“The second challenge will soon begin,” Faris declared, then looked at the Everlasting man.
“Valora’s most prized possession is a crown, kept in her private chambers inside her castle,” said the immortal telepath.
Those sure were specific directions. But I didn’t believe for a second that this would be easy.
Congratulations on your theft of the Seer’s Opera Glasses, Nero’s voice spoke in my mind.
I met his approving eyes across the room. He didn’t always agree with my wild ways, but he did appreciate that my out-of-the-box thinking often produced results where traditional means failed.
Nero wasn’t the only one watching me. Nyx’s eyes were following me closely, like she too was assessing me.
“For the last challenge, you were not permitted to bring your own weapons. The same rule will apply to the second challenge as well,” Faris told us. “In addition, each team will be allowed the use of only one magic ability, the specialty of their patron god. Your other abilities will be neutralized for the duration of this challenge.”
Faris’s soldiers dispensed the magic-neutralizing serums. I was still reeling from the potion’s effects when two soldiers pushed me and Colonel Fireswift through one of the magic mirrors. At the same time, soldiers all across the audience chamber pushed our competitors through the other mirrors.
Colonel Fireswift and I popped up in the middle of a castle courtyard, completely surrounded by Valora’s soldiers. The other teams were scattered throughout the courtyard. Spells and arrows shot at us from every direction. I pulled Colonel Fireswift behind a pegasus statue. A blast of Isabelle Battleborn’s psychic magic whizzed past us. A second later, and it would have smacked right into our backs. And since we didn’t have any psychic resistance to speak of right now, that would have knocked us out in an instant.
“It is cowardly to hide,” Colonel Fireswift growled.
“And it’s stupid to die,” I countered. “We have only our siren magic right now. We have no weapons, and our defenses against most magic are nonexistent. Before we fight, we need a plan.”
I glanced at the twenty or so soldiers in white uniforms, Valora’s Guard. They were armed to the teeth—and shooting spells like there was no tomorrow.
“To get into the castle, we have to make it past them,” I muttered.
Colonel Fireswift’s eyes panned across the army, like he was trying to decide what to do. Without weapons or most of his magic, indecision had seized him. He wasn’t sure how to win.
“This isn’t about magic or weapons or martial prowess, Colonel,” I told him.
His gaze shifted from the battlefield to me.
“It’s about this.” I tapped my finger to my head. “It’s about your mind. You’re an angel. You’re the head of the Interrogators. You’re supposed to be smart, right?”
He stiffened, looking offended that I would even dare to ask the question. “I am smart.”
“You were trained since you could lift up your head. To fight. To assess a battle scene. To strategize.” I pointed at the battle raging on beyond our barrier. “So how do we get through that?”
He just watched the battle. For once, he was actually speechless.
I didn’t have any idea how we were going to win either. There were just so many guards. And we had to worry about the other teams too, some of whom still possessed the power to bombard us with explosive offensive spells. I didn’t even have anything to hit them back with.
Wait a minute…that wasn’t entirely true. We still had our siren magic. And unlike Valora’s soldiers, right now our competitors had zero resistance to Siren’s Song.
“We have to make our opponents fight for us. We have to compel them,” I told Colonel Fireswift. “They are our weapons against the other teams—and against Valora’s Guard. Divide and conquer.”
Colonel Firestorm looked at me, an unfamiliar gleam in his eyes. “You are smarter than you appear.” He looked like every word of that admission burned his tongue.
I flashed him a grin. “See? I knew all we needed was a little time together for you to warm up to me.”
He glowered at me, the threat apparent in his eyes. “Don’t confuse repugnance with affection.”
“Was that a joke?” I snorted. “Why, Colonel, I never realized you had a sense of humor.”
His glower went supernova.
Snickering, I glanced across the battlefield. “The Spellsmiters and Silvertongues are closest. Let’s have some fun with them.”
“Fun? I am sure what you meant to say is, let us unleash our carefully-planned attacks on them.”
I shrugged. “Ok, sure. If saying it that way makes you feel better.”
