River Running

by Eden Reign

  “Protecting us.” A moment later, she spread her palms, and a sheen of water stretched far and thin in front of them both.

  He touched the halfmage shield. It was as hard and implacable as metal. He pushed it, but it didn’t budge. Manda’s eyebrows arched. “Shall we go, Jack?”

  His mouth softened into a smile. “Impressive.” He gave a small bow. “Lead on, fair lady.”

  The great room was dark when they entered through the front door. Thuds, cries, and shouts resounded from the rear of the house. Movement flashed through the beveled glass doors in the back.

  Jackson moved forward, careful not to touch Manda’s shield. He searched the balconies on both sides of the great room and then each of the doors leading into the other downstairs chambers.

  “Up there,” he mouthed, pointing to the second-floor walkway that spanned the back wall and led to the balcony outside. “That’s where we saw Lake and Blazen.”

  “Up the stairs, then?” Manda whispered.

  “I think so.”

  Silently stepping in unison, they took the wide, winding staircase on the left, turning the corner toward the double doors. Jackson paused to peer through the beveled glass. The figures on the other side were indistinct and warped, but he could make out two leaning against the balcony railing, bending and shouting.

  “Ready?” Jackson’s hand trembled as he reached around Manda’s shield for the door handle. He wasn’t afraid for himself, only for the woman who had stolen his heart. He steeled himself and pushed open the door, tapping the Wells and gathering heat into his fingers. A fire ball coalesced in his hand.

  The doors crashed open, and the two men on the balcony whirled.

  Jackson didn’t recognize them. But below the railing, the croppers in the circle of water saw him. Stone was battling two airmages nearby, his brambles and roots unfurling from the ground and reaching for their hands even as a funnel wind swept the butler from his feet and slammed him into the ground. The Nanu man grunted and rolled away from the next air assault.

  “Help!” the croppers screamed. “Master Coal!”

  A babe wailed from inside the circle, and tiny child, no more than two years old, screamed in its mothers’ arms.

  Jackson send a torrent of fire at the airmages attacking Stone, herding them into the butler’s brambles, which finally secured their wrists, effectively binding the ability to do more spellwork.

  Stone leapt to his feet. Jackson leaned to assist him with more fire, but—

  “Jackson Coal,” a deadly voice said behind him. “Is it me you’re looking for?”

  Jackson turned.

  Daniel Lake stood on the inside walkway, flanked by six fullmages. To his right, four more charged up the winding staircase from the first floor and ran along the hallway, halting when Daniel casually held up a hand.

  Manda and Jackson were trapped.

  Manda widened her shield. “Back, Jackson.” She angled toward the wall to close the way behind them. He had no choice; he couldn’t go around her shield.

  Daniel Lake leered at them. Wilcott Blazen puffed to the top of the stairs, lumbering along the walkway toward Daniel Lake. “There he is,” Wilcott said. “He set up a distraction in the back.”

  “That, Wilcott, is painfully obvious. But thank you for pointing it out,” Daniel said. “Now, Master Coal, shall we get down to business? You did not do as I asked and give me the halfmage boy. So I’ll take your halfmage trollop instead.”

  Manda’s face flushed and her eyes snapped. “You are certainly welcome to try, Master Lake.” Her voice was as hard as diamonds.

  The fire crackled in Jackson’s hand, and his anger kept his connection to the Wells wide open. He touched Manda’s arm with his other hand, and at once, she yanked her shield to the side.

  Jackson hurled his fire at Lake, who snapped up his hands, swallowing it in a fountain. Jackson pulled more fire from the Wells, but instead of forming single balls, he released a stream of flame against Daniel’s henchmen. They staggered backward, choking and burning as acrid smoke rose from the banisters and carpet. The air grew dense and thick.

  “Take him!” Daniel bellowed.

  Jackson surged past Manda’s peeled-back shield, out the double doors and onto the balcony, ignoring Manda’s frantic, “No, Jack!” He flung both arms outward, and his fire blasted again, pushing back attackers who leapt at him from both sides of the balcony. Viscous indigo water straight from the Wells surged around his ankles, sucking at his boots, pulling, tugging. He jumped free of it onto the balustrade, and in a graceful leap, he cleared the railing, dropping the twelve feet to the verandah below, landing in a roll.

