The King's Imposter (The Raven Bringer Saga Book 2)

by C. A. McHugh

  Aerrin nodded in agreement. Naisibus had it out for them, but he doubted the boy had the balls to do more than toss out idle insults. “I’ll feel much better once we’ve gotten to the bottom of this. I don’t want to chance those things Ceryst told us about being used.”

  “You and me both. I don’t like it, but I’ll see if I can catch her alone and read her mind. Let’s just hope I don’t stumble across her thinking of Quinn in any romantic way.” Leandros shuddered before turning to leave.

  “Leandros, wait.” Aerrin caught up with his friend. Worry churned in his gut, creeping into his voice. “Do you really think I’m going too far?”

  Leandros appeared to think carefully, something he only did when he wanted to make sure he conveyed the right message. “I agree Seroney is a bit strange, but I don’t think she’s evil or out to harm you or anything like that. I think she just wants to find her place here at the Academy and make friends. Who knows, that cat of hers might have been her only true friend before she came here. I think she’s just lonely.”

  Leandros’s words hit him blow by blow, beating his suspicion out of him until only guilt remained. He’d been so busy trying to paint her as the enemy that he’d never considered an alternate side to her story.

  “All I’m saying is that perhaps we’re jumping to conclusions before giving her a chance. She’s actually kind of fun to be around. Anyone who can make Naisibus bray like a jackass is alright in my book.” Leandros placed a hand on Aerrin’s shoulder. “But you’re my friend first and foremost, and if you want my help, I’ll do what I can to give it to you.”

  Aerrin grasped his friend’s hand in appreciation. “Thanks. Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I am blowing this out of proportion and pointing the finger at the wrong person. But no matter what, I’m glad to have you as my friend.”

  “Anytime.” He strode out of the library, whistling a tune, while Aerrin turned in the opposite direction to help Nyssa find more information on magical auras. Once he unraveled the mystery of Seroney, maybe his paranoia would finally ease.

  And if she could somehow help him find the true threat at the Academy, then she would’ve done more than just gained his trust. She might become the one thing that could tip the scales in his favor.

  Chapter 14

  The traditional harvest festival of Gutenfest seemed out of place in Arcana’s eternal spring, but the students appeared to welcome the excuse to be free from their studies. It was a day of carefree fun with games and other amusements, all capped with a feast fit for a king, including enough cider to make the entire school tipsy with drunken merriment.

  Seroney avoided the frivolity of the Elgean festival. She spent most of the morning in the library, trying to read as much as she could about the Raven Bringer. Her brief encounter with him a few weeks ago made her even more determined to show him exactly who he was messing with the next time they met.

  As evening fell and the students were preparing for the feast, she wandered over to the nearly deserted west wing of the Academy, where most of the lessons took place. The deserted halls were a blessing. There were no loud voices, no banging doors, no heavy footsteps here to disturb the silence.

  It had been so long since she’d used the Meritis family trait, so long since she’d harnessed its power. But once she did, she reveled in the freedom it gave her. In fact, she appreciated not being noticed for once.

  She paused in front of one of the widows and let the light of the full moon shine down on her altered form.

  A flicker of movement caught her eye, and she darted down the hall toward it, curious to discover who else could be wandering this part of the Academy during the festivities. She crouched in the shadows and watched for another sign. A dim light flashed further ahead, disappearing as quickly as it appeared. She moved closer, like a tiger stalking is prey.

  The candle flickered again, shining its light upon its owner. Naisibus looked even paler than normal. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead and upper lip. He wiped them away as he looked over his shoulder and adjusted the heavy book in his arms. He peered around a corner as the flame went out, and the hallway was consumed in darkness.

  Whatever he was doing, he was taking great pains to be sneaky about it. Factor in the book he was carrying and the fact that he was missing the feast, and she suspected he was up to no good. She softened her steps and stayed on his trail as he led her through a series of corridors to a remote part of the north wing. The rooms here were kept under lock and key and rarely used, yet when he found the door he was looking for, it opened easily for him.

