by Linsey Hall
I reached out for her, but it was too late.
She faded away.
Damn. I turned to go, my mind in a daze, then stopped short.
A tribute. I needed to leave a tribute. Wasn’t that what my ancestors had done, here in this temple? They’d left the ring for me, but the stone basin in her room was full of gifts. Just because I had the answers I sought didn’t mean I shouldn’t leave one.
I shrugged out of my jacket—one of my favorites that had cost an arm and a leg—and laid it in the basin.
“Thank you.” I touched the basin one last time, feeling connected to her and my past, before turning and walking out.
I shivered as I made my way through the narrow passage. When I reached the exit, I had to shield my eyes against the massive flame Aidan and Claire had created. Huge mirrors were set up behind it, directing the light into the passage.
Not a bad solstice.
“Cass.” Aidan’s voice sounded relieved.
The flame died suddenly, and Nix, Del, and Connor slowly lowered the mirrors to the ground.
“Did it work?” Del asked.
“Yes.” I fingered the ring that I wore on my right hand. I finally fully understood my root power and had an idea about how to get it back. “But we have a long way to go.”
12
I dropped down onto the grass inside the wall at the Black Fort. Aidan landed next to me, followed by Nix, Del, Claire, and Connor. The sun hung low in the sky, ready to set.
We’d gone straight from the passage tomb to Aidan’s place, grabbed our stuff, then taken his plane to Inismor. On the way, I’d told them what I’d learned.
“I shouldn’t be surprised we’re back here,” I said.
“This place is important.” Nix looked around, thoughtfulness in her gaze. “It makes sense that it’ll help us transfer your magic back to you.”
Aidan squeezed my shoulder, and I leaned into him.
“I wish I knew what to do.” I started across the grass toward the stone circle, my gaze riveted to the statues.
The seer had had faith in my ability to figure this out, but it seemed a lot harder than breaking into a temple. If my mom showed up again with directions, that would be one thing. But I doubted we’d get that lucky.
I stopped in the middle of the stone circle, facing the statues with the other standing stones at my back. “I don’t understand how I’m supposed to use my power once I get it back. If I still have the Nullifier’s gift, won’t it crush it?”
“Or the other way around,” Aidan said. “Your own magic could overpower the Nullifier’s.”
Hope made my heart feel light. “You’re right.”
“We just need to figure out how I can give your power back to you.” Del paced around the statues, eyeing them up and down. She stopped in front of hers, gazing up at it. “I sure do look creepy.”
I looked closely at her statue. She was right. The skeletal thinness of her statue gave it an eerie look.
“I think it’s symbolic,” I said, hoping to make her feel better.
“Yeah, symbolically ugly.”
“I won’t brag that I get to be Snow White.” Nix petted the head of the deer next to her own statue. “Now how to convince these guys to clean my house…”
I grinned as I walked around my statue, but it didn’t take long for the grin to fade. There was nothing obvious about it. No lever, no place to lay a tribute, no patterns or inscriptions. Just statues, simply carved and elegant.
Del touched her statue. It glowed brightly with white light, which flowed to Del and lit her from within.
“Holy shit.” Nix’s wide gaze went from Del to her own statue. She removed her hand from the deer’s head where it had been resting and touched her own statue. It glowed with a golden light. Like with Del, it flowed from the statue to Nix, lighting her up from within until she shone like a golden beacon.
The light then traveled over to Del until they were linked by a glowing wire of light. A pair.
“Wow,” Del said. “We should have touched these earlier.”
I touched my statue. I felt the pulse of magic, but my skin didn’t glow like theirs had. No glowing golden wire connected me to them. I stepped back, frustration beating at my chest with tiny fists. “Why won’t it work for me?”
“Do you feel a connection to it when you touch it?” Del asked.
“I feel magic, but I don’t know if it’s a connection.”
Del removed her hand from her statue. She stopped glowing and the golden light that connected her to Nix faded. She approached my statue and touched it, then frowned.
