“No, my master has them custom-ordered,” they said, confirming my guess. “I will help you select which ones you need, if you like.”
Within twenty minutes, I’d filled my pouch with more cantrips than Devon normally made in a week, and I was more than ready to deal with whichever misfits came here hoping to take on the position of the next Fire Element.
“Ooh, snazzy.” Dex flew up to me as I left the room. “Thought I heard your voice. Are you really taking up full-time employment here?”
“No, I’m just playing bodyguard at the contest next week,” I said. “You’re welcome to join me.”
“That was the plan.” He touched down on my shoulder. “Can I have my own suit of armour?”
“I doubt there’s one designed for sprites, but you should be fine without it,” said Ryan. “Maybe a lich cloak…”
“That would look good on you,” I said. “Aria would love it, I bet.”
He flew overhead and flipped over. “Don’t make fun.”
“I’m not, but you’re spending all your time with her,” I pointed out. “Don’t think I didn’t see you two flirting like crazy during the intermissions in our D&D game.”
Dex turned away. “I won’t listen to these accusations.”
I wouldn’t have thought it was possible for a fire sprite to blush, but he managed it. I grinned. “Joking, joking.”
I hadn’t thought romance was even an option for a fire sprite like him, but he’d proven me wrong. I was happy for him. I mean, Dex had nearly died recently—had died, in fact, before I’d used the node’s energy to heal him. Spirit magic could do impossible things, like when I’d healed Brant, but it could also cause great damage.
After all, it wasn’t for no reason that I’d been discovered by the Order next to Dirk Alban’s dead body with blood all over my hands. It hadn’t got there by accident, I knew, and yet part of me resisted the implication that I’d been the one who’d put it there.
So many questions, and only one place that might contain the answers. Never mind the contest for the next Fire Element: the real test would come when I faced my spirit magic head-on, and in the process, found out what I’d really done which had led to Dirk Alban’s death.
4
Ryan gave me a tour of the rest of the castle until I was reasonably confident in my ability not to get lost in the winding, draughty corridors. Then I returned to the main hall, where I hovered on the balls of my feet, waiting for the Death King’s lesson to kick off. He’d better keep his word after I’d taken the trouble to come here on a weekend. Okay, the new armour and weapons were definite perks, but I’d come here to learn magic and I was damned if I’d leave without it.
The door at the back of the hall opened and the Death King glided in, his footsteps making no sound on the polished floor. He looked me up and down—or I assumed he did, considering his eyes were hidden—and said, “The armour suits you.”
“Um… thanks?” Was he making fun of me? I was pretty sure I’d never heard him give me an actual compliment before, and it was beyond me to figure out why he’d even want to. “Ready to teach me your tricks, then?”
“What did you want me to teach you, precisely?” he said. “If you simply want to know how to conceal your nature from the Order, you’re going to be disappointed. The only way to disguise yourself in any capacity is to become a lich.”
“What?” I folded my arms. “You have got to be kidding me. I thought I was more useful to you alive.”
“This isn’t about how useful you are to me,” he said, as though I was barking up the wrong tree for even suggesting it. “This is about the Order. They know of your history of using spirit magic, so you’re only likely to be in danger of them suspecting you to be an active spirit mage if you expose your magic in front of them.”
“Of if one of the vampires gives the game away.” Like, say, when the Order escorted Brant to the vampires in person. Oh, fuck.
“If you want to learn how to work your powers of persuasion on the vampires, that’s also a futile exercise,” he said. “It depends if you feel Lord Blackbourne is likely to tell the Order you used your magic recently.”
“You need to work on your ‘reassuring’ tone.” I drew in a breath. “All right, then. Forget hiding my nature. What I did to Dex—bringing him back to life—could I do the same to a living person?”
“No,” he said. “Dex is a spirit, essentially formed of energy, and our gift as spirit mages is the ability to manipulate that energy. That’s not the same as making a deceased person’s heart beat again.”
Okay. That made sense. “I accidentally drew his power into me a couple of times, too. It enabled me to use his magic. I take it only spirit mages can do that?”
“You did?” He paused. “Yes. Most spirit mages can’t do more than manipulate the energy of a node, but the strongest among us can draw on the energy of other sources. Like sprites, or…”
“Liches?” I studied him. “Wait. I did the same to you, didn’t I? When we fought the Crow.”
“You drew on my power because I gave it to you,” he said. “Most liches would not take kindly to you using their life force as a conduit.”
“Life force?” I echoed. “Damn. You were putting your life force into that barrier. No wonder it nearly killed you.”
Which meant that if I wanted to, I could drain the life force from a lich like drawing energy from a node. Not that I wanted to end up on the bad side of the Death King’s army, but if I ever ended up on the end of a hostile lich’s attack again, that’d be one hell of a useful way to incapacitate them.
“I wouldn’t advise you to try the same,” he said. “My own resources are unusually high due to my status as a spirit mage turned lich. As long as my soul remains bound to an amulet, nothing can kill me. You, on the other hand…”
“I’m a living human who has no intention of becoming a masked phantom who turns to dust if I ever step away from a node,” I finished.
“There are ways around that.”
