by Hall, Linsey
Upon closer inspection, I realized that the top of the ramparts was a bit worn down and the ivy that grew up the side of the wall had a wild look rather than a cultivated one. Above the great wooden gate, there were two cutouts at the top of the wall where guards could stand. But they were empty.
The forest floor gave way to packed dirt ground only twenty feet in front of the gate. No road or anything. Just forest, then fortress.
Alton approached the gate and pressed his hand to a round stone that protruded from the wall. Magic sparked in the air and tingled against my skin as the wooden gate slowly creaked upward. The dragonets flew through.
“Come.” Alton stepped back and gestured to the gate.
We walked through ahead of him, into a massive courtyard. Twisty towers and turrets and ornate buildings filled the space, like something out of a fairytale. Flowering vines crawled up the sides, reaching for tall balconies that overlooked the forest. The dragonets perched among the vines, bright spots of color that looked like large flowers. Grass grew wild between the pathways, and fountains ran dry. Birds chirped and sang.
But it was empty. The fortress should have held hundreds. Instead, there was no one. Even the heavy cloak of magic that fell over the place felt stale.
This was where I’d come for all my answers?
“What happened to the League of FireSouls?” I asked.
“Nothing good,” Del muttered.
I turned to see Alton walking toward us as the wooden gate closed behind us. “Eleven years ago, we picked the wrong fight.”
“Why?” Nix asked.
“It was the only fight.” He rubbed his face as if he were exhausted. “The necessary fight.”
I waited for him to say more. He didn’t.
“That’s all pretty cryptic,” I said.
“I don’t think it’s the place to start the story,” Alton said.
“Alton!”
I turned toward the voice. A tall figure hurried from one of the towers in the center of the courtyard. She wore jeans and a paint-splattered t-shirt and looked to be about our age. Her magic cloaked her like armor, looking almost like a pale gray light shrouding her body.
“Corin,” Alton said. “The Triumvirate has arrived. Gather the others. We’ll meet at the river.”
Corin nodded and raced off.
“Do you get the feeling they think we’re more important than we actually are?” Del whispered.
“Yeah.” The Triumvirate sounded very fancy and very powerful.
We were neither. Moderately powerful, perhaps, but certainly not fancy.
“Come.” Alton started for the far back corner of the compound.
We followed. My gaze darted all over the place, looking for more FireSouls. I found none.
Alton led us down winding stone paths between the buildings. I expected Merlin to jump out at any moment, but he didn’t. Nor did anyone else.
The sound of a burbling river drew my gaze forward. The buildings ended, and the path led to a clearing covered in grass. A narrow river cut across, with more grass and the wide stone wall on the other side. It flowed out through a hole at the base of the wall. Metal grates protected the opening where the river flowed out, keeping anyone from climbing in.
“Take a seat.” Alton gestured to the stone benches positioned beneath flowering trees. Sun sparkled through the leaves, casting dappled shade.
We sat, the three of us on a bench near the edge.
“We used to meet in the Council Room, but there are no longer enough of us to fill the table,” he said.
I was about to ask how many there were when people started to arrive and sit on the benches. They came quickly, one after the other, until a group of eight filled the clearing. They were all ages and races, some dressed for war, like Alton, and others in casual clothes like Corin. Each had a magical signature that was distinctly FireSoul and obviously powerful.
Anytime I met one’s eyes, they smiled. I smiled back, bemused.
“Right, we’re all here,” Alton said. “From left to right, we have Kade, Phoebe, Mack, Corin, Castille, Luna, Calpheus, and Brunel. Our librarian, Flora, does not like to leave her books.”
They all nodded as their names were called. I waved.
“And here we have Cassiopeia Clereaux, Phoenix Knight, and Delphine Hally. The Triumvirate.”
“About bloody time,” Mack muttered. He was a mountain of a man, with thick auburn hair and a hard face.
“In our defense, we didn’t know we were the Triumvirate until this morning,” Del said.
“And we’re still not sure what that is,” I said. “Or what you guys are, exactly. The ghost of my dead mother told me to come here, but beyond that, I’m at a loss.”
“Alice McFane.” Mack said her name with heaviness. Respect. He bowed his head.
I liked him already.
“We are what remains of the League of FireSouls,” Alton said. “The League was formed hundreds of years ago to protect our kind from persecution.”
“At the hands of the Order of the Magica or the Alpha Council,” I said.
“Yes. They don’t understand our kind, or realize that most of us don’t intend to use our power for harm.”
“Terrified bigots, the lot of them,” Mack grumbled.
Alton inclined his head. “They’ve had good reason to fear us in the past. FireSouls who went rogue. The League was formed in response to the rise of a powerful, evil FireSoul. Protecting ourselves sometimes means policing ourselves. Stopping rogue FireSouls from harming others and giving us a bad name is a large part of what we try to do.”
“Our name is still bad, though,” Del said. “We’ve been hiding from the Order of the Magica and the Alpha Council for years because of what we are.”
“Yes. It doesn’t take much to make people fear us. We once had an alliance with the Order of the Magica. If we kept the FireSouls in line, they would not hunt us. But that has been gone for generations, and we no longer hold any sway with them. They capture and imprison FireSouls.”
