“Not the restraint kind of cuff, old man. The wide bracelet kind of cuff.”
“Can we just put a ruby in there somewhere?” he had pleaded. “These are going to look rather boring. As you can tell, I am a fan of embellishment.”
Veria had just shook her head in protest as he made his case for a more showy talisman design.
“Fine,” he had conceded. “But, I cannot say I understand.”
“I would rather we draw attention with our unprecedented skills and power than with gems and jewelry.”
“Spoken like a true Earth Mager,” Strelzar had jibed. “Let us get to work.”
With the same procedure they had used to fashion the restraints, they smelt the metal and worked it and cooled and hardened it, both sharing a combination of their energies through the whole process. She felt immediately comfortable by the internal warmth of his Fire energy, instead of being at odds with it as she had been previously.
By the time they were done with the two matching cuffs, she had focused so much energy into the talismans and into connecting with Strelzar that she was nearing exhaustion. It certainly had not helped that they had not slept and had barely had any rest for however long she had been there.
The band was a simple, wide bracelet, with just a hint of the ornate engravings from when it was a chalice making it through to the finished talisman. It gave the cuff some personality, some mystery, a story. As if the story of its origin from two Magers of two different elements were not enough.
“Not much to look at,” Strelzar groaned as they finished.
“It does not have to be,” Veria responded. “The true beauty comes from how it came to be.”
“So poetic,” Strelzar mumbled. “I still think a big flaming ruby right in the middle would perfectly capture the symbolism of the hidden tale of our passionate affair.”
“Take the talisman, Strelzar,” Veria said.
They released their connective grip on each other, and both reached out to the work table and took their creations. “Moment of truth,” Strelzar sighed, and they slipped the talisman bracelets on simultaneously. The metal seared into Veria's skin for a moment and she winced, but it quickly began to adjust.
“I feel like I am covered in dirt,” Strelzar said with displeasure. “Is this what you feel like all the time?” His face puckered up as if he had dirt in his mouth, as well.
Veria laughed. “It must be what the Earth energy feels like when the primary element rejects it.”
“Dirt. I suppose that's fitting. Disgusting and highly uncomfortable, but fitting,” he continued his complaints. “So, now we must test these out. Might I suggest a duel?” he asked, his lips curling up into a mischievous grin.
“Right now? In here?” Veria asked, her heart pounding. The last time they had dueled, she was afraid he might kill her for trespassing on his property and asking questions about fugitives. And she had technically lost, and could have easily been hurt.
“Well, we might like a little more space,” he raised his eyebrows and used his head to gesture toward the corridor that led to the staircase down to the magma chamber.
“You are far too excited about the prospect of us trying to harm each other,” Veria said, disapprovingly, vividly picturing the two of them hurling lava at each other.
“If you are a skilled Mager, then no one can hurt you,” he said.
“Considering it would be my second duel ever, and the first in known history of its kind, I feel very unskilled, and highly inexperienced,” Veria said.
“I know,” Strelzar responded, “which is why I am not actually going to let you be harmed.”
From a bottom drawer of the jewelry chest, he produced a small vial, filled with sparkling emerald liquid.
“A parting gift to all of us, from Urtiz Agion,” he explained, holding the vial up in reverence. “He was working on perfecting this during the war that ultimately took his life. He would send us all testers—this is the last batch I received before he died—well, actually, I received it after he died. Packages transport much slower during wartime. It was actually quite morbid to receive a package from a dead friend, made even worse by knowing the contents of the package could have saved his life.”
“What is it?” Veria asked, intrigued.
“I nicknamed it 'dragonskin',” he explained, “but Urtiz was not as fond of the name as I was. He always referred to it as the Water Shield. Terrible, terrible name,” he added, shaking his head. “Anyway, I am not as familiar with his methods as I should be, but I suppose the general principle would best be described as a concoction that temporarily makes every cell in the body indestructible.”
“How does it do that?” Veria asked.
“If I knew, darling, I would be making it and selling it by the case. Do you know how expensive it is to maintain a luxurious yet secluded lifestyle for over a century?” Strelzar joked. “Honestly, he never shared any information, other than to describe his utter and continual amazement at his beloved element. In fact, he was probably gushing over some little oasis he found in the Tal'lean desert when that pointy little arrow was lodged into his skull.”
Veria glared at him in disbelief.
“What? That's how Water Magers are! I mean, never prepared for what's out there at all! The man was in the battlefield with a satchel full of this stuff and he was still so unsuspecting and dewy-eyed that a regular little soldier could use a freckle on his forehead as target practice. Always keep your wits about you, Birdie, and I will speak how I choose to regarding those who did not.”
“Does it work?” she asked.
“Oh, it definitely works,” Strelzar confirmed. “The early batches worked, too, just not for long, or had unintended side effects. The further he studied, the better they got, though. This will give us about two hours of completely safe elemental dueling.”
He removed the cork from the vial and split it into two small cups, and they each drank.
Veria definitely did not feel anything, nor did she feel different. They headed down the staircase silently, and into the magma room, and she realized even with the Water Shield, she was very nervous.
