Unus (Stone Mage Saga Book 1)

by Raven Whitney

  “A barrier spell encompasses both the castle and its grounds. The guards are alerted to anyone trying to come or go. Try to leave and you'll just be tossed back in here. But not before you're tortured for your defiance and because you're a VIP prisoner, you'd get the most imaginative things Octavius can throw at you.” His blunt words sent an icy shiver of fear went down my spine. If Octavius was a twisted enough man to have those incredibly gory, disturbing scenes decorating his castle like curtain rods and throw pillows, then I couldn't even imagine the kind of pain he could inflict when he wanted to.

  “How do I get your GPS?”

  “It's hidden in a diving watch that has a black face, metal Roman numerals, and a leather strap. When a new prisoner comes in, all of their belongings are confiscated and stored in a vault off the library, which is somewhere in the castle.”

  “And you don't know where.” Of course.

  He shook his head. “Sadly, no. So you'll have to not only find where the vault is and retrieve my GPS, but you'll have to do it on a ticking clock. If the guard notices that you're gone when he does his regular rounds, they'll sound the alarm.”

  I nodded slightly, the pain in my head and neck aching so badly, the edges of my vision were starting to go dark. “One more thing, you said that mimicking somebody was temporary. What happens if I'm in the pipe and that time runs out?”

  “Bad things,” he stated. He added then, as if to assuage my fears, “But at least you have a backup if you die.”

  I blinked my eyes open to see the bricks of the vaulted ceiling of the cell, lit barely brighter than a single incandescent lightbulb. The sound of faint snoring nearby told me that Liam was sleeping.

  Cautiously, I rolled my head from side to side. When no sensation of broken glass being grated into my flesh burst through my skull or neck, I felt brave enough to sit up. Looking to the side, I saw Liam sitting and leaning against the opposite wall with his arms crossed over his chest, fast asleep. My camisole lay in a pile on the floor next to him.

  Very carefully so as not to wake him, I stretched myself across the floor to the other side of the room and swiped it up. The thin, brown camisole was solidly the dark brick color of dried blood from mid-waist down and had gaping holes in it from the wendigo's wicked claws. Still, it was better than nothing, so I slid it back on and nearly groaned at the gross feel of the crusty dried blood and dirt. The first thing I would do if I got out of here would be to take a long, scalding, hot shower.

  What would I do if I ever made it out of here?

  Lexie was dead. It was hard to believe that I would never see my best friend— such a constant fixture in my life— again. What would I tell her family? Worse than that, what would I tell Rosemarie? The gentle-hearted saint of a woman had practically raised Lexie since before she and I met, and news of her death would break something inside her that could never be fixed. The police might even have issued a warrant for my arrest after I fled the crime scene at Lexie's house.

  My parents were probably worried sick about our disappearances and rightfully angry. My mother had always had a delicate constitution and with her cancer rearing its ugly head again, she couldn't afford the added stress on her body.

  Once, when Lexie and I were children, we got lost overnight in the woods at our summer camp. My own fear and trauma over it were nothing next to my mom's. I'll never forget how pallid and harried she had looked when she bolted out of the car to pick us up when they found us the next morning.

  There was a stone of fear in my gut that with my and Lexie's disappearance, my mom wouldn't be eating or sleeping. She needed her strength now more than ever and if she wasn't taking care of herself, it could tip the scales out of her favor. And I could not be at all responsible for Mom's health taking a turn for the worse.

  My grandmother had probably dropped everything and flown back to Rhode Island from her little cottage in Wales early to help in the search. She'd been working on moving back to Newport after Mom's cancer came back. Knowing my eccentric grandma, she would be asking “the spirits” to find me and be astrally projecting herself with some kind of magic acid tea from Papua New Guinea. She would strangle me if I ever got to see her again.

  Tears stung my eyes as I ruminated on everyone I'd lost because I stopped at the wrong garage sale— my best friend, maybe my family. I might even end up in jail. Sobs racked my chest and I had to bite my tongue until it bled to keep them muted. The last thing I wanted to do was wake Liam up with my pathetic bawling.