“You turn Andrin Spellsmiter against Desiree Silvertongue,” he instructed me coolly. “I will handle Siri Silvertongue and Kiros Spellsmiter.”
It was a good starting point. Both teams were already conflicted. The gods had seen to that. Breaking those teams apart would be simpler, require less magic and finesse, than breaking apart friends.
I aimed my siren magic at Colonel Silvertongue and Andrin. The spell came easily, shooting out of me almost before I’d finished composing it inside my mind. It was like what Ronan had explained to me recently, how cutting out some magical abilities allowed my remaining magic to burn brighter. It felt so natural, so easy. So right.
Andrin and his aunt spun around, unleashing elemental spells on each other, even as Siri and her uncle began hurling explosive potion bottles back and forth. It appeared Colonel Fireswift’s siren spell had been successful as well.
“Compel Isabelle Battleborn,” he instructed me as we emerged from our hiding spot to run across the courtyard, his eyes honing in on Harker’s teammate.
I barely had to touch Isabelle’s magic to ignite her wrath. Her anger, which had been boiling below the surface for so long, finally exploded.
“You!” she screamed, shooting a telekinetic blast at Harker. “Why didn’t you save him?” She shot her magic at him again. Her rage was burning so hot that I hardly had to compel her. “Why did you come back when he died there on that battlefield?”
One of Isabelle’s spells intended for Harker slammed into a castle tower, slicing the top right off.
“Sorry,” I said to him, cringing. I’d known Isabelle was angry, but I hadn’t realized her grief so completely consumed her.
“We are competitors, Pandora,” replied Harker. “You’re not supposed to be sorry for using the weapons at your disposal.”
Colonel Fireswift grabbed my arm, yanking me roughly toward the stairs that led into the castle. Harker was too busy holding off Isabelle’s attacks to stop us. But Nyx and Arius Demonslayer were already ahead of us—and, thanks to their vampire magic, they were moving much faster than we could. I shot a siren spell at them, but they evaded easily. They were too fast to hit.
I muttered a preemptive ‘sorry’ to Harker, then I clamped my siren magic down on him. He spun around, a psychic spell bursting from his hand. It slammed into Nyx and Arius, blasting them back down into the courtyard. I gave Isabelle another nudge of my magic, and she added her spells to Harker’s barrage. Nyx and Arius were caught inside a storm of psychic energy. They wouldn’t be going anywhere.
As Colonel Fireswift and I entered the castle hall, he compelled Harker to blast the steps with his magic, destroying them so no one could follow us inside.
“You fight dirty after all, Colonel,” I laughed.
We started our ascent of the winding stairwell that would lead us to the top of Valora’s tower. The gilded rails and trail of decorative crown motifs were like a giant flashing arrow pointing to her private chamber.
“Dirty?” Colonel Fireswift sneered. “That was a perfectly dignified maneuver.”
I grinned. “The difference between dignified and dirty isn’t as great as you think.”
His brows drew together. “It’s a wonder you’ve made it as far as you have in the Legion with that impudent attitude.”
&nb
sp; “Actually, that impudent attitude is the reason that I’ve made it this far.”
The staircase we were running up seemed to go on forever. And without my vampire magic, I felt as weak as a Legion initiate.
“We must be almost there by now,” I puffed out.
“Apparently, your impudent attitude isn’t helping you now,” he noted coolly.
“Why aren’t you out of breath? You don’t have any vampiric endurance right now either.”
“When I was a child, my father bound weights to my ankles and wrists, and he commanded me to run up and down our estate’s stairs. Over and over again. Only when I collapsed from exhaustion did he pull me off the ground. Then he added more weights and made me go again. I didn’t have the benefit of magic back then either.”
“That is so cruel.”
“That is how angels are made,” he countered proudly. “That is how the Legion endures. It is how my father made me stronger, and it is how I made my children stronger. If by some fluke of fate, you one day become an angel and have children of your own, you will do the same to them.”
