed-up sapphires gave the blue ink an iridescent shimmer.
As matriarch of the Blue family, Asterion’s mother Pasiphae had tattooed Sephi that morning, now that Sephi was old enough to be trusted with magic. After years of studying magical theory, she would finally be able to put it into practice. Excitement fluttered through her. Today, she would cast her first spell.
Her father had been prepping her for weeks, coaching her through the simple hand gestures and the spidery words she needed to recite. The spell was a basic sparkler illusion, conjuring up a dazzling spray of multicolored light bursts from her fingertips. She would perform it for her mother and father soon.
Except Sephi had a surprise in store for them.
Never one to settle for simple, Sephi had added her own spin to the spell. She had painstakingly added the alterations to the words and gestures in secret, thrilled at the prospect of impressing her parents.
She bounded down the carpeted staircase to the parlor in their home in the Brass Spiral. Her father stood beside her mother, Jocasta. They both had wide smiles on their faces, excited to see their only daughter take her first step into the world of magic.
Sephi’s mind fractured into two opposing halves. One part of her was fifteen again. Her heart hammered with excitement, eager to show off her newly acquired skills to her parents. The other part of her agonized over the tragedy about to unfold. This part screamed for her teenage self to stop, to cast the original spell, to do anything other than what she was about to do.
If the nightmare version of herself heard her pleas, she showed no sign of it.
Her father hugged her warmly, the last hug he would ever give her. He whispered in her ear. “Are you ready, my little magpie?”
Sephi nodded against his chest. “Yes.”
“Good,” he said. “Just do everything like I showed you. Don’t be afraid. I’ll cast a containment spell just in case anything goes wrong.”
Asterion moved away from her, giving her space. She took a deep breath and began casting. Shimmering lines appeared in the air, and her father whispered his own spell while forming much more intricate patterns. Jocasta watched her daughter proudly, her hands clasped between her breasts.
Sephi’s spell erupted from her hands. A dazzling array of sparks showered the air in front of her. Each spark exploded into a crackling spray, like miniature ver
sions of the sky flower fireworks at the Solstice Festival. These explosions were the extra touch she had added to the spell. The sparks were an illusion so they gave off no heat or smoke.
The effect was spectacular in the confined space of the parlor.
Then, everything went wrong all at once. The sparks burned with real fire, flaring brightly and expanding in size. Her father’s hands moved quickly, trying to contain the wild spell, but his containment field wasn’t working for some reason. In the blink of an eye, the entire room lit up in a blaze.
Smoke choked her lungs. She couldn’t see anything. But she could hear the roar of the flames as they devoured everything she had ever loved. Her world went black, and when she regained consciousness, she was outside her home somehow, watching the walls of her house collapse in a wall of fire.
Sephi blinked, and the world around her transformed. She was in her old bedroom. A carved wooden magpie perched on her bedside table where her father had placed it the night before.
The nightmare had spun back around to the beginning.
She screamed a silent scream, unable to experience the terrible vision again, but the dream version of herself didn’t hear her.
She bounded down the carpeted staircase to the parlor, replaying the worst day of her life in an endless, inescapable loop.
Fire seared her arm, but it wasn’t dream fire. Her eyes flew open, and she jerked away from the flaming branch Magnus held in his hand. The pain had snatched her from the clutches of her eternal nightmare.
The throbbing ache held her focus for a moment, but once the initial shock of her rough awakening faded, the images from the dream swept over her in a violent wave, and she drowned in their dark depths.
She curled up into a ball, trembling like a leaf in a storm, and tears flooded her cheeks. Echo knelt beside her, her face contorted with worry.
“Talk to us, Sephi,” Echo cried. “What’s going on?”
Sephi shook her head, unable to give voice to the terrible events she’d been forced to relive over and over. The hideousness of what she’d done threatened to tear her sanity to shreds.
Echo’s small hand stroked her hair, and she made soothing noises while Sephi suffered through the pain of her loss, now as fresh as the day it had happened.
Sephi didn’t sleep for the rest of the night. Every time she closed her eyes, the nightmare images flashed through her head, flooding her with anguish and guilt. When the sun rose and chased the shadows away, she felt wrung out both physically and emotionally. The numbness was a welcome reprieve.
She said nothing while they broke camp and got moving down the road. She feared that the moment she talked, the others would take it as an invitation to pry into what had elicited such a terrified reaction from her.
Echo kept glancing at her from the seat next to her. The worry etched on the young Green’s face made her look years older. To his credit, Magnus respected the stiff silence without breaking it, but as he walked beside the cart, he also eyed her like she was about to snap like a fragile twig.
By midday, Sephi was sick of it.
She cleared her throat. “What did you guys see last night? Why did you wake me?”
Echo exhaled heavily, like she’d been holding that breath all morning. “You were screaming in your sleep. Crying out to make it stop.”
“You made enough noise to attract every foul creature within a half-mile radius,” Magnus said.
Echo shot him a sour look. “Don’t listen to him. He was just as worried about you as I was. He spent almost fifteen minutes trying to wake you up before he tried fire.”
“Only so she didn’t compromise our position,” he said, refusing to meet either of their gazes.
“Whatever,” Echo said. “Do you think you’re ready to tell us what happened?”
Sephi took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It was a night mare.”
Magnus snorted. “No shit.”