  He'd probably come over to give me a hug so I'd shut up again. The physical contact would be a welcome relief, but not out of pity or annoyance. I would rather suffer alone in silence. God knew I deserved it.

  8

  The next time I woke up, the same tall man with the brown ponytail was again clanging the hilt of his sword against the bars. Fear surged through my veins and a stone of anxiety settled into my stomach as I realized that not only would I be fighting to the death again, but Liam's and my only hope of escaping alive rested solely on my shoulders and I had no idea of what to do.

  For a moment, I froze under the enormous pressure of being responsible for saving our lives. Liam got to his feet and offered me his hand with a grim expression on his face. I stared at his big, callused hand, unable to move my arm to take it.

  “Hurry it up,” the guard snapped.

  Liam took my hand and pulled me to my feet. With his hand guiding me on my lower back, I walked on numb, shaky legs to the door. Over the last immeasurable span of time, Liam had been patiently explaining everything about this wild and unbelievable new world to me, so at least I wasn't going in completely blind this time. If they put me against a wendigo again, I knew that its natural weakness was fire and to set it ablaze to kill it— if I could figure out how to do that again. But I had no guarantee of what I would be facing today and even less of a guarantee that I would be able to do a damn thing to keep from getting chewed on.

  Liam followed me to the edge of the cell and pleaded with the guard to allow him to come with me. The nameless guard looked dubious and amused at Liam's arguments until he said that having him there would make for a better show, since having a more experienced fighter in the ring with me would make this battle last longer.

  “On one condition,” the guard agreed, and I exhaled a sigh of relief. Before my mind could process what my eyes saw, the guard had struck the hilt of his short sword into Liam's left upper arm hard enough that Liam slammed into the iron bars. The blow was hard enough that it surely had broken his arm, but Liam gave no hint of the pain other than a stoic grunt. “Handicap.”

  Liam glared at the man as he then ushered both of us along the same path to the holding cell. As we passed the neighboring cell, I could see the undine man that Liam had told me about in the cell with a creature hunched over in the corner furthest from the floating light orb. It looked strikingly like an exaggerated Gollum with its pallid gray skin, fangs, huge black eyes, and long arms and legs like spindles. Thanks to Liam, I now knew this to be a cave goblin, a species of sentient dark fey.

  The undine man leaned listlessly against the bars, watching us go by with a piteous look on his handsome face. Faking a panic attack, I reached for him, but the guard grabbed my hair and hauled me back. The undine’s deep blue eyes met mine and I tried to convey wordlessly that I needed to touch him, but having never been any good at charades, failed. Fortunately, he'd shifted in his confusion, exposing more of his skin to the bars. Swinging my hand back to grab at the bars, I swiped the skin of his arm, hoping that I'd done that right and it was enough contact.

  My hand felt electrified at the contact and that tingling sensation swept through the rest of my body. Still struggling against the guard, I looked over to Liam, who didn't respond in any way. The guard finally struck me over the back of the head, sending me flying face first to the stone floor of the walkway. He hauled me up by my hair and shoved me forward ignominiously on the ass with his hard, booted foot.

  “Quit it,�
�� Liam barked, his words lashing as sharply as a barbed whip. Turning to look at him, I could see the harsh disdain in his angry eyes. “There's no point in fighting, you stupid human.”

  Shocked, I ceased struggling and walked down the stairs. I knew it was probably just for the guard, but I was surprised at how much Liam's words had hurt me. Perhaps I was latching onto him because I'd just lost Lexie and didn't have anyone else, but I thought that we were developing a friendship. Maybe I really was just his stupid human tool of escape. That thought stung me almost as much as the bruises now forming from my scuffle with the guard.

  The door into the holding cell slammed shut behind us and I got a look at what we'd be facing. There were three shapes moving in the opposite holding cell, but the only one I could clearly discern was a hulking man with rhinoceros skin and tusks— a mountain troll. The burn scar covering his left shoulder confirmed my suspicion that it was the same one who'd looked so forlorn and miserable in his cell the last time I'd come down here.

