Stand Your Ground Hero (The Accidental Hero Book 2)

by Paul Duffau

  Honey scented the air that Kenzie inhaled. Today, the Glade was honeysuckle. Every time she visited, the scent was different, fragrant, potent. Like magic, it surrounded her and caressed her senses of smell and taste, too. She pictured the blooms, ripe for pollination, and saw in that the tragedy.

  Her mind drifted, buoyed by comfort of her watery bed.

  The Glade always lay tranquil. If there were a noise not made by a wizard, it was the tinkle of the brook or a zephyr riffling through leaves. She had never seen an animal in the Glade. Not one, not even a humble buzzing bumblebee to pollinate the waiting honeysuckle. Not a bird, not a butterfly.

  The gytrash didn’t count, mythical and magic as it was.

  That wasn’t normal.

  The Glade is home to magic, a contrary thought reminded her.

  Magic isn’t broken. The Glade shouldn’t be either.

  Were the Families broken, too?

  Was she?

  Shivers coursed up and down her skin despite the warm water.

  Warm water?

  Curiosity piqued, her deepest mind sought the source of the sensation when she should be quaking with chills. Why? It explored. Cut off from the magic, that intrinsic part of her that made her Kenzie dove deep. Faint multicolored sparks, like those she saw representing wizards, revealed themselves and grew to silk threads until a web of magic glowed. In the midst of the spun magic was an astral light, brightly shining, that Kenzie knew stood for herself. Lines of magic receded into the distance, anchoring the whole ethereal structure.

  She probed, felt the vibrations, saw their colors. Some filaments were as finely crafted as frost crystals, others rough-textured like coarse rope. One stood out, broad as an ocean liner’s hawser, a coruscating white. Each was a part of her magical being, obligations she placed on herself, responsibilities she voluntarily accepted. Touching them reminded her of lessons and people. One for Harold, Jules, even Raymond. A hundred threads, a thousand, each a part of her.

  The thick one she avoided, though.

  One black thread wound around her light and dipped into it. When Kenzie went to touch it, it cringed away. She followed it and traced it to a knot. More fibrous strings joined it, a mesh that reeked with infection and death. These strands of magic held her prisoner.

  Mind roiling in disgust, she pursued them until she had one ligature isolated. She cut it with a surgically precise application of magic. Only after she did so did Kenzie realize that she was again in contact with magic. Her exultation was short-lived as the other parts of the knotted magic squeezed. It was like having hands crushing her throat, cutting her off from oxygen.

  Frantically, she sought the rest of the bindings. Inadvertently, she struck an emerald thread. It hummed in her mind, building in volume and resonance until it filled her entire being. In an instant, all the progress she’d made disappeared and Kenzie fell into a dark well.

  It was the sound that woke Kenzie and kept her from panicking in the lightless space. She knew this sound, the mute thunder of battle, water against stone, as old as time. Her fingers sought the surface and found warm stone as she expected. She gathered herself and stood up. As she did, she raised a hand and said, “Fotinós.”

  The chamber obligingly brightened. She was in Elowyn’s lair, below the falls. It was as she remembered, though the stone bench was missing the jeweling tools and the renegade copy of the Incantaraus. There was even a pockmark in the wall where Elowyn had removed the sapphire.

  Her upraised arm was robed in green again, not the black of Sasha’s prisoner. She was fully clothed again and anger resurfaced. Now that she had her power back, she’d deal with Sasha. Later. For now, she needed to understand why she was here, of all places.

  The green thread had brought her here and, in some way, must represent her mother. She looked around the deserted chamber. Silence except for the water pervaded the slumbering room, so deep that Kenzie felt uncomfortable even breathing out loud. The hook for robes was empty, as was the whole space. That left the bench. Kenzie crossed the gap on bare, silent feet.

  Her reward was a rectangle of stiff paper, the thick kind with torn edges that looked like a pirate map. The ivoried sheet lay on top of the red-flecked stone, curled edges testifying to the length of its wait until someone discovered it.

  Until I discovered it.