  Back on his feet, he turned to find Manda. She still stood in the opening of the second floor, but she had become a barrage of water as she twisted a maelstrom around her, lashing anyone who dared to come too close.

  “Coal!” One of Daniel’s henchmen sent a stream of fire at Jackson. He returned the volley, doubling the man’s own fire back at him. Another mage near the railing drew Jackson’s attention; the man’s entire concentration was on the twisting, spiraling wall of water that trapped the croppers, his face pale with strain. He was commanding the water funnel.

  Stone had managed to get into the circle of croppers, but the watermage looked ready to unleash the doom over them all.

  “Stone, get them to safety!” called Jackson.

  Stone worked frantically, grabbing the youngest of the croppers, the baby and the toddler, one in each arm. Stone sent a mass of tangled brambles shooting up from the earth to protect him and the children as he plowed through the water circle, heading north.

  Jackson had to help. Fight the mages, not the elements. Jackson’s commander in the Leveler Army had issued the order many times, and the echo played in his head. Jackson hurled himself at the mage controlling the croppers’ water trap, throwing the man off-balance. They landed in a struggling, grunting heap on the verandah stones as the wall of water surrounding the croppers collapsed outward in a wide ring.

  The water surged around the croppers’ feet, knocking many of them over. But the torrent lacked any true power or force, only gushing away from the terrace and soaking into the ground, no more deadly than Coalhaven’s own river.

  Fortunately Stone was already clear with the two young children, a figure vanishing in the distance toward the croppers’ cabins.

  Jackson slammed his fist into the watermage’s face, and the man’s eyes rolled back into his head. Jackson leapt up and charged through the lower entrance of his house, shouting Manda’s name as he pounded into the great room.

  Manda had snapped her shield tightly around her to plow through Daniel’s fullmages, none of whom could touch her. Some were knocked off their feet in her determination to get through, thrown back against the walls with such force that they slumped insensate against the baseboards. The others struggled, dazed and lurching along the walkway in her wake. She made for the stairs, and Jackson ran to meet her, but another surge of water pulled at him.

  Daniel Lake had leaped from the second floor walkway to the floor of the great room, and he stood not ten feet from Jackson, his hands outstretched, sending water at Jackson, higher and higher in a spiraling wave.

  His gaze was pinned to Jackson’s arm.

  Jackson risked a glance. His stomach churned. His magemark had curled over his exposed flesh, writhing and burning, straining beyond the cut edges of his shirt.

  “Jackson!” Manda sliced through Daniel’s water spout, pulling her shield around Jackson.

  “We have to retreat, Manda, outdoors. We need more room!”

  But Daniel’s eyes had already blurred for his next onslaught.

  Jackson’s magemark coiled and stretched, sliding down his arm onto his right hand. It had never done that before.

  A smile spread over Daniel’s face.

  Jackson panicked. “What are you doing to me?” The mark burned on his hand, and he caught a whiff of indigo.

  “Giving you
what you deserve, what your father tried to give you with that mark.” Daniel laughed and released his water. It slammed the sides of the great room in splashing, angry waves. Daniel’s remaining men gathered behind him, their faces turning from anger to victorious sneers.

  Jackson stared, horrified, as his hands glowed orange, and hot wisps of sulfur eked into his nostrils. “What are you doing?” he shouted again. He’d lost control of his hands. They moved without his permission to Manda’s wall of water. The shield hissed as he pressed his palms against it.

  Manda shrieked, her own hands shaking as she tried to hold on to her shield. Jackson could not stop his fire from flowing into her shield, disrupting Manda’s ability to stay connected to her power. Apparently her halfmage shield was vulnerable from the inside in a way that it wasn’t from the outside.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t—”

  Manda’s shield wavered, swayed, and then collapsed, splashing the hickory boards beneath their feet.

  Daniel’s fullmages rushed Manda, dragging her away from Jackson, pinning her against the banisters.