  The sound of metal scraping behind me brought my attention around. Liam picked up a broadsword that had been leaning against the wall with his right hand, carrying his wounded left arm against his chest.

  “There's only one?” I asked, feeling a little bit intimidated to do so after he'd snapped at me earlier.

  Liam nodded. “It's better if I wield it.”

  There would be no arguments from me on that front. Aside from the fact that I had no idea how to use a sword, it looked too heavy for me to swing, yet he easily lifted it and deftly twirled the blade in his one hand like he was testing it. Leave it to the expert to use the giant, steel people-chopper.

  Even though I wasn't armed, Liam had been explaining to me how magic worked. Spelling raw magic required that the mage do something that he or she truly believed would spell the magic, whether it was moving their body in a certain way, using a focusing tool like a wand, or mixing ingredients into a potion. Casting a spell or genus magic was similar in that you then had to direct the magic and believe that what you were doing would send it where you wanted it to go.

  The key component to spell casting was faith that what you were doing would work. I had faith in many things: God, love, friendship, family. However, I had a hard time believing with every cell in my body that I could make things explode into a fireball or blast somebody with a powerful gust of wind, even after all of the things I'd seen. To survive, I was going to have to find that conviction.

  The gates creaked open, announcing the beginning of the fight.

  “Stay out of the way,” Liam said as he led the way out into the arena. I followed him out, trying to keep behind him.

  From the opposite holding cell, the mountain troll lumbered out and looked us over. His black eyes halted on me and there was that same brief flash of pity that he'd shown me earlier. It dissipated as rapidly as it appeared and he let out a mighty roar, so loud that it made the sand quiver beneath my feet. For a second, fear immobilized me physically and mentally.

  I snapped myself out of it and tried to remember what Liam had told me about fighting: the most important things are to know your enemy and to keep yourself as calm as possible. So I took a deep breath and analyzed the troll. Hand-to-hand combat against him would be utterly pointless since mountain trolls are capable of tossing boulders and their thick skin protected them from all but the most penetrating blows. The only hope I would have against him was magic, and even then, both mountain and wood trolls were naturally resistant against it, so any spell I cast against him wouldn't be as potent.

  Behind him, a massive half-bear, half-human took a flanking position on the troll's right. Easily eight feet tall, it was covered in brown, grizzled fur and bulging muscles. Its bear-like face also assessed Liam and me as it flared long, black talons from its fingertips. The testes and penis pointing upwards from his pelvis were the only ways that I could identify him as a male beneath all of that thick fur. He had bent legs like an animal and a stubby bear tail on his back end. He leaned forward onto his paw-like hands and dug his claws into the sand. Recalling what I now knew about shapeshifters, they were known for their strength and ferocity in combat, so I again wouldn't have much of a chance against him physically. The only way I could fight him would be to cast a powerful spell at him.

  Between the eye-catching mountain troll and the half-shifted bear shapeshifter, I almost didn't notice the tiny, human-looking woman standing to the left of the troll. She was almost as short as me and had a lithe ballerina's figure. Her face held angular, yet very elegant features. She had silky, flaxen hair that was cut jaggedly just above her shoulders, like it had been carelessly hacked off. Even filthy and wearing a dress that looked like a worn burlap sack, she was positively stunning. Her bright green eyes cast me a dirty look, and I noticed her playing with a small dagger in her hands. Her features and figure made me think she was a noble fae, so she might not be as strong as the others, but she would be much faster than me. Her strength might not be that much greater than mine, but speed trumped muscle. Yet again, the only chance I had was magic.

  For long moments, everybody remained perfectly still, waiting for someone else to make the first move. The Mexican standoff was broken when the bear charged at Liam on all fours. At just the right time, Liam leaped upwards and used his position over the bear to stab him in the side of his chest. The bear collapsed and skidded through the sand on his momentum, coming to a stop just in front of me.

  I jumped back, out of its reach. Even as gravely wounded as he was, he still reached for my leg with his razor sharp claws. He chuffed angrily and blood spilled from his nose and mouth.