“I will most certainly not,” I huffed in indignation.
“The world is cruel and merciless. It is best your children learn that from you than they get a nasty shock later, when it’s already too late. When you can’t protect them anymore.”
Colonel Fireswift went quiet. He must have been thinking of his daughter Kendra again. Her years of hard training hadn’t saved her life. Her magic, the gods’ gifts, hadn’t saved her. They’d only made her easy to kill.
I didn’t mention Kendra’s cruel fate. Colonel Fireswift was a supreme asshole on the best of days, but no one deserved to lose a child like that. Or to be reminded of the pain of that loss.
“I didn’t see Wardbreaker and Windstriker down below,” Colonel Fireswift commented, his face blank once more.
“They might have taken another way up.”
We’d finally reached the top of the tower, Valora’s chamber. Neither Nero nor Delta were here. But Jace and Leila were waiting for us.
Valora’s team moved quickly. Jace hardly waited for me to enter the room before he threw a spell at me. The telekinetic blast slammed me hard into the wall. My back hit the stone wall.
“You don’t play nice, Jace.” As I pulled myself off the floor, my bones groaned in protest.
Jace was already swinging his sword at me. Flames flared up on the blade, hot and hungry. I jumped back. I’d forgotten how hot magic fire was—and how much it sucked to not have any resistance to it.
I grabbed a shield from the wall, throwing it up to block Jace’s next sword swing. He tossed a potion at me instead. The flask smashed against my shield, the bubbling liquid dissolving the metal. My shield crumbled to pieces in my hands. I threw down the worthless scrap of rapidly-dissolving metal. What little was left of it shattered upon impact. Tiny pieces of metal rolled across the floor.
Jace didn’t give me a chance to catch my breath. I jumped back from his flaming sword. I looked around for something I could use as a weapon, but there wasn’t anything within reach.
My gaze flickered to Colonel Fireswift. The fight wasn’t going well for him either. Leila had him trapped in an elemental web of magic, and she was slowly tightening the screws.
Jace swung his sword at me. I darted to the side, grabbing the long curtain hanging in the window. I wrapped it around Jace’s flaming sword. He heaved, trying to free his blade. It didn’t budge. Instead, the flames jumped to the curtain, setting the heavy fabric on fire. I snatched the curtain’s tassel, thumping its fat knotted end against Jace’s forehead. He froze for a moment—whether from surprise or the impact of the knot, I didn’t know. And I couldn’t afford to contemplate.
I grabbed the untouched edge of the burning curtain and wrapped Jace up in it. Sure, he was resistant to fire, but untangling himself would keep him busy for a while.
While he concentrated on freeing himself, I slammed my siren magic into him, crushing his will with my mind. Then I turned him on Leila. Colonel Fireswift had told me Leila’s vampire magic was weak, so I sent Jace charging at her. His thick arms wrapped around her torso, pinning her arms to her sides.
“Jace, what are you—”
I trapped her mind inside my siren’s song. She stopped struggling. Jace dropped his arms. They both just stood there, waiting for me to tell them what to do.
Colonel Fireswift closed in beside me. “They are resistant to siren magic. How did you do that?”
“Magic.” I winked. Then I looked at Jace. “Tell me where Valora’s crown is.”
His lips drew back to speak. Growling, he pulled them closed again.
“Tell me where Valora’s crown is,” I repeated, with more siren magic this time.
“In the bowl.” His mouth spoke the words, but his eyes burned with defiance.
I walked toward the bowl on Valora’s coffee table. It was filled with red-yellow apples. There wasn’t a crown in there.
“I see only apples,” I told Jace.
He just stared at me.
“Valora shifted the crown’s shape,” Leila said. She was fighting my magic a lot less than Jace was.
“So one of these apples is the crown?” I asked.
Leila nodded.
I stared down into the apple bowl. All of them looked the same. Which one was the crown?
10
The King's Crown
I considered the bowl of apples. Which of the dozen apples in there was Valora’s crown? Which one had the goddess used her shifting magic to disguise? With Shifter’s Shadow currently locked out of my magical toolbox, I couldn’t see past the illusion.
