Strange squawks came from the conference room. He looked over to the closed door, his brow drawing down.
The chair creaked as his father pushed it out of his way, and the sound snapped Cole’s focus back instantly. Lily tensed, turning to keep the man in view as he walked toward them.
“I’m glad you came back,” Victor said, clasping Cole’s shoulder warmly.
A rough breath left his lungs. “Dad, I–”
“We were just discussing the spell.”
His words dried up. Panic twisted through his chest as his gaze returned to Lily.
Fierce determination showed on her face, with a fair amount of anger as well.
He couldn’t suppress a breath of relief.
“You don’t need to do it,” he said, looking back up at his father. “Really.”
Victor’s mouth tightened.
“I’m serious,” Cole tried. “I’ve talked with Ashe. I’ve seen the Merlin and the Taliesin and…” He faltered, swallowing hard at the memory of the prison. “I’m telling you, it doesn’t have to be like this. Really. Just let Lily go. Let her magic go. Talk to Ashe and you’ll see.”
“And what do you think that would accomplish, Cole?”
“Peace?” he offered desperately. “It’d stop this, Dad. I promise you it would. Ashe doesn’t want this war. No one does. All these people are only here because they think you’re going to kill them, and if you could just show them you’re willing to try another way–”
“There is no other way.”
Only pity showed in his father’s eyes, mired in a conviction so cold, it made him want to break something.
“Unless we take control of the spell,” Victor continued gently, “the inequality that started this war will always be a threat to us. As will the wizards who would do anything to recreate that disparity. You know this. Your grandparents alone were more than sufficient example of that worldview. And left unchecked, with the possibility of reinstating the binding forever at their disposal–”
“But Ashe wouldn’t do that. She’d never–”
His father gave him a sympathetic look. “She is a Merlin.”
“So what!” Cole cried. “So was Mom! So’s the little girl you’re trying to make kill half the damn world, but I’m telling you, you don’t have to! Please! Whatever my grandparents were like, whatever they told you about the spell, it doesn’t mean you have to do this!”
Victor paused, glancing to the conference room as something smashed behind the door. “The Carnegeans gave me nothing, because they had nothing to give,” he said, turning back. “But that is not the point.”
Cole stared.
“Controlling the spell – and doing whatever is necessary once it is in place – is the only way to create the stability necessary to ensure the security of our world. Compromise will not accomplish that, because compromise will never hold. Half measures never do. Unless we make the cost of opposition clear, the forces threatening us will only return later to resume the conflict.”
“It’s not like that,” Cole tried.
“It always has been.”
Victor turned away, pacing back to his desk.
“I am more than willing to release this little one’s magic,” he continued after a moment, absently rolling a pen across the desktop. “And could even do so now,” he looked up, “provided she promises you that she will not touch me with it.”
Swallowing, Cole glanced down to Lily. “Just promise,” he whispered. “Please.”
She hesitated, and then gave a small nod.
The glow around her returned like a switched-on bulb.
A nearly imperceptible smile flashed across Victor’s face when nothing else happened, and Cole struggled not to be sick, reading his father’s satisfaction at the confirmation of Lily’s obedience to him.
“I am not the aggressor in this war, Cole,” Victor said, his gentle tone returning. “I started it, yes. But I am not the reason it continues. The Merlin’s Children oppressed our people for half a millennia. And the threat of their ability to do so again, whether they choose or even know how to use it, has perpetuated this war for almost a decade.”
“But Ashe won’t–”
“How can you be sure?”
Cole fell silent. If the Carnegeans had told the Blood nothing and Lily hadn’t caved, then explaining about the cripples, the spell, and everything he knew of the Merlin queen would only give away the information that had most likely kept everyone alive thus far.
And that probably stood between Lily and his father forcing her to do the spell right now.
“That’s my point, Cole. You can’t know. You cannot guarantee that the forces around the young queen won’t change her mind, regardless of what she currently claims to believe. And so,” he said, his gaze falling to Lily, “we must control the situation. We must make certain they cannot harm us. We will never have peace any other way.”
A chill crept through him and, involuntarily, Cole pushed Lily farther behind his back. His father didn’t even seem to be looking at a person. Maybe not even an animal.
Just a thing. A weapon. Nothing more.
“Dad… ”
“You will understand eventually. When this is over and you can finally see what I have worked so hard to create… you will understand. You’ll see how all this, every part of it, has been to protect our family. To make the world a better place for our family. There has never been another reason.”
“But,” Cole floundered, “that’s all anyone is trying to do here. Can’t you see that? Ashe, the Merlin, all of them. They’re only trying to stay alive and protect the people they love. And if you could just make them realize you want peace too–”
“Our versions of peace are not the same thing.”
“They can be! You don’t have to–”
A beep sounded on the desk. Glancing over, Victor regarded the monitor briefly before lightly tapping a key.
Cole’s heart began to pound harder at the feeling of a barrier rising into place behind him. “Just try talking to Ashe,” he urged. “She’ll listen. If Lily asks her to, I promise she’ll listen.”