“So if neither of us can be hurt, how will we know who has won?” she asked, as they both found positions in the large cavern.
“Oh, it is going to hurt. It is going to hurt a lot,” Strelzar grinned. “Did I not mention that?”
“You said we would not be harmed.”
“Your body is indestructible, but you can still feel pain,” he explained. “So there is definitely incentive to not let me hit you with anything.”
Veria swallowed hard.
“Just try to focus on testing out the talismans, and I promise I will play nice,” he assured.
“I think we have different definitions of the words 'play' and 'nice',” Veria groaned, but she was fairly certain Strelzar did not hear her.
“Ready?” he asked.
Veria nodded, her entire body tensing in preparation for whatever was to come.
He smiled wide, his perfect lips pulling back over his glistening, pearly teeth. “Go.”
-XI-
Almost fast enough that she could not react, molten rock spewed toward her from the lava pit like sparks jumping out of a fireplace. It started to raise up and take form and moved so close to her she could feel the blazing heat on her skin. Quickly, she hardened it to stone, while backing away.
“Good,” Strelzar said. He was still in Master mode, she thought.
A chunk of the hardened rock broke free from the formation and flew at her at lightning speed, ramming her in the ribs and sending her flying backward several feet. She gasped as the wind was knocked out of her and pain seeped like icy water across her chest. She regained her footing and looked down, lifting the white shirt to expose her skin, feeling for sure that she would be injured. But, sure enough, not even a scratch or a splotch of red.
“Incredible, is it not?” Strelzar asked from across the cavern.
“That really hurt
!” she yelled back at him.
“Then prevent me from doing it again!” he challenged, playfully.
She felt the shifts in energy as he pulled another chunk of stone from the hardened formation and was about to send it hurling toward her, but she reacted more quickly this time. Feeling the energy of the fire in the rock below her feet, she lifted the ground in front of her straight up into a wall of stone. His projectile hurtled into the sheet of stone and broke upon impact, falling to the ground in tiny fragments. Just to give herself more time to plan an attack, Veria created another wall between her and Strelzar, and secured herself in the little corner the walls had created.
“Nice defenses,” he commented, and she could hear his footsteps traversing the cavern. “But they will not protect you from me.”
Her back slumped against the wall behind her and her breath caught in her chest as a wave of dizzying arousal hit her as strongly as the piece of stone had. Even with all the energy she could muster, it was hard to focus on connecting to anything and her legs began to shake and her heart flipped as his footsteps were now just on the other side of the wall.
What would she do if he came around the wall? She knew what she wanted to do, but that was his attack, his way of overpowering and incapacitating her. And it was working—she could not fight it. Her entire body ached in anticipation of him—where was he? Had he not just been walking toward the wall? She had to find him, and stood up, taking a few steps toward the edge of her defenses.
Or was this what he wanted? Just to draw her out, and there was some well planned assault as soon as she left her makeshift barricade?
“I thought this was a hard elemental duel?” she asked, seeing if she could get him to talk and gauge his location.
“No duel is ever strictly a hard elemental duel,” he explained, and he was close. Just on the other side of the wall. “The more weapons you use, the more effective your attack.”
Two could play at that, Veria thought. Though his manipulation of her desire was still coursing strongly through her, she managed to focus enough to project her own control over his. On the other side of the wall, she heard him purr with pleasure like a giant cat. “That is quite nice, but I am not coming around that wall,” he said.
Fine, she thought to herself. Latching onto the Fire energy inside it, Veria caused the stone of the wall to heat up. Hotter, and hotter, until it was glowing from the inside, and she could feel the warmth radiating from it.
“Ow!” she heard Strelzar utter from the other side. He must have been leaning up against it as she had been on her side.
She continued to heat the wall until it transformed into a sheet of glowing embers. From the sound of his footsteps, she gathered he was backing away from it—she had to act fast. With one big concentration of energy, she sent the burning embers propelling toward him. Fragments of glowing, scorching stone swarmed toward him like a storm of rubble. There was enough force and enough projectile that there was no where in the cavern he could have hidden from her attack. Several embers made contact, and he winced as they burned him. One larger section hit him squarely in the side of the head, and he spun on his feet and faltered to stay standing.
As soon as he had gained his balance, he was marching toward her at a frantic pace. She had only a split second to realize that she had still been focusing energy on his desire when she had made the big push of energy to heat and hurl the wall. As he was nearing her, she saw it in his eyes. Maddened determination. Bracing herself for what he would do when he took the final steps between them, she realized what he had meant earlier—she had no idea how to stop the desire once planted, especially when she had inadvertently concentrated so much energy toward it.
Strelzar stopped dead right in front of her.
“What did I tell you?” he asked.
“You were right,” she said, and swallowed hard as he grabbed her by the shirt and forcefully pulled her toward him.
Behind her, she heard the rumbling of shifting rock as he created another wall. A wall behind her? Not between them? She did not have long to wonder what it was for when he shoved her back into the wall. She gasped. If she could have been hurt, that might have crushed her spine or cracked the back of her skull. Instead she just got to experience the pain of it.