“My magic links with the magic in my statue,” Del said. “But when I touch yours, I feel like I’m blocked.”
“You both have your magic, but I don’t have mine. So maybe my statue doesn’t recognize me,” I said. It sounded weird to say that a statue didn’t recognize me, but this was a powerful magical place. Normal rules didn’t apply here.
“Only you should be able to access your statue’s power,” Nix said. “So it’s probably protecting itself.”
“Oh,” I murmured, understanding suddenly hitting me. I had to nullify the protection charm that was on the statue. Then I could make the connection. But could I? It’d been so difficult to nullify Aidan’s flame last night, and this was so much bigger.
I shoved up the sleeve of Aidan’s jacket, which he’d loaned me after I’d left mine at the passage tomb, then pulled off the golden cuff and set it on the grass.
The ancient ring that the seer had given me suddenly glowed warm on my finger. I glanced down at it. I felt different. More peaceful or more in control. Maybe both. Like the ring could finally work now that I wasn’t wearing the dampening charm, and it was helping to calm the magic fighting within me.
Suddenly, I felt like I could do it. I’d practiced, but the ring from my ancestors would help me.
“You’ve still been wearing that dampening charm?” Nix asked.
I shrugged. “Yeah. But I’m starting to think some people are right.” I glanced at Aidan, who smiled slightly. “It’s a safety blanket against my unwillingness to accept change.”
“Been watching a lot of Dr. Phil, lately?” Del asked.
“Yeah, yeah. I sounded like a freaking therapist. But I’m finally figuring this stuff out. I may hate the Nullifier’s magic, but I need it.”
“For what?” Nix asked.
“Whatever magic the statue is using for protection, I’m going to try to nullify it so I can make a connection with it.” I thought maybe I could feel it, humming beneath the stone. A slight prickle against my skin. “Then you guys can touch yours and hopefully we’ll be connected.”
“Then maybe your magic will flow from me to you.” Del turned to her statue and touched it. Immediately, she began to glow.
“Good idea,” Nix said. As soon as she touched her own statue, she glowed as well. A thin thread of light extended from Del to Nix, linking them.
“Give it a go,” Aidan said to me.
I turned to face the statue and rested my hands against it. The magic thrummed against my fingertips, but it didn’t flow from the stone into me.
With a deep breath, I closed my eyes and focused on the Nullifier’s magic. It was incorporeal, but it was easier to get ahold of now that I was wearing the ring from my ancestors. I envisioned lowering the defenses protecting the statue. It was just like a box holding treasure. All I had to do was get in.
“Is she glowing?”
I heard someone whisper as if from far away, but I kept my focus on trying to nullify the protection charm. I didn’t dare open my eyes to see if they were right.
The Nullifier’s power flowed through me, strange and empty feeling. I suppressed a shudder as I let it fill me, trying to replicate the practice I’d done with Aidan. This was a much bigger task than nullifying the small flame he’d created, but the ring helped me access the Nullifier’s magic.
The ghost of power flitted through me, gaining strength.
Once I felt it vibrating through my whole body, I tried to push it outward, toward the statue. Like an oil spill, it needed to coat the magic that I wanted to nullify.
My head spun, but I didn’t let up. When my breath grew short from the strain, I pushed harder, trying to force the Nullifier’s magic into the statue. I felt like I had one chance at this.
When I opened my eyes, my statue was glowing. I glanced to my right. The thread of light now connected Nix, Del, and I! It glowed brighter and stronger, connecting the three of us and our statues, like a conduit that ran between us all.
A ball of light pushed its way out of Del’s chest, flowing into her statue. It traveled across the light wire, toward my statue.
As it neared, a ringing sounded in my ears, growing louder and louder until a blast of power burst from my statue, lighting up the night. It exploded with the force of a sonic boom, throwing me to my back on the grass.