Colonel Fireswift joined me beside the bowl. “That one.” He pointed at one of the apples. “That is the crown.”
“How can you tell?”
“It’s too perfect.” He plucked the apple from the bowl, turning it over in his hand. “This apple is a work of art, not a random, imperfect fluke of nature.”
“Even without your shifting magic, you recognize the spell. You can penetrate the illusion without being able to see through it. How?”
“It’s obvious.”
And yet I hadn’t seen it. He was critiquing my reasoning skills. Nice. I’d complimented him, and he’d replied with an insult.
“You really are an asshole of the highest order,” I told him.
“That’s my job,” he replied, pride reverberating from every syllable.
I didn’t know how much more of Colonel Fireswift I could take. The end of the gods’ game couldn’t come soon enough.
I snatched the apple out of his hands and gave it to Leila. “The demons are attacking. This crown is our only hope to defeat them,” I said softly, wrapping my siren magic around her.
Leila pushed the apple away.
“That strategy will never work,” Colonel Fireswift told me. “She is fighting your compulsion. She knows there are no demons. She knows this is a game and we are her enemies.”
“We’ve been fighting. Her adrenaline is up. All we need to do is nudge her in the right direction,” I countered. “What is more logical, I ask you: that the Legion is engaged in a civil war, or demons are attacking?”
He opened his mouth, then it clicked shut, like he didn’t know how to respond to my twisted logic. Finally, he settled on, “You are unbelievable.”
“And I suppose you want to break her with brute force?”
“Whereas you prefer to woe your enemy with flowers and chocolates.”
“No, but it’s easier to manipulate someone’s mind with magic when you understand their psychology. Leila is a defender, a champion of the Legion. This drive is burned into her very being,” I said. “And don’t be so medieval, Colonel.” I returned my attention to Leila. “The Earth is in danger. You can save it. But to do that, we need to turn this apple back into a crown.”
When I handed the apple to Leila this time, she took it.
“I don’t believe it.” Colonel Fireswift
’s brow crinkled. “It’s working. You’re winning her over.”
“You attract more bees with honey than with vinegar, Colonel,” I replied brightly. “You might want to try that sometime.”
He responded with a steely glower.
“No, not like that,” I sighed. “Aim for cheerful, not murderous. Practice your smile in front of a mirror. It will help.”
“Watch that tongue, Leda Pierce. Or I will cut it out while you sleep.”
“What happened to not being medieval?”
Shaking my head, I turned back to Leila, who had just completed the spell to shift the apple back into its true form. And it was beautiful. Alternating rubies and sapphires topped the crown’s gold spires, sparkling in the sunset rays streaming in from the balcony.
I was just about to hand the crown to Colonel Fireswift when every window in the room broke at once. Nero and Delta burst through the waterfall of shattering glass, landing in a crouch before us. A thick putrid cloud of magic shot out of Nero’s hands. A curse. As it hit me, my body locked up. I hit the floor like a stiff plank.
That was the other, not-so-pretty side of Fairy’s Touch, the power that could either heal or infect. Plagues and curses were created and cured at a fairy’s whim. Nero’s curse wasn’t of the excruciating variety, but it had paralyzed me and my teammate from head to toe.
Delta reached down and snatched the crown from my frozen fingers. And I was completely powerless to stop her. She stole Aleris’s glasses from me next, her smile haughty, her eyes triumphant. To top it all off, the way she was looking at Nero was downright indecent.
“You waited,” I said to Nero, ignoring Delta and the bedroom eyes she was giving him. “You let us do the work for you. And now you have both gods’ items. This was your plan all along.”
“I had every confidence that you would succeed in obtaining Valora’s crown,” Nero replied. “You are very persuasive.”
He’d known I’d figure out that I could use my siren magic to force others to fight for me—and to make Jace and Leila give me the crown.
Fairy’s Touch: Legion of Angels: Book 7 Page 9