Kellan, as usual, appeared unfazed.
“There’s no problem here,” he said. “We were just leaving. Come on, cadets.”
Garig looked relieved, even as he shot his most threatening look at Sevarin. Then they followed Kellan down the sidewalk.
Sevarin turned to Frankle, Gurtha, and Helen.
“The night is young,” he said. “Let’s go back inside and drink some more.”
The group cheered, especially Frankle, who shook his fist in victory. He spread his arms to sweep everyone back inside.
Sevarin turned to Gunner.
“Sneak after them. See where they go. Don’t let them catch you.”
“You’re kidding,” Gunner said.
Sevarin shook his head, his unblinking gaze more serious than ever. “Just see where they’re off to. Then hide and give me a call on your Araband. I’ll come get you.”
Gunner nodded. He watched with a sinking feeling as Frankle slung an arm around Sevarin’s shoulders and pulled him into the tavern.
Taking a deep breath, Gunner made his way up the street toward an uncertain fate.
CHAPTER 34
T he timing could not have been more perfect.
Kovax wrung his hands in anticipation as he watched the largest fountain in Theus grow steadily closer. This was less than hour after he finished his call with Xanthus; any earlier and he might have missed it.
The boy was heading straight toward it. His mind was wide open. Milo was even calling to him in what appeared to be complete surrender.
“You did it, Papa,” Kofi said, admiring the fountain’s towering levels, the brilliant blue of its pouring energy.
“Yes, I did, didn’t I?”
It was finally happening. Soon, Milo Banks would reveal the secrets of his mind like a book opening itself to the exact page Kovax had been dying to read for months.
“Keep going,” he said soothingly. “That’s it. The answers lie in the fountain. Immerse yourself, boy.”
“Yes,” came Milo’s voice. “The answers…”
Kofi tugged at his father’s sleeve. Kovax ignored him.
The tug came again.
“What?” Kovax said through clenched teeth.
“What if it’s a trick?” Kofi asked.
Kovax brushed away the boy’s hand. “Keep quiet.”
At the edge of the fountain, just before the moment Kovax had been waiting for, Milo did something strange.
“No,” Kovax said. “What are you doing?”
The boy had turned away. Just like that, the fountain’s blue light disappeared, and Kovax found himself looking at a featureless building instead.
The view shifted, the building appearing to grow taller. It was just the boy changing his position.
“What is he doing?” Kofi said.
“I… I think he’s sitting down.”
Once situated, the boy lifted his hands and looked at them. Then he covered his eyes.
Darkness.
Sightwielder went black, and yet Kovax could sense his connection with the boy, stronger than ever.
Maybe too strong.
“Kovax,” Milo said, his youthful voice filling the lab. “I see you.”
The globe filled with color and shapes once more, only this time Kovax found himself staring into a mirror, at a curved reflection of himself.
“What is this?” he said.
It wasn’t a true mirror. Somehow, Kofi was visible at his side. Milo had reversed Sightwielder’s view. He had turned Kovax’s own eyes—his own consciousness—against him.
A foul trick. All along, this entire night had been a setup.
“Don’t turn off your sight machine,” Milo said, “or I’ll destroy it instantly. The explosion would kill you.”
Kovax froze. His right hand had been about to yank the needle from his other arm, but the boy was right; if he was somehow in control of Sightwielder, then overloading the power could cause an explosion.
Where in the hell had he learned to do that?
“Mentalism,” Kovax said, letting his arms drop in defeat. “You’ve been studying the ways of the monks. But how…”
“I’m a quick learner,” Milo said.
Kovax couldn’t see the boy, but he imagined a smile thinning his lips. The bastard. The little, snot-nosed bastard.
A shadowy figure emerged behind Kovax.
He spun around but saw no one in the lab with him (except Kofi, who stood openmouthed at his side). Stunned, Kovax turned once more to the globe, already aware of what he would find there, and whom he would see.
Milo Banks—or at least a projection of him—now stood behind Kovax’s reflection, just off to the side so they could face each other inside the globe.