“I thought you weren’t planning on turning me into a lich.” My hands curled into fists as I felt his stare boring into mine even with the mask concealing his face. “If I can drain anyone of their life force, another spirit mage can do the same to me, can’t they?”
“Yes,” he said. “With ease.”
“Then teach me how to stop them from doing that,” I said. “It’s not a stretch to think I’ll end up facing another spirit mage sooner or later, and I could stand to be better prepared next time.”
The Crow might be dead—permanently—but he’d been a spirit mage, and so had Cobb. Dirk Alban’s former allies had scattered, but some of them had survived, either by turning into the living dead or by being stripped of their magic. Besides, I never knew if I might find myself on the wrong end of a lich’s attack again.
A cold sensation slid over my skin, raising goosebumps on my arms, then a sharp tugging sensation gripped my chest and manifested in a stream of energy, threading from me to him.
Hey! He might have given me some warning before he started sucking out my life force. I took a step back across the floor, but he simply moved with me, the current of energy brightening and the temperature dropping until my hands numbed.
“How do I fight?” I said through chattering teeth. “Can I break the connection?”
“I’m sure you can figure it out.”
Not helpful. So much for him giving me a fighting chance. I backed further across the hall, but the thread of energy connecting us didn’t break no matter how much distance I put between us. When I tried to grab the thread of energy, my hand passed right through it.
Time for a new approach, then. I reached out for the glowing stream of energy as though drawing it from a node. The pressure lifted a little as the glow transferred to my hand, only to reform in front of my chest again. My body locked to the spot as the pressure on my chest peaked, like a heavy, solid object sat on my ribcage, crushing me slowly. He was literally sucking out my life
force without even removing my soul.
“Slow down.” I caught the energy current again with my fingertips, but his grip was too damn strong. “How do I break this thing?”
“You don’t,” he said. “If you end up against someone as powerful as I am, your only option is to finish me off before I drain you for good. If we’d been in a real battle, you’d be dead.”
“Excuse me?” I reached for the thread again, alarm seeping through me, but it didn’t break. “What if you weren’t an all-powerful lich lord? If you were just a regular mage?”
“Then yes, you should be able to break it,” he said. “The lesson here is not to get drawn into a fight you can’t win.”
And with that, the thread connecting us vanished. Sensation surged back into my limbs with an impact that sent me flying backwards. I landed on my rear on the hard floor, struggling to catch my breath.
“Ow,” I said. “That was deliberate, wasn’t it? You tricked me.”
“I think that’s enough to be getting on with for now,” he said. “If you want, you can go home. Present yourself here at nine o’clock Monday morning for the first round of the contest.”
Arsehole. It seemed his new strategy was to get out of teaching me magic by annoying me into quitting.
Challenge accepted, then.
After a relatively relaxing weekend, I left the house early on Monday morning to start my new job as the Death King’s bodyguard. Or punching bag. His lesson had got through to me, I’d say that much, but it seemed my best bet for fighting someone like him was to rely on my tried-and-tested method of running for my life. Or just ripping out their soul before they got their paws on mine.
I used the node to cross over into the castle grounds and headed to the newly constructed arena just inside the gates. Liches formed a shadowy barrier around the inside of the castle grounds, parting to let me through and then moving back into place again. The three Elemental Soldiers paced around the arena, calling inexplicable orders to one another.
“It’s all systems go in here,” I remarked to Ryan. “What’s the first test for the aspiring Fire Elements?”
“A free-for-all,” they said. “Essentially, the first stage is to weed out the weaklings among the contenders. Then we can get on with narrowing down the list to find the best person for the job.”
It didn’t look as though they’d left any gaps in their security, but the main threat was more likely to come from among the contestants than from outside. If I were out to assassinate the King of the Dead, that was how I’d go about it, anyway. His Deathly Highness himself wasn’t anywhere in sight, and I wasn’t clear on whether he’d be showing his face during the contest or not. The guy liked to keep things unpredictable.
Dex flew up to me. “Hey, Liv. Ready to rock?”
“Not sure what it is I’m even supposed to be doing,” I said. “Where’s Aria?”
“Hiding in the break room,” he responded. “She wants to stay away from all the noise.”
I didn’t blame her. The air sprite’s imprisonment had left her skittish, and besides, who knew what chaos the contenders would bring with them? “Are you guarding the grounds, then?”
“I’ve been instructed with watching the hall of souls.” He puffed up his chest with pride. “The place is securely locked up, but His Deathly Highness expressly asked me to watch the doors.”
“Nice going.” Of all the people in the castle likely to steal a soul amulet, the sprite stood at the bottom of the list… mostly because he couldn’t actually pick anything up. A good choice, on the Death King’s part, if a surprising one. I turned to the other Elemental Soldiers. “What does the Death King want us to do, then?”
“My main job is to put out fires,” said Felicity, the Water Element. “Literally, I mean. Cal will be watching the arena. You and Ryan will join the liches in keeping an eye out for anyone trying to break into the castle.”
“Sure, I can do that.” I hope. While the Death King knew about my spirit magic and so did Ryan, I hadn’t told anyone else. The liches, though, probably already knew by now, but as long as nobody let anything slip in front of the Order, I was safe.