  Her hand shook as she picked it up and began reading.

  Chapter 40

  Mitch stalked toward Harold. “You left her there!” Red boiled at the edges of his vision.

  Harold squirmed under the accusation. “I did not abandon her as you are insinuating. I gave her the information she needed to overcome Sasha—”

  “You could have gotten her out of there—”

  Mercury interrupted. “He could not. No single wizard can stand against a team.”

  Mitch muttered an expletive under his breath. “What about the wizard that attacked Hunter?”

  “She had help, but you couldn’t see it.” Mercury glanced to his brother. “Mitch is under the impression that a single wizard attacked and defeated the guards at the Rubiera stronghold.”

  Harold’s eyes became unfocused as his head tilted to one side. “It is,” he said slowly, “possible.”

  Mercury’s jaw fell open. “Since when?” He shook his head. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  Mitch winced at the withering glance sent from one brother to the other. “Describe everything to me and do not leave out any detail,” Harold instructed Mitch.

  “I already told Mercury.”

  “Good, he can provide a cross-check on your observations.”

  Mitch stared at the door beyond Harold. Maybe he could make a break for it. “What about Kenzie?”

  Harold looked askance to the sky and the passage disappeared. “She has her battles to fight. We cannot help her.”

  “I can!”

  “No, you can’t. She’s in the realm of magic and you have all the ability of a kumquat.” He stared up at Mitch, daring him to disagree.

  “But—”

  “Your job, right here, right now, is to give us the information that you have. Nothing else you do will be as important as that.” His fingers initiated the now-familiar weave but Mercury reached out and stayed his hands.

  “Let the boy talk. What he remembers voluntarily will have detail that may not come out under compulsion.”

  For the next ten minutes, he repeated the sequence of events leading up to the attack. He covered the espionage he’d done for the Rubieras, and Garrett’s grisly death, but purposefully avoided mentioning Lucy. When he got to the red wizard, Harold slowed him down and dissected the events with scalpel-like questions. It was like getting interviewed by the engineers again. Harold might present himself as wimpy, but the dude was brutally bright.

  Toward the end of his testimony, Harold pinned him like a bug to a board. “Now, tell me the part that you are hiding?”

  Mitch fidgeted. He didn’t know why he was so reluctant to mention the possibility of a true AI, which he was pretty sure was what Lucy was. He cleared his throat and looked for a way to deflect the conversation.

  Like he was an expert mind reader, Harold cut off his escape. “Tell me how you knew Kenzie was in trouble.”

  Mitch’s anger rekindled itself. “I just knew.” A part of him was relieved that he didn’t have to reveal the existence of Lucy.

  “Obviously,” said Harold, as though Mitch were a particularly disappointing student. “How? Did she call? Text?”

  “Nothing like that. More like a feeling at first.”

  Harold faced Mercury. “This would go faster if I put him under compulsion.”

  “Mitch, quit answering questions directly,” replied Mercury. “Instead, I want a detailed report, starting with when this . . . rapport . . . with McKenzie started. When did it manifest, how powerful is it, every detail and suspicion you have. Think out loud. I don’t care if you ramble.”

  “I don’t know where to start.”

>   “Did you feel it at the abduction?”

  “No.”

  “When?”

  Mitch thought. “The night that we were supposed to do the swap with Lassiter, when I was running up the road.” He took a deep breath. “After Wuffie blocked my path, I sprinted up the main drive.” He rubbed his shoulder. “When Lassiter shot Kenzie with the tranq dart, it was like it hit me. I could feel it, could feel the surprise.”

  Harold peered at Mitch. “Kenzie rubs her forehead occasionally, almost in the exact same place you were wounded.”

  “It lasted more than that one night?” asked Mercury. He twirled a finger. “Just keep talking, let it go.”

  “Yeah, it’s like most of the time I’ve got her sitting in the back of my head. When bad stuff happens, I seem to know, like now. Not like telepathy. I can’t read her mind.”