The boy had projected himself into Sightwielder, as if his mind had crafted a hologram only Kovax could see. Either that, or Kovax had finally lost his mind, which had resulted in a door being opened that Milo was only too eager to step through.
He wasn’t sure which was worse—Milo, the brilliant mentalist, or Kovax, the weak-minded fool.
“I’m impressed,” Kovax said. “You’ve grown tall.”
Milo was indeed no longer a boy—the baby fat had burned away. Before Kovax stood a young man with strong shoulders and a well-defined chin. Dressed in cadet greens, he was rather handsome like his father—except for the eye patch, which he had inserted into the vision probably out of the habit of seeing it every day. Or maybe he wanted Kovax to see the damage Sightwielder had done to him.
“I spent two and a half years in that vault,” Milo said. “Did you think I didn’t learn anything?”
Kovax squinted at the boy. “I’m more interested in what you’ve been studying lately. I take it someone gave you a book on mentalism? The Awakened Eye? You must have taught yourself, since I know your uncle never dabbled in the subject.”
“I don’t need your respect, so just shut up and answer me. The explosion that destroyed Vault Seven—that was you, wasn’t it?”
“I’m fighting a war, boy. Surely you understand that. From my point of view, the Forge is my enemy, just as I am yours. Would you have thought twice about destroying my castle from above? And all the innocent people inside of it?”
“You killed my father,” Milo said, scowling and clenching his hands into fists. “Under your command, Iolus killed my mother. You took away two people I loved. And now I’m almost blind because of you.” He looked down at Kofi. “Is that your son? He’s dead, isn’t he? Did you kill him, too? You murderer.”
The display trembled. Kovax stumbled backward in surprise, seized by an emotion he couldn’t name. It was as if the boy had launched an arrow straight into his mind—one tipped with psychological torment instead of steel.
“Papa, are you okay?” Kofi said. “Is he hurting you?”
Kovax stared at his own reflection, Milo standing at his flank like a vengeful spirit come to reap his soul.
“Your son isn’t the one haunting you,” Milo said. “It’s the regret you feel over what happened to him. I know what you did to your wife and son. I see it like it’s one of my own memories.”
“Get out of my head,” Kovax shouted suddenly, surprising himself.
“It’s a terrible feeling, isn’t it?” Milo said. “To be invaded like this?”
Kovax gripped the sides of his head. He groaned as another onslaught of sadness and despair overwhelmed him. One more minute of this, and he might break into sobs like a child.
“Now you know how I feel,” Milo said. “Every day that I know you’re still alive.”
There were tears in the boy’s good eye. Tears of sadness and rage and resentment. Strangely, Kovax felt the urge to comfort him as he might comfort a son, yet he had never felt that way for Kofi.
It was an infection. The boy had infected him with weak and pitiful emotions.
“Now you know,” Milo continued, “what all those people feel who lost loved ones because of your greed. You’ve enslaved and killed hundreds of in
nocent people. You’ve raised their souls from the dead to suffer even more. You’ve slaughtered helpless women and children. Now you’re going to feel what they felt.”
The image shook once more. Kovax doubled over, his entire body clenching as a thin bile sprayed out of his mouth.
“Papa!”
Kofi tried to steady him, and this time, Kovax accepted the help. He put his hand on his dead son’s shoulder and pulled him close.
The irony of the situation was not lost on Kovax. The only person he had left—the only one who truly cared about him—was the son he had murdered in cold blood, who was probably just a figment of his imagination.
A wave of loneliness crashed over him.
“This is how you felt,” Kovax said, spitting out flecks of vomit, “when I took your father from you. And when your mother… when she died. Isn’t it?”
“You’ll never understand,” Milo said. “You’ll never know how that feels.”
“That’s not true.” Kovax straightened and stared Milo in the eye. “I’ve always felt it. You’ve made that clear to me, but you haven’t won anything. Mark my words. You’ll end up just like me someday, haunted by the dead. I know. I’ve been inside your mind.”