  Stepping further back from him, I looked over to Liam, who was swinging his sword at the fae woman's neck from behind her. She tried to twist around to stab him with the dagger, but it was too late. Her head was cleaved from her neck and both halves of her body dropped to the ground like rocks. Droplets from the powerful spray of arterial blood hit my face, and I froze, images of Lexie's blond head on the black marble floor flashing before my eyes.

  “Look out!” I heard Liam shout.

  The next thing I saw was Liam was in front of me, bracing himself as the mountain troll slammed a meaty fist into his side. Liam flew through the air all the way across the arena before crashing into the stone wall. The troll walked slowly and ominously closer to me, his thundering footsteps vibrating through the sand. He let out a low growl as he raised that same watermelon-sized fist to strike me down. Whether it was adrenaline, fear, or both that spurred me, I'll never know, but an image formed in my head of something slamming into his solar plexus and the troll keeled over. Since he was standing so close to me, he knocked me to the ground beneath him as he fell. He caught himself with one hand inches above me. His beady, black eyes glared at me from above, and the look of violence in them was terrifying.

  Suddenly, the expression on the troll's face turned from menacing rage to shocked disbelief. Hot liquid poured over me, covering my face and upper body, making me instinctively clench my eyes and hold my breath. I heard two thuds next to me and felt a warm hand grab mine from the ground to pull me to my feet.

  Still squeezing my eyes shut, I felt Liam's roughened fingertips wipe the blood from my eyes.

  “Sorry, looks like I nicked your nose,” he observed, his hands resting on my shoulders. I finally cracked my eyes open and saw a charming half-grin on his face. “Good job, though, you used your magic and blasted him in a weak spot. You brought a troll to his knees.” His praise elicited a warm feeling in my chest, even though I was in shock and bathed in blood.

  Behind Liam, I could see the bear haul himself to his feet, standing to his full, towering height. He leaped into the air, nearly colliding with the pit's domed cage-top. Somehow, Liam knew and hit the deck, dragging me to the ground with him. The bear launched himself at us like a massive torpedo, grabbing Liam from on top of me and pinning him to the ground ten feet away.

  Liam was without his sword, barely holding off the bear's
gaping jaws by sticking his right forearm into them. The bear bit down and thrashed his head from side to side. Again, Liam made no sounds of pain other than a grunt as he kicked and struggled against the bear.

  I jerked myself to my feet and grabbed the sword from where it lay in the sand next to me. Running over to him, I hacked at the back of the bear's neck. Even though the sword was sharp and heavy and I was swinging it downwards with all of the force I could muster, it didn't penetrate more than an inch or two. But it was enough to cut through his spinal cord, knocking him unconscious and paralyzing him until it could heal.

  The bear fell atop Liam, crushing him under his immense weight. Between Liam's and my shoving, we rolled it off of him and he took the sword from me.

  “Not bad, but you'll have to work on your upper body strength if you want to be able to decapitate someone with a single blow.” With his one good arm, pulpy though it might have been, he swung the sword down and finished off the bear-man.

  The sound of clapping to my left attracted my gaze. Octavius, Unus, Sexus, and another man sat in the sumptuous observation platform. The new man looked like the physical embodiment of a modern Viking cliché: burly in stature with a broad, sculpted face and long, blond hair pulled back in a queue. Octavius was the one clapping, smiling like he'd just watched a funny television show. Unus sat still, staring at the blood drying into a sticky mess on my skin with a creepy look in his eyes.

  “Bravo, Stone Mage, an excellent showing. Next time, though, participate more and don't hold anything back.” His statement sounded like advice, but there was no mistaking the command there. “Guards! Escort them back to their cell,” he ordered, standing up from his throne of black skulls. He sauntered off, disappearing through the black curtain behind him as he smiled and conversed with Sexus.

  “Sick bastard,” Liam muttered under his breath. Without using either one of his crippled arms, he ushered me back to our holding cell to be led by the guards back to our little cell.