The dull thud of an explosion reverberated in the distance, and past the office doors, he could hear the tinkling of the chimes. A squawk arose in the conference room, indignant and vaguely wild.
“She’s not a murderer, Dad,” he pressed on desperately. “She was friends with those cripples who died. It was some bastards on the Merlin council who took what she told them and used it to kill all those people in her name. And you know what that’s like, right? Having a council manipulate you and hurt people you care about?”
The pity in his father’s eyes made him want to scream.
“She’s been where you were, okay? So just talk to her! Make her understand that you only did those things to keep the council from hurting your family! You can end this without–”
The conference room door burst open, chunks of the lock and wood scattering across the carpet. Dazedly, Thelma stumbled to a stop, a battering ram of a broken chair leg in her hand.
Cole stared, shock and panic hitting him in rapid succession.
Putting a hand to her head, Thelma blinked and then froze, her mad gaze locking on him.
“No,” she gasped. She dashed forward, the chair leg slipping from her hand, forgotten. “No, no, no. You can’t. You can’t tell him how–”
She clutched him, her bony fingers clawing his shirt desperately till he pushed her away. With a wail, the old woman buried her face in her hands.
He barely noticed, looking back to his dad.
Victor was studying them. “Tell me how to what?”
Cole scrambled for an answer, but his father read one before he could speak.
“I see.”
“Dad–”
“The old woman knows how to recreate the spell. And she told you.” His gaze dropped to Lily, and the girl’s fingers clenched on Cole’s side. “Both of you.”
An explosion rocked
the lobby. Someone shouted and the glass chimes shattered as they hit the ground.
“And the queen.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Did it require Ashley to be here?”
“No. And it doesn’t matter. Ashe won’t do it. She can’t do it. Recreating the spell means killing a cripple and she would never–”
“And yet she is here.”
Magic hit the barrier on the office doors and Cole gasped, stumbling away with Lily as pain spiked through his head. “She’s just here because she thinks you’re going to hurt her sister and kill everyone!”
Victor glanced to him.
Everything in Cole’s body went numb.
“I will do whatever is necessary,” Victor said quietly, “for there to be peace.”
A breath escaped him. “Dad, please. She’ll try to kill you.”
Around his father, the glow of magic increased till it rivaled the afternoon sun.
“Perhaps,” Victor allowed. “But she will fail.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Light and sound rushed past her, carrying flashes of running people and empty halls, and then she was through.
Her footsteps loud on the hard floor, Ashe skidded to a stop, her magic rising. The mist of the portal faded, taking with it the whisper of moving air and leaving only silence.
And darkness.
Her hands burst into flame, bringing the room into view.
Glossy black marble surrounded her, casting back strange reflections of the fire, and opaque glass sconces dotted the walls, though most were broken. On the other side of the room, a ten-foot high wall stood, with a few chairs behind the ledge at the top, while at her back, the empty doorway led to a shadowed hall.
She let out a breath, her eyes rising to the ceiling and the nearly physical pressure of the barrier she could feel there. She had no idea where she was, but it wasn’t important.
It was just the closest she could come to where she needed to go.
With a last look to the room, she headed for the hallway. Orange light danced across the black marble walls and caught on countless broken tiles, but in the remnants of the glossy surface, fragments of her reflection kept pace as she strode down the corridor. A door came into view at the end of the hall, its dark surface dented terribly, though a small sign noting it as the stair access was still visible nearby. Moving faster, she pushed past the exit and took to the steps, racing upward till they came to an end at a plain steel door.
Her gaze skimmed over the metal. Like everything else, the door was guarded by a barrier, and there wasn’t any way to know what was on the other side. Lily could be just beyond it. A hundred Blood wizards could too.
Briefly, she closed her eyes.
Her magic punched into the barrier. The defenses crackled, retreating into the wall, and swiftly, she switched attacks, letting the energy hit the door hard.
Metal flew back. She darted through the gap as the barrier rushed into place. Another hallway waited beyond the door, a twin of the one below but for the lack of destruction, and nothing like the utilitarian layout of the building’s lower floors. Pale light came from crystalline sconces and barriers defended both walls, and the veneer of black marble blurred as it stretched away ahead of her, giving an unbroken and endless feel to the hall.
An angry voice came from down the corridor, the words indistinguishable, and then she heard a door close.
She headed toward the sound.
Halfway down the hall, the marble on the left gave way to black double doors so permeated with magic, their dark surface gleamed. Coming to a stop, she glanced in either direction, and then returned her gaze to the doors, praying Lily wasn’t anywhere nearby.
Her magic hit the barrier and drove it into the walls. Pulling back quickly, she took aim at the doors.
She heard the attack coming. It roared behind the doors like a freight train.
Wood exploded around her. Magic rushed over her, through her, shielding her from the debris even as it burned like acid through her veins. She gasped, drawing it in and then sending it back with all her strength.
Glass shattered and a little girl screamed. White furniture erupted, the magic mowing over it and sending chunks of wood and stuffing flying.
Heart in her throat, she raced into the room.
A woman was crouched by the left wall. Someone small was beneath her.