  “It took you long enough,” a voice said from inside the room.

  Seroney was barely able to slip in behind Naisibus before he silently but swiftly shut the door behind him. Thankfully, no one seemed to notice her in her altered form. She found a dark corner and surveyed the scene.

  Naisibus joined his three friends inside a circle inscribed on the floor. The four of them seemed to be shivering with anticipation. “I had to be extra careful coming here. I would hate for anyone to get their hands on this.” Naisibus made a great show of presenting the book to them.

  The other three chorused oohs and ahs at the sight of it. Seroney strained to read the writing on the spine and cover, but the boys blocked her from getting a good view.

  “Where did you get it?” one of them asked.

  “It was a gift from a friend of the family.” He opened the book and flipped through the first few pages. The candlelight cast a sickly shadow over his already drawn face and caused his normal sneer to take on a ghastly affect. “I wonder which spell I should begin with.”

  “Uh, I thought you knew which one you were going to cast, Naisibus,” another one of boys replied.

  “I’m merely enjoying having all these wonderful spells and rituals at my fingertips. Behold, gentlemen. This is what true power feels like.” He raised the book above his head as though offering it to some god before lowering it again so he could read a few more pages.

  Seroney used her ancient magic to detect the aura of the book. Her stomach tightened with nausea when it glowed a fiery red.

  Demonic magic.

  “We got all the components you asked for. Everything on the list is right here.” The third follower tossed a brown sack to Naisibus.

  “Careful, you idiot! This is a delicate ritual. If even one component is damaged, we could be dead before we finish casting.”

  He reached into the sack and began pulling out items one by one. A withered hand. A bat wing. A claw from some beast she could not identify. A bunch of dried belladonna. A loadstone. And last but not least, a box that contained a spider larger than her forearm with a what looked like a red skull on its back.

  “Good, everything’s here. Arrange the items around the spider. Oh, and do take care. He’s rather poisonous.”

  As if on cue, the spider struck at one of the followers, who yelped and snatched his hand out of the way of the venomous fangs.

  Naisibus chuckled. “You’re such a good little spider, aren’t you, my pretty?”

  The spider recoiled itself, preparing to strike again while its spindly legs clicked on the stone floors.

  Seroney studied the animal’s markings. There were several dozen different breeds of poisonous spiders in the kingdom, but something about the red skull made her hair stand up on end.

  Once the components from the satchel had been arranged around the spider, the four boys sat in the circle so they faced north, south, east, and west. Their candles cast eerie shadows on the walls and reflected off the shiny surface of the spider. Its glittering black eyes focused on each of the boys, and then focused on her.

  Dark magic rippled over her skin, and her heart pounded. She knew she needed to keep them from casting the ritual, but it seemed her feet were glued to the ground.

  Naisibus opened the book and awkwardly read the words. A sinister red light glowed from the components.

  Seroney was finally able to move. With her first step,
all the components burst into flames. A loud explosion rocked the room, knocking her backward and launching the boys into the walls behind them. A huge crater formed at the center of the circle, and the air filled with the stench of brimstone. Black smoke billowed into every corner of the room.

  The chaos gave her the opportunity to shift back into her regular form without being seen.

  Naisibus clapped his hands together with glee. “I did it! I did it! I summoned my first demon!” He struggled to his feet and approached the circle.

  As the smoke began to clear, a pair of glowing red eyes glared at Naisibus. The demon looked at the other boys before returning to him.

  Unlike his companions, who huddled back and shivered with fear, Naisibus moved closer and closer with an air of confidence. “You’re my demon now. You serve only me, and you will do my bidding.”

  An unnatural roared filled the air, and Naisibus stopped dead in his tracks.