Soul-shaking power flowed through me, lighting me up like a live wire. I vibrated with energy, nearly blind with the shock. Vision hazy, I blinked, struggling to my feet.
When my sight cleared, all I saw was darkness. A sparkle of stars and swirls of light coalesced in the distance, but I no longer stood in the stone circle. My friends were nowhere to be found.
I trembled with power, magic coursing through me like a drug, and I spun, still slightly dazed.
Where was I?
Two figures approached me, both glowing white in the dark.
When they neared, I could make out the distinctive red hair of the woman and the tall, dark-haired figure of the man.
My heart leapt. “Mom. Dad.”
“Cass.” My mother held out her arms.
Joy surged through me. This time, I could tell she was real. She wasn’t a solid figure, but she was more than the apparition that had guided me back at the stone circle.
They stepped forward and hugged me. Comfort like I’d never known flowed through me. I wanted to feel it forever. Their arms were as solid as if they’d been real, but they were semitransparent, like ghosts.
“Am I dead?” I asked.
My mother stepped back and smiled. “No.”
“Then where am I?”
“I don’t know, exactly,” my father said.
“I think this is what we prepared for,” my mother said to him.
“What do you mean?”
“When you were born, we knew you were special. Actually special. Not just special because you were ours. We moved to Inismor because we thought it would be a good place to raise you. The next day, the statues appeared at the Black Fort.”
“We realized you were part of the Triumvirate and knew you might be hunted. So we had the locket created to protect you. We didn’t know if someone would try to steal your power, but we suspected it could happen.”
“So it protected me when Victor Orriodor tried to take it.”
“Yes. Though we didn’t expect you to give your power to your friend,” my father said.
“I had to do it.”
“Yes, you did,” my mother said. “It saved your life. And you were able to get it back. The statues connect you with Del and Nix, but they are also a conduit for your magic, making it stronger.”
“But you’ll have to practice with your gift,” my father said. “You have endless power, but you will be unskilled at wielding it. Until you have control, you will be dangerous.”
“I wish we’d been able to train you.” My mother squeezed my shoulder.
My father draped an arm over her shoulder. “We wouldn’t have known how. This was for the best.”
“Thank you for saving me from Victor’s dungeon when I was a kid,” I said.
Pain glinted in my mother’s eyes. “We didn’t succeed.”
“You did.” I hugged her. “You made it possible for us to escape. Without you, we never would have made it out of the house.”
My mother squeezed me hard, then stepped back and said, “You must go now. Your friends need you.”
My heart constricted. “I want to stay with you longer.”
“You cannot. You are now at some kind of waypoint, able to talk to us, but your friends are back on Earth. When you lowered the protective charms on the circle and released your magic, you destroyed your concealment charm and all the protections on the Black Fort. He is coming for you.”
Victor Orriodor. “Will I see you again?”
“One day,” my mother said.
“So the afterlife is real?”
“Where do you think we came from?” my father said.
I grinned, bittersweet joy flooding my chest, and hugged them, never wanting to let go.
Half a second later, I opened my eyes back on earth. I was on my back in the grass, staring up at the stars. I struggled to my feet, my heart fuller than it had been in years.
The world had turned eerie while I was away. Gray mist drifted along the ground. The grass beneath had been singed, almost incinerated.
By me?
My friends all lay on their backs, the gray haze curling around them. I dropped to my knees by Claire, who lay nearest me.
“Wake up!” I shook her shoulder.
She blinked, her gaze confused. “What’s happened?”
Around us, figures appeared at the edges of the circle. Each carried a flaming sword that glowed bright in the night, cutting through the gray fog.
“Shit,” I whispered.
There were over a dozen, and more kept appearing.
“Get up!” I shouted. “Everyone, wake up!”
I surged to my feet, and Claire struggled upright. The rest of my friends stood slowly, shaking their heads and trying to get their bearings.
They stood not a moment too soon. The demons entered the stone circle, bypassing any protection charms that might have once been there.