  Daniel strode forward, gripping his hand against Jackson’s throat. “Today, traitor,” he whispered, “you will pay for what you did to your father.”

  Jackson managed one word as Daniel’s hand closed. “How did you know?”

  Daniel smiled, his predatory gaze turning to ice. “A little secret, Jackson,” he murmured. “That magemark your father placed upon you—I know his mark, I know you killed him—that mark was a skill I helped him develop. It may look like an ordinary Nanu Roving Magemark, but it is not. It is infused with an indigo quintessence ink Henry and I invented, and the special ink contains both of our minds and powers. Because of that, I hold some of that mark’s power here, in my own hands.” He spread his fingers ominously. “No elemental shield can stop me. Not your fire, not your halfbreed trollop’s water. I can penetrate anything to reach my power into your skin. I command the indigo ink that forms the mark in your flesh, and so I command you, Jackson. Only four fullmages anywhere could master the indigo ink in Henry’s mark. I happen to be one of them. So,” he squeezed even tighter, and Jackson’s hands twitched beneath Daniel’s manipulation, “here’s a memorial to your father.” He raised Jackson’s hand, controlling it through the indigo ink that formed the magemark. Fire blasted toward the banisters on Jackson’s right side. Jackson struggled fruitlessly. Daniel spoke the truth. He was as helpless as a babe.

  Flames licked the railing, thirsting for wood. The crackling sound spit through the great room. Daniel took something from his waistcoat. A moment later, the pocketwatch—Henry Coal’s blasted timepiece, the clue that had told Daniel the truth of Henry’s death, lay beneath Daniel’s curled fingers. Spittle flew as Daniel bellowed in Jackson’s ear, “All the years I worked with him, Henry Coal treated me like pond scum. Always thought fire was better than all the other elements—but especially water. How he hated water. He hated being weak to it. Acted as though he had to hold his nose to work with me. But he was too afraid not to join us. He saw that the work of the Time Keepers,” he waved the watch in Jackson’s face, “was the future of fullmage supremacy, and his Coalhaven indigo crop was the first piece in the puzzle of our plans. Coalhaven was to be a bastion of our power. Until you became master, Jackson. But no matter. We will be rid of you soon enough.”

  His eyes dilated and turned nearly white as he tapped the Wells, and Jackson knew, this was it. He was done. His useless hands, trapped under Daniel’s hold on the magemark, hung by his sides, pinning his body beneath Daniel’s will.

  An explosion roared behind Daniel.

  The fullmages accosting Manda flew through the air as though a volcano had erupted beneath them. They slammed against the walls, slumping and sprawling in tangles of limbs and water behind her, dead or insensate, Jackson couldn’t tell. Wrath and fury flashed from Manda’s eyes as she stepped toward Daniel, her hand outstretched.

  Daniel yanked Jackson in front of him. “You forget, you mutant witch, that I hold two aces, your lover and his watch,” he said, leering at her over the Time Keeper’s watch in his hand. “If you wish Jackson to die, simply continue to move forward.”

  Jackson stared at Manda, willing her to come, but he could not speak. The air stilled in his throat as Daniel’s hold tightened. Jackson’s hands, controlled by Daniel through the magemark, failed him. He would die at Daniel’s command, and all he could think of was Manda’s beautiful, tear-filled eyes when she had whispered that she loved him.

  His father had never loved him. Indeed Jackson had always believed he was unloveable. But Manda had shown him a different true. Through her, he had learned to see himself as more than a vermin, more than a killer.

  He’d known love. At least he had that.

  Chapter 28

  Manda

  Manda stalked forward, focusing her fury with flint-like determination on Daniel Lake. The man clawed at Jackson’s throat with one hand, while his other gripped the watch like a vise. His voice, silky and low, did not betray even a shadow of fear.

  Nevertheless, as Manda stepped forward, Daniel backstepped.

  “Get back, halfbreed,” he warned.

  Manda did not obey. Water brimmed inside her body, responding to her inner rage, quaking and lashing within her skin. The fullmages behind her rallied, by she sent streams of water back, knocking them flat again.

  The snake who stood before her had killed her mother, her father, and now held Jackson’s life by a thread. She would not back down from him.