“What about the Alpha Council?” I asked, remembering the FireSoul prisoner I’d seen at the Alpha Council headquarters a month ago. The Shifter’s government was separate from the Magica’s government, but they still hunted FireSouls.
“They are worse,” Alton said. “Because they are not Magica, and FireSouls are always Magica, they are even less trusting of them. We have never been able to form an agreement with the Alpha Council.”
“They captured a FireSoul about a month ago,” I said. “I saw him in their headquarters at Glencarrough.”
“We know. We have been planning a rescue, but those so rarely work. We will try anyway.”
“You try to rescue the FireSouls held at the Prison for Magical Miscreants?”
“We do, though we are not often successful. The protections are too great at the prison. But we try. With our decreased numbers, it is one of the few things we can do to help our kind.”
Wow. These guys were like heroes or something. All Nix, Del, and I had ever done was run and lay low and accumulate our hordes. I suddenly felt like a selfish slacker.
“Were my parents part of this?”
“Yes,” Alton said. “Ethan and Alice McFane were two of our leaders.”
“You came here once when you were an infant,” an older man said. Though his dark skin was creased with lines and his hair turned partially white, he had the bearing of a warrior, and wisdom radiated from him. I thought his name was Castille. “But once you were born, the McFanes decided they wanted to give you a normal life. As best they could. So they bought the house on Inismor.”
“Why there? It’s so barren.”
“The Black Fort holds powerful magic,” Castille said. “Ancient magic that is thousands of years old. It was one of the few places strong enough to support an Everlong Portal like the one that is currently there. And it provides protection.”
“And the statues? This whole Triumvirate business?” Del asked. “What’s all t
hat about?”
“According to legend, you three were prophesied,” Alton said.
“By who?”
“An ancient seer, long dead. Her prophecy was recorded on the walls of a passage tomb in central Ireland.”
At my confused look, he said, “A chambered cairn, some call them.”
Ah, right. “But passage tombs are over five thousand years old.”
I’d never been inside one of the massive piles of stone that had rooms built inside. They often looked like nothing more than small, odd hills. Their secrets lay within, but they’d never had anything to tempt me. “Writing didn’t exist then.”
“Not as we know it, no. But the seer’s message has been passed down for generations. We didn’t know when the Triumvirate would arrive, only that they were the physical manifestations of the balance between life, death, and magic. And that they would be faced with a great task.”
“A series of tasks,” Castille added.
“Great,” Del muttered.
“One for each?” Nix asked.
“We think,” Alton said. “But we do not know. That is for you to find out. We believe you must fight something greater than yourself.”
“I need my magic if I’m to accomplish some great task,” I said. The hollowness inside me felt even wider now that I knew I had some prophesied great task to accomplish. Without my power, I couldn’t handle my own life recently, much less a Great Task.
“And what about the statues at the Black Fort?” Nix asked. “Were they built there? Did my parents live near there?”
“And mine?” Del asked.
“I am sorry, but we do not know about either of your parents,” Castille said. “Those statues were not built by human hands. When the McFanes moved to Inismor, the statues formed there. By magic, we believe, because they never saw anyone go to the Black Fort and erect them. It’s as if the place were waiting for your arrival, Cassiopeia.”
“Whoa, slow down.” This was getting a lot more serious than I’d anticipated. “It sounds like you’re saying I’m some kind of chosen one.”
“And Del and Nix.” Alton gestured to them.
“I don’t think we’re qualified,” Del said.
“I agree.” I nodded vigorously.
“Other people disagree,” Alton said. “Victor Orriodor is one of them.”
“Him? What do you know about that bastard?” I asked.
“He is the rogue FireSoul that our league was formed to defeat.”
Oh boy. This was getting a lot more complex. And a lot scarier. I wanted Victor to be some nobody power-hungry asshat, not some ancient, all powerful evil that inspired the formation of a magical Justice League.
I glanced at Del and Nix. Their queasy expressions showed they were thinking the same.
“So he’s been alive for centuries,” I said.
“Yes. When he kidnapped you eleven years ago, we staged a rescue attempt,” Alton said.
“Eleven years ago was the battle that decimated your numbers,” I said.
“It was the same battle. We failed to save you. Your parents and many others died in that fight.”
“All to save me?” Horror welled in my chest, pushing on my ribs.
“And them.” Alton indicated Del and Nix. “We didn’t know who they were, but we assumed that if Victor Orriodor had you, he might have the other members of the Triumvirate. We had waited for you for thousands of years. We couldn’t let you die.”
Then they had died trying to save the Triumvirate, not me, for whatever great task we were prophesied to accomplish. That was a bit less massively guilt-inducing.
“Thank you to all who fought to save us,” I said through a tight throat. How many people had lost their lives trying to free us? It was awful.
“So, what the heck are we supposed to do that’s so important?” Del demanded.
“We believe that one task may be to defeat Victor Orriodor,” Alton said. “We will give you what help and information we can.”