“The first contestants are on their way,” said Ryan, nodding in the direction of the gates. “Once they’ve been searched for weapons, that is.”
I rotated on my heel. A number of mages had gathered just outside the gates, surrounded by shadowy liches. Almost all of the aspiring Fire Elements looked utterly terrified, and I didn’t blame them a bit. I knew how disconcerting the cold touch of a lich was when you hadn’t experienced it before. As I watched, one contestant sank to the swampy ground in a dead faint.
“That’s one way to thin down the competition,” I remarked.
Two of the mages picked up their fallen companion and fled the scene, while several others muttered excuses and left. Admittedly, having the liches conduct the weapons search was a good way to judge who had what it took to serve the Death King. They wouldn’t last long in the job if they were frightened of liches.
The shadowy lich guards herded the remaining mages into the castle grounds and towards the arena. From what Ryan had told me, it sounded like the aim of the first day was to drive off anyone who didn’t meet the Death King’s criteria. Those who remained would stay in the castle for the duration of the challenges.
The contestants made their way through the gap in the low earthen walls surrounding the arena. They ranged from old to young, with some of them appearing barely out of their teens.
One had the pointed ears and silky hair of an elf. I indicated him to Ryan, who said, “Don’t worry, the first challenge will eliminate anyone who isn’t a fire mage. I expected at least one person to try skirting the rules.”
The actual fire mages seemed to be determined to live up the stereotypes. One burly guy had conjured three flames and was juggling them openly, while several others held leaping fire in their hands to stave off the cold. Fire mages tended to be quick-tempered and prone to rash actions like setting things—and people—ablaze, and I hoped everything in the castle was fireproofed like my uniform was. It was lucky we had a water mage on call, really.
When the arena was full, the liches withdrew, and Felicity strode out to address the participants. “Welcome, all, to the Court of the Dead.”
The contestants fell silent, looking around uneasily. Nobody spoke a word.
“You have all come here to compete for the honour of serving the Death King as his chosen Fire Element,” said Cal, stepping up to Felicity’s side. “There will be five days of challenges, and at the end, only one of you will remain.”
“And some of you will be eliminated long before then.” Ryan raised their hands, and a current of air smashed into a patch of bushes, unearthing two hidden figures. They both yelped in unison as Ryan levitated them into the air. “As will anyone who breaks the rules. Don’t think I didn’t see you two masquerading as liches in the crowd back there.”
“We just wanted to watch our friends!” squeaked one of the floating teenagers. “We don’t mean any harm.”
“Tell that to the liches.” With a blast of air, Ryan sent both of them flying towards the gates, where the security liches swiftly moved in to remove them. I guess they used cantrips to disguise themselves. At least Ryan had thought of that… though the two intruders had some nerve trying to outwit the Death King.
The Death King, who still wasn’t here. Maybe he wouldn’t show his face until the final round. Who knew? You’d think he’d want to see his potential Fire Elements rather than sitting alone in the castle, but I’d learned not to waste my efforts wondering what his reasoning was. Maybe he had a secret passion for throwing dance parties when nobody else was around. Who knew?
As the contestants returned their attention to the Elemental Soldiers, Felicity began to outline the rules of the contest. I, meanwhile, edged closer to Ryan. “Please tell me you let those two kids inside on purpose.”
“Of course,” they muttered back. “I had to use s
omeone to set an example, and those kids were harmless.”
“Let’s hope they’re the last.” I scanned the arena, my gaze panning across the gathering crowd listening to Felicity. “Does your boss think there are likely to be any troublemakers among the participants?”
“He said it’s more likely than not,” said Ryan. “Some people wouldn’t be able to resist the opportunity.”
“Then I hope he’s still inside the castle and isn’t gallivanting off.” Given that the last Fire Element had helped steal from the hall of souls himself, it ought to be a top priority. Twice, in fact, the Death King’s soul had gone missing—though admittedly, the second time had been a deliberate ruse on the Death King’s part.
“The first contest is a test of endurance,” said Cal. “Anyone who is left in the arena after the timer goes off will go through to the next round.”
At that point, the entire arena caught on fire. An inferno surged up to the sky, while screaming rang out from within. Two contestants tripped out through the gap in the earthen walls, their clothes singed and their eyes wide. One of them was the elf from earlier, his pointed ears red-tipped and his eyes watering.
I whirled on Ryan. “Was that deliberate? Did the Death King seriously order someone to set the arena ablaze to lure out the non-fire mages?”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Ryan stepped in to help the liches escort the disqualified contestants out of the Death King’s territory. They didn’t look to be seriously hurt—the flames must have been for show, mostly—but the Death King seriously pulled no punches. I wouldn’t want to be among those competing for the chance to serve him.
Then again, he’d offered me a position anyway. He’s utterly bonkers. They all are. What kind of contest is this?
The flames began to die down, leaving the remaining contestants shaken but standing. Several of them wore expressions of false bravado which didn’t hide their trembling hands. Others cowered behind their friends. The loud trill of a timer rang out, and the Earth Element addressed them again.
Trial of Shadows (Order of the Elements Book 3) Page 4