  The demon moved from the center of the circle and out of the ash-filled smoke. It was a large lion-like animal with a mane that burned like fire. A Jarilith. Long, glistening black teeth of obsidian lined the inside of its massive jaws. Sharp claws protruded from its paws, and the air around it hissed as it moved towards the petrified Naisibus.

  His expression morphed until it matched the sheer terror of his companions. “B-back, I say,” he ordered, his voice higher than usual until it bordered on braying. “I command you to stop. You hear me? I order you to stop!”

  The Jarilth snarled and crouched on its hind legs, its gaze fixed on the insolent little human that dared to order it around.

  Seroney’s blood pounded in her ears as she struggled to find the words to cast a spell to stop the evil creature. Any spell. Even if Naisibus had brought this trouble on himself, she couldn’t stand back and watch him die. Her throat tightened as she breathed in the brimstone-filled air. She managed to utter the words she was looking for just as the demon leapt towards him.

  Her spell hit Naisibus a split second before the demon and encased the boy in a protective ball of magic. He bounced away from the demon, unharmed, but the spell drew the demon’s attention to Seroney. It fixed its burning gaze on her, slowly stalking its new prey.

  Taking slow steps backwards, she tried to maintain control of the fear squeezing her chest. If she could draw it away from the door, they boys could escape. That’s right. Just keeping coming towards me.

  One of Naisibus’s cronies had a different idea. “I’ll show you how to control a demon!” A bolt of ice flowed from his fingers.

  The Jarilth yowled when the sudden blast of cold struck its flank. It quickly had the boy in its massive jaws. The scent of burning flesh made her stomach heave, and the boy’s screams echoed through the room. The demon shook him like a dead rat, then tossed him aside. He landed in a silent, motionless heap next to Naisibus, who cowered inside his protective bubble.

  The other two boys ran, but the demon zeroed in on them as its next targets. It chased them, herding them away from the door.

  Seroney hit the Jarlith with another icy blast. “Yeah, you don’t like those,” she shouted over its roar, drawing its attention back to her as she dashed toward the open door. “Well there’s more where they came from. Over here, kitty, kitty!”

  Once she knew it had locked onto her, she cast a walk-through-wall spell and fled into the hallway, away from the boys. The demon smashed through the heavy oak door as though it were paper and followed her. Its burning breath bathed her back as she ran. She dodged its massive jaws and cast a stun spell haphazardly over her shoulder. Another yowl of pain echoed off the walls, but it did little to slow its progress.

  Breathless, Seroney dashed into a large foyer and cast a spell that camouflaged her. With luck, the demon would keep running past her.

  An unnatural glow lit the walls, its silhouette moving slower and slower as the creature approached cautiously, as if it sensed her deception. Her throat tightened, each breath a struggle. A single vanquish spell wouldn’t work on a demon this large. She needed help to destroy it.

  As she considered her options in recruiting help from the master mages, a familiar voice emerged from the dark opposite end of the hallway. “The sound came from this direction. And I’m starting to smell brimstone.”

  Aerrin. Her heart seized. Stupid boy! Was he trying to get himself killed?

  The demon tuned its glowing eyes toward his direction and growled.

  Her plan switched from corralling the demon to keeping it from attacking Aerrin. She conjured a large magical hand that slammed into the Jarilth, smashing it into one of the columns. A huge crack snaked across the ceiling. Chunks of stone crashed around them. She pressed closer to the wall to protect herself from the debris while still maintaining her focus on the spell.

  Once the rain of stone stopped, the demon stood up, clearly shaken from the blow. The giant magical hand made a fist and delivered a solid punch, hurling the creature into another column and sending double the amount of debris down upon them.

  “Get out of here,” she shouted, hoping the sound of the battle alone would scare Aerrin and whomever he’d been talking to away. She darted for the nearest exit, dodging the falling ceiling tiles. A loud crack, followed by a boom signaled the final demise of the roof. An avalanche of granite covered the creature, completely burying it.