The fight broke out in half a second as the demons charged. Everyone jumped into action. A swirl of gray light surrounded Aidan, and a moment later, the massive griffin stood in his place. He roared, then launched himself into the sky and swooped on the demons, crushing their heads in his beak. Blood sprayed.
Claire threw massive fireballs toward one group of demons, her flame lighting up the night. The fire bowled them over, but more followed behind.
Connor threw potion bombs, which exploded on the demons in flashes of color. Demons shrieked as his acid coated their skin. Del became a phantom, her bright blue form stark against the dark night, while Nix conjured her bow and arrow, cutting down demons left and right.
But more appeared for every one we killed.
My daggers could do nothing against this. No matter how fast I threw, I couldn’t keep up.
But I had my powers back. Better than that, I had eternal magical energy. I could fuel so many spells that I’d take out armies, masses of soldiers at a time.
My magic vibrated beneath my skin, a massive amount of power that was so different from the emptiness I’d felt while I’d had the Nullifier’s gift. Aidan had been right—my own magic had driven out the Nullifier’s power.
Joy and strength surged through me as I called upon my magic. There were so many demons that I’d have to use something big. Aidan’s Elemental Mage gift would work well.
Using my Mirror Mage powers, I reached out for Aidan’s signature, trying to get ahold of his power over flame. There was so much magic in the air that it was hard to find it at first. Finally, I grasped on to the scent of smoke and heat of flame that marked Aidan’s gift and crafted a massive fireball.
The flame burned inside my chest, roaring to be released. It thundered within me, stronger than it had ever been. I turned toward a group of demons who were racing toward Claire and hurled my fireball at them.
A jet of flame the size of a city bus hurtled through the air. Worse, a blast of magic exploded from me, like a sonic boom radiating across the grass and throwing everyone to their backs.
I crashed to the ground with everyone else, the wind blown from my lungs. My magic screamed insid
e me, going haywire. I shook from it as I scrambled up, panting. Chaos surrounded me. Bodies everywhere. Not a single person or demon stood besides myself.
Fear shot like ice through my veins, chilling my bones. My chest ached. Had I killed them all?
What the hell was my gift?
I raced toward the nearest body—Aidan. In the blast, he’d turned back into his human form. As I fell to my knees beside him, the scent of rot and decay rolled over the stone circle. Invisible bee stings pricked my skin, and a taste like death coated my tongue.
Terror seemed to freeze my muscles solid, and I had to force myself to look up. My heart froze as my gaze met Victor Orriodor’s.
He stood outside the circle, his immaculate suit looking out of place in the blown-apart landscape that I’d created with my magic.
“My, my.” His voice was colder than the arctic. “Did you do all this, FireSoul?”
He called me FireSoul, like he had last time we’d spoken at Ephesus. So he still didn’t know my real name. Just that I was the FireSoul he sought. Most likely, he didn’t care what I called myself.
In front of me, Aidan shifted. Barely.
Not dead.
Relief flowed through me. I had to keep Victor talking while my friends recovered from the mess I’d created. I could try to sonic boom the bastard, but I’d probably just hurt my friends more. Or kill them. They were weakened by my disastrous attempt to use my new strength.
I’d felt a sonic boom before. Victor Orriodor’s, in fact. It was one of his gifts. It could crush your organs and kill you, especially if you received multiple hits. That was what’d killed the Nullifier.
But I couldn’t control it like Victor could. It was a byproduct of my new strength, not the point of the spell. If I produced one again, I could kill my friends.
Blustering my way through it to buy some time was the only thing I could think to do. “What, Victor? You here to kill me?”
“Kill you?” Incredulity colored his voice. “Why on earth would I do that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. After your goons tried to drown me in the Pool of Memory, I sort of figured that was your goal.”
He shook his head, disappointment clear on his face. “No. That wasn’t supposed to happen. They were trying to pull you from the pool. But tricky thing, that Pool of Memory. It wouldn’t let you go.”