  He got up and paced from one end of the room to the other, talking as he went. “It’s not super consistent, either. If I had to guess, it’s tied to emotion. I can feel when she’s really happy or really hurt but not why, and it’s strictly one-way.”

  Harold cleared his throat. “What does she feel right now, Mitch?”

  Mitch stopped mid-stride and closed his eyes. “Sad and angry at the same time.” He hesitated. “Angry” didn’t convey the rage he sensed.

  Harold interrupted before Mitch could clarify. “But not in pain?”

  Mitch shook his head. “No, not in pain like she was.”

  “Fascinating.” The wizard’s eyes were bright. “Both that you can detect McKenzie’s feelings and that she has learned how to defeat the women so quickly.”

  “How do you get that?” Mitch resumed his march back and forth. “Which women?”

  “Because you did not mention fear. I am much encouraged.” Harold dodged the second question.

  Mitch let him. That didn’t matter as much as getting Kenzie to safety. “Great, so get her out of there already.”

  Mercury grabbed Mitch by the shoulder as he passed. “We can’t. You have to trust me on this, Mitch. This whole thing is bigger than you know.”

  Mitch shrugged the hand off. “I don’t care how big all of this is”—he waved his hands to encompass both wizards and the realm of magic—“all I want is Kenzie safe. Meanwhile, you two are sitting on your thumbs doing a whole lot of nothing.”

  “Fair enough,” agreed Mercury. “But both Harold and I understand the battlefield and recognize our limitations. You—” He broke off at the expression on Mitch’s face.

  Both wizards stared at him, Mercury with sympathy, Harold intensely inquisitive.

  “They’re starting again,” said Mitch with a violent shiver as though ice coated his skin. “And Kenzie is royally pissed.”

  Chapter 41

  The flowing script was written by Elowyn.

  Dearest McKenzie,

  Do not be surprised. Only you could enter this place, of my creation, and by my permission. To everyone else, this place does not exist. It is, literally, of my creation, and anyone else who enters here, even stumbling in accidentally, will perish.

  As I fear I will.

  If you read this, know the fear in my heart as I write it, for it means that my escape from our Family has failed. It means that the beautiful little girl that I bore grew up without me. It means that you are in the same trap, expected to defer yourself to the will of the Family, at the expense of your own happiness. And, it means that the Families are at senseless war with each other again—and I am the cause, so they will make me suffer, make me the example.

  The Magic must survive. How many times have you heard that now, my daughter? Too many, I guess. I followed my heart and your father and committed the sacrilege of deserting the Family. I refused my position in it for reasons that you will eventually learn. There is a time for that, in the future. For now, understand that you are first an individual endowed with unique potential, and only second a part of the Family, and that only by your own choice. By choice, you should also be able to leave, true? Otherwise, you live under a system of slavery, no matter how well disguised.

  I have very little that I can offer beyond a small measure of advice. There are a pair of brothers, Harold and Matthias. In what comes, I do not know what will happen to them. Nothing good, I’m sure. Both are brilliant and honorable men who have helped us, so they will be made to pay for their crimes against the Family. You may trust them in full. Well, not Matthias in the small things, as he is a prankster, but you’ll have no stauncher ally than this powerful wizard when you need to make the same decision I did. In Harold, you’ll have a wizard who would willingly die for you, to make amends for the wrongs done. If Matthias is the warrior, Harold is the philosopher.

  If you do not know them, seek them out if they are still alive. You will need their help, I think.

  Now I must finish this, even as my tears stain the parchment. The time is at hand and I must either stand against the Families with all my strength or flee. But really, there is no option. As a free person, I cannot run, I cannot abandon my friends. Best to allow them to strike now when I have some small advantage.

  I go to fight for us, for you. Wish me courage, Kenzie, for I am frightened beyond belief.

  I love you, beautiful baby girl, now and to the end of time.

  Your mother,

  Elowyn Bai

  Kenzie put the letter with her mother’s words down on the bench. She was in the process of wiping away tears when a drenching shock descended on her. Elowyn’s hideaway faded from her vision. . . .