  She breathed a sigh of relief. She had stopped it. Buried it under several tons of hard rock, where it was hopefully dead. But despite her mind telling her she’d won, she couldn’t shake the icy fear still racing through her veins.

  A second later, she found out why.

  With a roar, the pile of rocks exploded, and the Jarilith climbed out, burning more intensely than ever.

  And standing in the opposite doorway were Aerrin, Leandros, and Nyssa.

  Seroney fired an ice bolt at the demon to distract it before it saw the kids, then cast a magical barrier over the doorway that separated the Jarilith from them. Thankfully, the demon leveled its gaze on her, rage seething in its black eyes. She gulped in as much air as she could and ran, hoping it would follow her away from the king.

  The next two ice bolts she cast over her shoulder harmlessly bounced off. The same with the stun spells that had been effective before. Even a spell to slow it down did nothing. The demon was gaining on her.

  Seroney ignored the ache tightening in her legs and ran even harder. Human magic wasn’t working on it, so she breathlessly cast an Elvish spell her mother had taught her. The floor cracked open, and a wall of winding vines erupted from the ground. They ensnared the demon’s fiery legs and gave her a few precious seconds to catch her breath.

  The Jarilith growled and glowed brighter and brighter until the vines burst into flames. The instant the evil creature was free from her trap, the chase was on again.

  Uncle, help! Seroney mentally screamed, praying he would send reinforcements. Meanwhile, she rounded one corner and then another in an attempt to lead the demon as far away from Aerrin and his friends as she could.

  The air around her rippled with heat as one of the demon’s gigantic paws narrowly missed her back. She tripped and rolled out of its way, her head spinning from the fall. The Jarilith skidded to a stop. A malicious grin formed around the rows of jagged black teeth. It bunched its muscular legs, preparing to pounce.

  Desperate, she reached deep into her magic and shouted the incantation for the first spell that popped into her head.

  A globe of ice caught it mid-pounce, encasing it in mid-air. The demon shattered its icy prison a moment later, but she’d managed to stumble to her feet. Sleet and snow coated her shoulders, her arms, her hair. As the demon came closer, it all melted and soaked her to the skin. Steam rose from puddles on the floor.

  She dashed for the next corner, but she was reaching the limits of her ability to stay out of its grasp. A sharp pain throbbed in her side, but thank the goddess, it was only from running. Move faster, legs.

  When she turned into the next hallway, she c
ursed. With all the twists and the turns, somehow she’d led the demon to the Great Hall where all the students were gathered for the feast. A protective wall of magic shimmered across the entrance, but who knew how long that would last against a demon of this size.

  Then she spotted several of the master mages flanking the doors along with their leader, Binnius. Magic glowing in their hands, and they were ready to strike. She’d never been more grateful to see anyone…

  A solid paw swept across her back, lifting her up and sending her crashing into the stone walls. Blinding pain filled every inch of her as she slumped to the ground. The sharp tang of blood poured into her mouth. In the distance, the masters shouted spells at the demon, evoking cries of agony as each spell hit its target.

  The room was growing darker, and she doubted it had anything to do with the blow she’d sustained. She struggled to her feet, ignoring the searing pain in her ribs. She could barely see the masters through the smoky dimness. The brightly glowing eyes of the Jarilith appeared more sinister than ever, and she realized where the darkness was coming from. In the feeble shadowlight, the demon could attack without being seen and take out its prey, one by one.

  Gathering the last bit of magic within her, she cast a blinding ray of the sunlight toward the Jarilith. It howled in pain and covered its eyes with its paws.

  The masters pounced on the wounded demon with their vanquishing spells, including a powerful river of blue magic pouring from the headmaster himself. The demon gave one final ear-shattering roar before bursting into fire and brimstone. A few seconds later, all that remained was a scorch mark on the floor where the demon had once stood.

  An eerie silence settled over the room.

  “Is everyone alright?” Binnius asked in a booming voice, checking on each of his associates.