“You don’t know me,” Milo said. “This conversation’s over. Goodbye, Kovax.”
Sightwielder shook as if tossed about by an earthquake. Kovax yanked the needle out of his arm, howling as blood sprayed from his vein and stained the globe.
“Papa,” Kofi screamed.
Bright yellow cracks appeared across the globe’s surface. The machines powering the device erupted, one after the other, in a series of ear-splitting bangs. The blood crystals fueling them shot in every direction like bullets, but the globe was still intact. Kovax knew it wouldn’t be for long… and the explosion would certainly kill him.
“Papa!”
“I’m here, Kofi.”
He spun frantically in search of the boy. When he found him lying on his side, curled up with his arms around his head, Kovax breathed a curse.
“Come here, son.” He scooped the boy into his arms. “You’re all right. I’m here.”
The heat in the room had become unbearable. More cracks appeared, the globe seconds away from shattering. Kovax willed his staff toward him, and it landed against his open palm, its heaviness like an old friend. He voiced a chant, creating a magical shield that sprang suddenly around himself and Kofi.
Safely inside its dome, he watched Sightwielder explode in a brilliant shower of sparks. The light was like needles piercing his eyes. He squeezed them shut, clenched his teeth, and moaned, gripping his dead son.
When the sparks died away, Kovax heard laughter. Someone else was in the room with him. Had Milo teleported himself into the castle?
No—that was beyond impossible. It was unthinkable. No sorcerer could cast a spell like that. He searched for the source and discovered a man standing in the doorframe.
Iolus. Had he been watching this entire time?
The sorcerer ignited his hands. Soon, he was clutching two fireballs as big as melons.
“Gotcha,” he said, grinning.
Kovax fumbled in the pocket of his cloak and pulled out a bloodstone. He always kept one on his person now, to protect against theft. No one knew about this one—he had purchased it in secret.
Time was running out. Kovax sensed Iolus’s spell would break through his shield. He knew he might die tonight, but he would be damned if he’d let Iolus be the one to kill him.
He raised the crystal, his lips already moving in a steady chant.
“Good thing I left you one,” Iolus said.
Kovax tried to ignore him. So it was true. Iolus had robbed him earlier, not Velgar. The news didn’t surprise Kovax. Not that it mattered anymore.
Iolus launched the fireballs, shouting, “Die, old man,” just as Kovax voiced the last words of the teleportation spell.
The bloodstone exploded with red light, and Kovax covered his son’s body with his own, screaming as the fireballs destroyed the shield. Never had he felt such overwhelming heat.
And then, suddenly, the heat was gone.
CHAPTER 35
“L eticia,” Calista said from behind cover.
The Pestilent woman released a hiss of laughter. “No friends to protect you anymore, then?”
“I have all the friends I need right here,” Calista said.
She readied Wind, visions rolling across her mind’s eye of stabbing the woman between various armored segments of her body. Calista only had to find the right spots.
“What’s this?” Leticia said.
Calista shot a glance around the console in time to watch Leticia pick something off the ground and hold it up to the dim light. Before Calista could make out what it was, she noticed the gruesome damage that had been done to the woman’s face.
Leticia wore an eye patch over one eye. Scars ran behind the patch in thick lines from top to bottom, like dripped blood that had hardened into pink flesh. Calista had no memory of seeing the woman without an eye the last time they met. She must have lost it in the battle on Taradyn.
Then Calista noticed what she was holding—the transmitter Artemis had given her.
Leticia smiled at it, surely about to crush the device.
Calista couldn’t let that happen. She rolled away from cover, swung her sword arm, and released Wind in the direction of the woman’s body. The sword caught Leticia in the chest and glanced off her armor. There was no damage, but the impact stunned her. Still, Calista had no idea what to do next.
Leticia aimed her shortbow, allowing the transmitter to slip from her fingers. Calista moved quickly—faster than she had ever moved—and caught it before it could slip through the grated floor. She rolled away just in time to avoid the arrow Leticia immediately sent in her direction. Wind stayed behind.