  Kenzie shook violently. Her wrists were still tied to the struts and they jerked against the bindings as the suppressed shivers exploded into uncontrollable spasms. In front of her stood Sasha, an empty bucket in her hands. Water dripped from locks of Kenzie’s wet hair and a rivulet of ice flowed along her spine and soaked into her robe at her waist. She tried to spit an insult but her throat clenched shut. She was reduced to glaring hatefully at the woman. A small measure of fear intensified the quaking.

  Was it all a hallucination?

  She heard Sasha dismiss Bethany, but her stepmother picked up the blocking spell without leaving even a small gap of time for Kenzie to react. The younger wizard left hurriedly. Kenzie attempted to make eye contact, but her old jailor kept her focus on the ground as though not seeing her handiwork would absolve her of the shame.

  “So proud,” taunted Sasha. “Did you think you were any different, any better, than the rest of us?”

  The bitterness in Sasha’s voice made Kenzie lift her head, painful inch by painful frozen inch, to search the woman’s face. The criticism didn’t make sense directed at a sixteen-year-old girl.

  Kenzie spoke past her chattering teeth, the words slurred by the numbness of her lips and the ache in her jaw. “You hate her that much?”

  Sasha’s head snapped back as though Kenzie had slapped her. Her lips curled into a feral snarl. “The Magic must survive. So must the Family. You would turn your back on us.”

  The strain was too much. Kenzie’s head drooped down. A frightening thought intruded. Elowyn had gone to do battle with someone. Was it Sasha? Had her stepmother killed her real mother? She had fought Families. Kenzie only knew of two. Was history repeating?

  Kenzie’s strength was failing. What the cold had not immediately accomplished, the freezing water was. Her whole body was going numb. She sought her center again, to find those lines of magic, if they weren’t part of a grand illusion.

  The blocking spell relented for one brief second. “Stay awake.” Sasha smacked the back of Kenzie’s head and in the same motion rewove the magic.

  White lightning colored the underside of Kenzie’s eyelids. The gap in coverage had been too small for Kenzie to seize. She’d assumed that with both of Sasha’s hands busy, the physical abuse would end. New tears formed from impotent rage.

  “Was my mother supposed to marry a Rubiera? To unite the Families?”

  “She failed in her duties.”

  “So you puni
sh me for her? Why?” She nearly sobbed. “What good does it do now?”

  The answer came as a shriek. “It should have been me!”

  Dismay filled Kenzie as the pieces fell into place. Sasha’s machinations to betroth her to Hunter weren’t the result of a lust for more power. It was jealousy. It was a do-over, a parent—at that unclean thought her mind recoiled: Not my mother!—reliving her life. Sasha, jilted by the Family, was acting out in the same stupid drama that Kenzie saw at school when some girl got dropped by a dude or was ostracized from the cool clique.

  “Why?” Kenzie asked, to keep her talking. “Why did they choose my mother?”

  Another slap, this one harder, made Kenzie bite her tongue. The taste of iron in her blood made Kenzie’s stomach recoil, and she let it dribble out her mouth. Sasha made a pleased sound.

  “It was my idea, that the two great Families should join forces to advance the cause of magic,” Sasha stated, sounding rational. A glance at her face convinced Kenzie that her stepmother was anything but. Two bright spots of red burned on pale cheeks and her eyes had a weird glaze like she was hyperalert but looking into the past, not the present. “There were more of us then, young women, and the Family had to choose. I was just as powerful as she was and I wanted to go.”

  Kenzie dropped her head again and let her body sag in defeat. She needed time. She could see the magic again, including the black web that confined her.

  “Why her?”

  Sasha made a disgusted sound. “To moderate him. Jorge is a great man. The old leaders couldn’t see that. They thought that she could guide him to a path that allowed the Families to take their rightful place someday. The old biddies couldn’t see that the time for the Families is now.”

  Kenzie worked at the strands, careful to avoid the green one. How . . . ? In asking, she saw the way to cut the power of the spells. It was like lifting up on a fine string with a sharp knife until it separated. Kenzie felt a pleasurable surge in her chest.