“No, asshole,” Sephi said. “Two words. A night mare. A black horse burning with green flames.”
Magnus stopped walking and faced her. “Impossible. I kept watch until we awoke you. I saw no such thing.”
Sephi shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. The horse appeared on the road. Something about it drew me toward it, and I rode it into the worst dream of my life.”
“That would explain a lot,” Echo said, nodding. “Night mares feast on terrible dreams. They lure their prey into a dream trap and feed until…”
“Until what?” Sephi asked.
“Until the dreamer dies,” Echo said with a shudder. “It’s a damn good thing Magnus was able to wake you.”
“I guess I should thank you, Magnus,” Sephi said, grating the words out slowly as if it took every ounce of willpower.
“The only thanks I require is for you to accomplish this mission,” he said.
Sephi grinned. “Yeah, don’t worry. We’ll save the world for you. No problem.”
“It’s not the world I’m worried about,” Magnus muttered, like he didn’t mean to say the words out loud.
“What does that mean?” Echo asked.
The Red’s back straightened, and he glared straight ahead. “It’s nothing.”
Sephi eyed the warrior, who walked faster now, as if he could outpace their questions. She gave the reins a light flick to get Princess moving quicker. The cart pulled up a little ahead of him so she could look him in the eye.
“Come on, Magnus,” Sephi said. “If there’s something you’re not telling us, don’t hold back. We’re supposed to be a team. At least until we bring the Whispers to the Council.”
“It is none of your concern,” he said. “What should concern you is whoever is following us.”
Sephi sat up to look behind them, and Magnus stopped her with a hand gesture.
“Don’t look,” he said. “Every time I try to get a glimpse, whatever it is darts away.”
“Why didn’t you say anything before?” Echo asked.
“It’s not a threat yet. I was thinking about cutting into the woods while you continue on so that I could circle back around behind it.”
“I’ll do it,” Sephi said.
“No, you need to rest,” Echo said.
“What I need is something to get my mind off what happened last night,” Sephi said. “Besides, I doubt Magnus can do much sneaking in that heavy armor of his.”
“I can be stealthy when necessary,” he said stiffly, his armor clanking with every step.
“Not as stealthy as I can.” Sephi cast a spell and disappeared from sight.
Echo’s hand swiped at the air before connecting solidly with Sephi’s elbow. She clamped down on her friend’s invisible arm. At her touch, Sephi’s form shimmered like a heat mirage.
“Hey,” Sephi’s disembodied voice said. “You’re ruining my cool exit.”
“It wasn’t that cool,” Magnus muttered.
“I don’t care,” Echo said, holding her firmly. “You be careful out there. If you run into any trouble, send up a flare spell so we can find you.”
Sephi snorted a laugh. “Please, like I ever run into trouble.”
“Uh huh,” Echo said, clearly unconvinced.
“I’ll be like the wind.” She looked at Echo, her vision unimpeded by her invisibility.
Echo rolled her eyes. “Sure. But if you see any horses on fire—”
“That was not my fault,” Sephi said.
“I’m just saying, I almost lost you once on this trip.”
Sephi smiled, even though her friend couldn’t see it. “I’ll be fine.”
She gently extracted herself from Echo’s grip and hopped off the cart. Right before she ducked into the tree line, she called out, “And no smooching, you two. Save that for after we bag ourselves a necromancer.”
Echo’s cheeks reddened, and she shrank in on herself. Magnus just narrowed his eyes in confusion, like he had no idea what she was talking about.
She planted herself on the side of the road an
d watched as Princess pulled the cart through the trees and out of sight. Echo would be safe enough with Magnus, against any direct threat at least.
Sephi briefly considered backtracking through the woods like Magnus had suggested, but with her invisibility spell, she could just wait there for their pursuer to creep by.
Maybe a half hour later, she caught a glimpse of something moving through the underbrush on the other side of the road. All she could see was the suggestion of a shape. The figure never fully revealed itself behind the thick screen of foliage.
Whoever or whatever it was, the shape seemed to be that of a man walking on two legs, but something about the unnatural gait suggested it wasn’t entirely human. She got the impression that the creature had horns.
Sephi allowed the thing to move farther ahead, and then she padded quietly across the road with her invisibility spell still active. Casting the spell required a fair amount of magic, and keeping the effect going required her to channel magic into it, but it was a tiny trickle. She could keep it up for a long time without draining her reserves.
The creature had left a barely noticeable trail in the soft earth, but instead of footprints, the tracks looked like the cloven hooves of a goat.
She wracked her brain for any creature that fit that description. Before leaving the Citadel, she had been as much of a bookworm as Echo. She spent hours in the Spire’s library, filling her head with arcane lore. None of that studying gave her the first clue about whatever was pursuing them.
After her run-in with the night mare, the idea of stalking an unfamiliar entity didn’t exactly thrill her, but she had no choice but to go after it. If something was tracking them, she wanted to know what it was.
The creature’s path remained clear enough, now that she had located it. She followed in its footsteps—or hoof steps—doing her best to stay silent. Invisibility didn’t mean shit if she stumbled through the woods like a drunken buru.
Despite her efforts, she managed to step in every noisy patch of dead leaves, and every branch in the surrounding brush rose up to slap her in the face. She started to think she should have let Magnus handle this shitty job.
The Lost Tower Page 7