“To get my power back,” I said. “I only have a few days before I’m prophesied to meet Victor Orriodor. If I don’t have my power by then…” The hourglass was flowing, and my death was at the end.
“You have time,” Castille said. “Though the time for talking is done. We will show you what you need to know.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“To defeat your enemy, you must understand him,” Corin said.
“All right, Master Splinter,” I said.
Corin grinned. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?”
I shrugged. “It’s a pretty high compliment to be compared to a Ninja Rat. He was very wise.”
“Fair enough,” she said. “I’ll take it.”
We had been fed a quick lunch in one of the medieval-looking kitchens and were now standing in the courtyard with Alton and Corin.
“If you are ready, I’ll take you to see a moment in Victor Orriodor’s past,” Corin said.
“She’s an Illusory,” Alton said.
“Wow,” I said. I’d love to bring her on some of my temple-raiding jobs. An Illusory could bring the past back to life, replaying events so that present-day people could see them. Illusories were incredibly rare, but I was fascinated by their power.
“Ready?” Corin asked.
She’d replaced her paint-splattered t-shirt with the same red leather armor that Alton wore and had two wicked swords crossed over her back in an X-shaped sheath. With her short blond hair, dark eyes, and firm jaw, she looked like a total badass.
“Yeah.” I didn’t know where we were headed, but I wanted whatever answers were on the other end.
She drew a small black stone from her pocket. A transport charm.
“Do you have any more?” I asked.
“A small stockpile, though they’ve recently become harder to come by.” She grimaced. “The supply is almost completely cut off. Any wizard we’ve gone to in the past month no longer has them. All sold.”
I frowned and nodded. “Victor Orriodor. We think he’s stockpiling. We’ve had the same trouble finding them.”
“He improves his ability to pop out of the air and attack his enemies while cutting off their easy escape,” Nix said.
“Bastard,” Del muttered.
“That’s the truth.” Corin’s eyes glinted hard.
I wondered if she’d lost anyone in the battle to save us eleven years ago.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Yes,” Del said for all of us.
Corin threw the stone to the ground in front of us. It exploded into a glittery gray cloud, and we walked in.
I stepped out on the other side into a massive old-growth forest. The sun was low in the sky, close enough to the horizon that it was probably late afternoon. The forest looked and smelled a lot like the one outside of Aidan’s childhood home, not far from the lands of the Alpha Council headquarters at Glencarrough.
“Are we in Scotland?” I asked, thinking of the hovel where Aidan had spent much of his youth.
“Yes,” Corin said. “Though this area hasn’t been inhabited for hundreds of years.”
She pointed to a low stone wall that was only about two feet tall. I walked to it, realizing that it was the footprint of a small home. All that remained were the broken down walls. Corin went to another small stone wall footprint and pointed to it. It was only about ten feet away from the main house and had probably been an outbuilding.
“Where are we?” I asked.
Corin gestured for me to join her near the footprint of the outbuilding. “Come here and I’ll show you.”
Nix, Del, and I went to her side. She waved her hand toward the old house, and her magic rose on the air. It shivered against my skin like lapping waves.
A moment later, the walls of the house appeared, though they shimmered with a slight transparency. It was a small place, with a thatched roof and only a few tiny windows. Very old, from the looks of it.
The distant beat of horse hooves rumbled the ground. I looked aroun
d, trying to find them, but saw only trees. They were still a ways off, though coming fast.
“Can they see us?” I whispered to Corin.
She shook her head.
A woman came out of the house, her apron dusted with flour. Her dress was a drab brown and some kind of old style. Medieval, maybe. Or a bit later. She scanned the forest, her expression terrified.
“It’s them, Felix! Argus, come here!” She ran back into the house, but appeared a moment later, towing a small boy by his arm.
He had messy brown hair and looked to be about twelve years old.
“Leave off, Mum!”
“This is what I’ve been telling you about.” Her voice was frantic as she towed him toward us and the outbuilding. “They are coming. You must obey me.”
Hurriedly, she yanked open the door to the outbuilding and pulled Argus inside. I peered around the door to see in.
She kicked away some straw to reveal a door in the floor.
“I’m not getting in there!” Argus said.
“You will! This is why we’ve been hiding, Argus. They’ve found us. You must hide.”
“No!” He started to cry, tears spilling down his cheeks.
The woman dropped to her knees and hugged him. “I love you, Argus. But you must hide. Do not come out for anything.” She shook him lightly. “Do you hear me? For anything. Wait until all is quiet. Come out, but continue to hide. Forever.”
He shook his head frantically. “No! Hide with me.”
“I cannot.”
A man appeared at my side. I jumped, though he was also a semitransparent apparition.
“Do as your mother says, son.” His dark eyes were weary. Defeated. “It is the only way.”
The boy threw himself at his father and hugged him. The sound of hoof beats grew louder.
The man squeezed him as the woman opened the hatch. Argus struggled as his father picked him up and lowered him into the hole.
“Stay,” he commanded. “No matter what you hear, stay. Tell no one what you are.”
“No!” Argus looked up, his face tearstained.
“Hurry!” his mother said to the man. She looked at Argus. “I love you.”