  Even so, terror made her cautious. Daniel had only to twist a little too far, pinch a little too hard, and Jackson would die. She would see the life flicker from Jackson’s beautiful brown eyes, and there would be nothing left but devastation and emptiness.

  She hated Daniel Lake. She allowed the hatred to swell and fill her. She was a storm, and Daniel was the hapless victim. He would not survive her fury.

  Movement flashed to her left—two of the men had regained their feet. Manda flicked her hand. Water hurled them across the room and into the wall. They landed in fallen heaps on the ground. Doused fires hissed as her water smothered the flames licking the stairs and the walls. A loud crack resounded as a support beam split. The stairs tilted sickeningly to the side, peeling from the wall as it rent in two.

  Manda advanced. Daniel had reached the doors, dragging Jackson. “Get her!” he roared. Three mages from the indoor balcony staggered to their feet, eyes blurred as they hurled flames and roots at her. She would have none of it. Her water superseded them all, washing away the mages and melting their elemental obstructions.

  As Daniel raced outside beneath the portico, he scowled at the fountain in the circle of the drive. With one spiteful wave, he threw a water lash at it, splitting the stone woman so the entire basin cleaved into two halves. Water spilled over the drive.

  Manda sucked the spilled water up into a spinning funnel.

  Daniel backed away, his knuckles whitening around Jackson’s throat. Jackson rasped, a strained but functional breath, to Manda’s relief. His arms, however, hung limply from his sides. The magemark coiled and writhed around his burnt hand, stretching up his arm and back down again.

  Manda picked up her pace.

  Daniel broke into a run, dragging Jackson with him. Manda knew his intent. He was heading toward the sea, toward water, toward his strength.

  It was her strength, too.

  Behind her, Daniel’s three remaining fullmages pounded onto the second-floor balcony, but she didn’t pause. She hurled her funnel of fountain water behind her. It crashed against the house, the balcony, the windows. Glass shattered. The men cried out as the water swirled around the balcony posts. The entire structure dislodged with a great crack and a groan, and the three fullmages slid off of it, splashing into the foaming waters below, swept away by the powerful current.

  Manda turned her glare back to Daniel and Jackson.

  “What are you doing?” Daniel Lake yelled as he nearly stum
bled. “Get back!”

  Manda continued inexorably forward, and the water inside her spun into a spiral from which nothing was safe. She couldn’t control the water any longer; it had anchored to her fury and was carrying her in its strong tide. Water gushed around her feet with each step she took.

  They were nearing the crest of the eastern hill. The boulders that lined the shore were visible beyond it, and the sea’s gray, billowing sheet shifted beneath the dying light. Daniel’s arm tightened around Jackson’s neck. Jackson’s face was turning purple. Still his body would not move. Daniel had forced him into alarming helplessness.

  “Let him go,” Manda said.

  “And if I don’t?” The twisting, flaming magemark on Jackson’s arm went frantic.

  “Then you’ll wish you were dead.”

  Daniel’s eyes blurred as he summoned a spinning geyser. It rose higher and higher, a massive storm of water swirling overhead.

  The maelstrom inside Manda broke. She lunged for Daniel as her water burst from her body. Her fingers closed around the pocket watch that swung from its chain. She yanked it from Daniel’s hand like a whip while water rushed out of her, gushing down the hill toward the boulders, meeting the rocks in a crash that shot liquid to the skies. The spray swirled around Daniel, picking him up and dragging him down the long hill.

  Manda grabbed Jackson's arm just as Daniel slipped out of reach, her fingers curling around his wrist before he could be carried away.

  Daniel screamed, caught for a moment between a crevice in the boulders before the current swept him into the choppy sea beyond. His own element drowned out his trailing shriek. His long, dark hair flipped through the breakers as the sea carried him out of sight.

  Daniel was gone. The water receded down the hill and into the inlet where Manda had broken the wards earlier.

  Manda collapsed on her knees beside Jackson, sobbing. “Jack!” His face was still and white, and his eyes were closed. The magemark slithered back up over his shoulder, disappearing beneath his cut-off sleeve.