Blonde hair flashed at the corner of her eye and then magic was coming at her again.
She spun, ripping it from the air, and then her own power raced outward, chasing it back to the source.
The Blood wizard froze, shock shattering her icy expression as her magic rushed away.
Ashe gasped, stumbling. The force of the woman’s magic swept into her, nearly overwhelming her ability to hold it in, and heat built on her skin to compensate for its strength. Flames rose of their own accord as she straightened, the fire spreading fast over her body and burning the remnants of stuffing and fabric to dust around her as they fell from the air.
For a heartbeat, the Blood wizard stared, and then her gaze flicked to the double doors at the top of the stairway.
With a gasp, she fled the room.
Ashe turned, her eyes finding the woman still huddled against the wall.
Tanya was watching her. In her arms, she gripped a small girl, one hand turning the child’s face to her side.
Ashe felt her blood go cold. The safe houses. The kids and families and everyone who’d run in the hope of finding safety, only to discover the Blood waiting for them when they arrived.
The urge to let the flames loose was unbearable.
Her gaze dropped to the little girl.
Blonde curls quivered with the child’s sobs. Her hands were white as she clutched Tanya, and her grip readjusted with every few breaths as though to reassure herself the woman was still there.
Ashe’s eyes rose back to Tanya.
“Run,” she growled.
Tanya stared at her. Muscles twitched on the woman’s face, chasing circles between hate and fear, and then she seemed to remember the girl. Trembling, she pushed to her feet, keeping one arm around the child. Her eyes never leaving Ashe, she backed toward the hall.
The sound of her running footsteps faded down the black marble corridor.
Ashe looked to the double doors at the top of the steps.
Magic glistened on the wood, surpassing the shine on the brass handles and the sunlight from the windows overhead. No sound came from beyond the doors, the barrier dulling any trace of noise.
She crossed the room and climbed the stairs.
The barrier radiated from the doors, pressing on her even from the lower reaches of the steps. The fire grew around her, pushing back harder and harder against the magic till the force of it transformed the flames into an iridescent haze. Beneath her, the wooden stairs burned fast, crumbling as her feet left them.
As she reached the landing, she hesitated, fear flickering through her. Lily would have gotten away from the barrier. She wouldn’t be right on the other side. She’d be safe.
She had to be.
Swiftly, Ashe drew a breath and then let the fire go.
The barrier went white. Her magic spread across it, rippling it like waves on a pond and then growing steadily stronger, making the defense buck like the sea in a storm.
Till it broke.
The door flew inward, scattering wood shards everywhere, and she followed them inside, the flames still snapping and twisting from her skin.
Jamison stood on the far side of the office. Cole was a few yards to the right of the door, his body sheltering Lily and his expression tense as hell. A hand to her head, Thelma staggered to her feet beyond them, uninjured and impossibly alive.
Ashe looked back to Jamison.
His lips rose in a smile. “Hello, your majesty.”
She went for his magic.
His power lashed out to do the same. A shock jolted through her, smarting over every inch of her
skin as their magic collided and rebounded to smash into the walls. She regrouped fast, reaching out again.
The second attempt hurt more than the first. Gasping, she stumbled to the side, her muscles quivering as though electrocuted.
Jamison exhaled slowly and straightened. His mouth curved back into a smile.
Gray flashed at the corner of her eye. Fingers splayed like claws, Thelma screeched and launched herself at Jamison.
He gestured as though flicking a bug. The old woman rocketed backward to crash into the couch on the far end of the room.
Lily gave a cry. White light rushed Jamison, slamming into him and sending him staggering. Wave upon wave of it swept over his defenses, making the shield around him flicker as it passed.
Fire flew from Ashe’s hands to join Lily’s attack. Jamison’s magic began to falter as he stumbled and grasped at his desk to brace himself under the assault. He bent over, his breathing labored, and then his gaze snapped up.
Cole grabbed Lily and flung her to the ground as his father’s shields burst outward. The impact threw Ashe backwards, smashing her into the wall as bookcases toppled and furniture went flying. The desk skittered and rolled, barreling toward her as she crashed to the floor, and protectively, she flung out a hand, her defenses swelling fast. Wood splintered as the heavy desk slammed to a stop against her shields.
She shivered, lowering her hand though her defenses remained, and on the carpet, the woodchips crept away under the pressure of her magic. Across the room, Cole was crouched behind a bookcase with Lily nearby. Thelma was nowhere to be found.
Magic hit the desk, pressing it harder against her defenses and sending wood scattering across her shields.
“Stop it!” Cole yelled.
Jamison made a short sound of acquiescence. “Very well.”
She tensed, but no other attack came.
“Touch my son and Lily dies, your majesty,” Jamison called in the same pleasant tone.
Her brow furrowed.
“Yes, I know about the spell. In fact, I wish to make you and your sister a deal. Bind the Merlin at my command, and you both will live. Refuse and, well…” He chuckled.
She shoved up from the carpet. Her magic struck out at him, scattering across his defenses.
Merlin's Children (The Children and the Blood) Page 36