Leticia rolled toward her just as Calista managed to plant the device back into her ear, and the fight resumed in earnest. As if in a dance, they jumped and ducked to avoid each other’s attacks. All of it was happening so fast. The woman’s scorpion tail swiped at Calista, who ducked to avoid it, then expertly sidestepped away from Leticia’s blade as it fell in a deadly, vertical swipe.
Calista retrieved Wind and leaped back to avoid another attack, this time a jab from the tail’s pointed stinger. Her body moved like liquid, and she let it course along on its own. Metal banged against metal as their blades met again and again. Leticia growled each time.
“Had enough?” Calista said.
“Hardly.”
“Calista,” Artemis’s voice buzzed over the transmitter.
“Not now,” Calista said.
Leticia’s fiery orange eye matched her hair, which had been gathered into a tight bun behind her head. Her bloodthirsty grin made the scars and eye patch look even more hideous.
“You’re going to die,” Leticia said. “Just accept it. Give up.”
Calista remained silent. Her mind was in an altered state now, devoid of reason, a slave to her training. She readied Wind to strike.
The battle seemed to unfold in slow motion. Leticia lunged at her foe, and Calista parried, thrust, diverted the woman’s blades, kicked the tail whenever it struck, and rolled and jumped around her enemy with ease.
If only she could land one of her blows…
Leticia was better trained, but Calista had the advantage of sight. She followed the woman’s blind side, keeping the eye patch in front of her at all times. When Leticia turned, Calista did the same, always following the patch, always in Leticia’s blind spot.
“You little bitch,” Leticia said. “I know what you’re up to.”
“Then do something about it.”
Steel rang against steel, and Calista narrowly missed a jab from the woman’s tail. She was getting tired, though Leticia showed not a single sign of fatigue. Her stamina was incredible.
Sweat fell into Calista’s eyes. Doubt began to plague her, injecting its own poison into her system.
She found herself reacting more than attacking—each move was slower, less confident than the one before it.
“I’ve got you now,” Leticia said, nearly landing a strike Calista was lucky to avoid. “You’re nothing. No match for me. You have no skill!”
Calista released a growl of her own and backed away to catch her breath. Leticia smiled at her, strands of orange hair plastered across her face. She held up both blades as if in mock surrender.
“You’re more skilled than I was at your age,” Leticia admitted, “but that won’t save your life now. When I’m done with you, you’ll be just a corpse to toss into the tower.”
Leticia’s entire body twitched. Calista was certain the woman would lunge at her, though it seemed strange that she would give herself away with such a clumsy sign of intent.
But that wasn’t her plan at all. She had simply reacted to the red—unnaturally bright red—tendrils of energy that had seized her tail like the tentacles of an elemental sea creature seizing its prey.
Xanthus.
“Run,” he told Calista from where he was huddled on the floor by the consoles.
“No!” Leticia swung at the tendrils, but the blade only succeeded in making sparks. “Let go of me!”
Xanthus lifted a blood crystal the length and thickness of a carrot. The spell unfurled from its tip, ribbons of light that thickened into the glowing tendrils holding Leticia in their grip.
Calista was too stunned by what was happening to stop what came next.
Leticia’s right arm flashed toward the mage, and the sword flew at him, blade first, planting itself with a wet crack into his chest. He rolled over with a grunt, the crystal slipping from his hand and the spell fizzling away.
Calista bit back her sudden rage. There was only a moment to take advantage of the situation, so she lunged at the woman, thrusting her blade upward and catching her in the unarmored flesh of her left armpit.
Leticia cast a surprised look at Calista. Pain twisted the expression and her mouth wrenched open in a shriek of agony as Calista turned the blade and yanked it out. The sword fell from the woman’s wounded arm.
Savant & Feral (Digital Boxed Set): Books 1 and 2 of the Epic Luminether Fantasy Series Page 97