He continued to press her into the wall, but did not do anything else. She writhed under his grip but he pulled her back out by the shirt, and shoved her back into the wall again. When she opened her mouth to cry out in pain, he attacked her with his lips. Instinctively, she reached out and clutched at his chest. When she had a fist full of fabric, she attempted to reel him in to her, but he resisted, keeping some distance between their bodies.
They both battled for breath as their mouths continued in frantic battle. Her heart pounded and pulse quickened. Again, she pulled at him. Again, he would not budge, but he sighed in frustration, as if he wanted to but was fighting it. He was trying to regain control. She had to think of something fast, because she was sure he was planning his next step.
But his next step came to soon for her. The stone wall behind her began to morph and reform, and she felt a strange sensation of Strelzar's hands moving all around her body, but his hands were not moving. She broke her lips from his and looked down and saw four stone hands moving across her waist and chest. She tried to stop them, but he was focusing too much energy and he was too powerful. The hands locked together, and Strelzar let go of her and backed away victoriously. She did not have to squirm against the stone to know that she was completely trapped, but she squirmed anyway, in vain hopes of it being productive.
He watched her in bemused silence, a prideful grin on his face, his eyes sparkling with the thoughts of all the things he could do to her. Then she started to feel hot. It was already hot in the steamy, glowing cavern, but she was burning. She frantically checked the stone restraints to see if he was heating them, but she quickly realized that the heat was coming from the inside, from her mind. Flames erupted inside her chest and abdomen, the skin on her arms and legs felt like she were being burned alive, and she struggled to keep from screaming.
If he were going to make her feel like she were on fire, then Veria figured she ought to return the attack. With the burning sensation still coursing through her body, threatening to drive her insane and consume every ounce of her focus, it took all the energy she could muster to latch onto the fire energy in the magma pool.
Pure fire, that is what she wanted. She left the earth behind and pulled just the fire energy out of the churning, boiling lava. She did not dare look over to the area of the pool to see what form the energy had taken, for fear of drawing attention to her next move. Even without knowing exactly what form the fire energy had taken, Veria focused all her strength on it, and targeted it at her opponent.
Just before it made contact, she got a good glimpse of the hovering, smoky cloud of blazing sparks. Strelzar jumped in shock and contorted in pain as the cloud descended on him, covering him in smoke, and singeing his skin.
His focus broke, and the burning sensation stopped. His control over the stone restraint had weakened, too, and she broke them into pieces with her own power and freed herself from the wall. Strelzar coughed in the thick cloud of smoke. Veria could hardly see him, which meant he probably could not see anything at all. She had a moment to figure out an attack—it had to be big, impressive. She scanned the room quickly as the smoke began to dissipate and settle, and latched onto the first object that caught her attention: the twin dragon statue.
Her muscles tensed against the violent drain of energy it took to manipulate the stone of the carved Earth dragon. As she moved the huge statue, letting it take steps on its wide claws and spread its stony wings and fly like a living creature, she became dizzy, and her legs buckled underneath her. This was it—this was the last of her energy.
As her moving stone dragon reached Strelzar at the center of the cavern, he began to laugh maniacally.
“Amazing,” he chuckled in awe, just bef
ore the dragon pounced on him and pinned him to the ground. She could hear the sickening thud of his body as it hit the floor, and he groaned in anguish.
If she'd had the energy left to make the dragon breath fire, she would have, but there was none. She collapsed forward on her hands, and her vision went blurry, the room swirled around her, and she struggled for air with shallow, labored breaths.
Strelzar moved the dragon off of him and stood, though it was visibly difficult for him. Preparing for another offensive, though she was sure there was nothing she could do to stop it, Veria lifted herself up onto her shaky, weak legs, as well. The room continued to spin around her and she struggled to keep her footing. Strelzar approached her, slowly this time, and she panicked, ducking around the wall behind her as quickly as she could managed.
As soon as she flopped against the wall, attempting to rest and regain whatever energy she could, the tingling itch of desire crawled up her chest and down her abdomen. She was done. She had no energy left to fight him, and she did not want to fight him. She wanted him even without his power of manipulation—with it, the want morphed into a consuming need and it was almost too much to handle.
With no warning or time to steady herself, the wall collapsed and she plunged backward. Just as she was about to fall, he caught her, with seeming ease, in his strong arms. He helped her to her feet and she spun on him, launching her body at him and locking her arms around his neck. He took her mouth with his and she sounded her approval. The desire rippled through her like the boiling lava in the chamber, and she ripped at his clothing until his stony, sculpted chest was exposed. He laughed triumphantly.
“You win,” Veria whispered when they broke for breath. Frenzied by the raging desire, she clawed at his skin like an animal.
“Ow!” he reacted. “No, you definitely win, darling,” he murmured. “The dragon was quite sensational, and I concede to you on its account.”
“Then why are you still attacking me?” she asked, before kissing him desperately.
The Second Talisman: (Book II of the Elementals Series) Page 10