by Ella Summers
Ronan swung a punch at me. I deflected his strike, magic twitching on my skin, an intermittent buzz like a downed Magitech power line. The spark ignited when it hit Ronan, dazing him for a moment. I took advantage of the brief lapse in his attacks and swung a kick under his legs. He hit the floor.
He bounced back to his feet immediately, a hint of shock marring his perfect composure. “You never fail to surprise, Pandora. You used telekinetic magic before you drank the Nectar of Psychic’s Spell.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I was right. Your other magic was blocking your psychic power. Your strongest powers lie on the opposite side of the spectrum from telekinesis,” he said. “But it also means something more. You possess innate magic, magic from your ancestry—not just magic you gained from the gods’ gifts. Your telekinetic magic isn’t the only thing suppressed inside of you. There’s more magic, and whatever that magic is, it’s just waiting to be unleashed. The question is what you will become when it is finally unlocked. There’s a bite to your magic, an eagerness, an explosiveness. It is not content to fade quietly into the crowd. Good luck, Leda Pierce. You’re going to need it.”
Then he was gone, just like that, like he’d never been here at all.
13
The God of Heaven’s Army
My training session with the God of War had been productive. For the first time, I’d tasted a hint of psychic power. Though the fight itself had felt like running through water with chains of weights dangling from every limb. I could never go back to being human again.
I stretched out my body. Now that the potion had worn off, I was fast again, spry, agile. My muscles felt warm, buzzing in appreciation of the good workout they’d received. My magic muscles felt the same way. I’d frozen a god with my telekinetic magic, if only for a second. I took a moment to stand there and let that sink in. Maybe I wasn’t a hopeless case for Psychic’s Spell after all.
Hope hardened into determination. I would get this. I didn’t care how many telekinetic training sessions I had to endure.
I left the gym and walked through the dark halls back to the room I’d been assigned for the night. A quick check on my phone told me that the snowstorm was still raging over the Field of Tears. I didn’t have an update from Jace either. He was probably asleep like every other sane person was at this hour.
I didn’t regret staying up. The training session had been a real breakthrough. Thanks to Ronan’s potion, I’d finally made it past that wall blocking me. I’d never have guessed it was my own magic that was standing in my way, blocking me from developing my telekinetic powers.
But the training session had also left me with more questions than before. What was I? That question was even stronger in my mind now. Did Ronan know something about me? And what about my magic ancestry? Was he holding back information?
The gods had so many secrets. They weren’t on the same plane of existence as the rest of us. They didn’t think like we did; they considered themselves above us. And they delighted in playing games, even a god like Ronan. He might have been our ally, but he was still a god. A god didn’t do anything out of chance, or for the sake of mere curiosity. Everything had a reason. Everything was calculated.
The same went for Ronan’s lover Nyx. I liked the First Angel, but she was a demigod, a born angel, the daughter of a god. I had a sinking feeling that Ronan had only told me about Nyx’s past—about her prior turmoil of dealing with the very same moral conundrums that were tearing me apart—so that I saw her and him as more human. So that I saw them as people I could trust, people I could confide in.
But I couldn’t. Not totally. I had to tread cautiously. Gods, I hated that I needed to be so paranoid, that I couldn’t just trust people anymore. When had life grown so complicated?
It’s always been complicated, my rational side told me.
I’d had to read into things, even back before I joined the Legion, back before I played war with angels and gods. As a bounty hunter, I’d tried to get into people’s heads, to see things from their perspective. I needed to figure out how they ticked, how they thought, in order to predict their movements. If I could determine where and when they’d be, I could catch them.
Were things really so different now? Was I any more cynical than I’d been back then?
I made it to my room. You know those hotel rooms that aren’t bad but aren’t anything special either? That’s what this room was. The Legion only brought out the red carpet, hot tubs, and canopy beds for angels.
I headed into the connected bathroom and took a two-minute shower to wash off the sweat—and to clear my head before bed. All these mind games were as exhausting as having my ass handed to me by the God of War.
After drying off, I fell into bed. The mattress was surprisingly soft and comfortable considering the hard, cruel angel in charge of this office.
I drifted lazily into a pleasant dream about a sunny summer beach and lots of chocolate mint ice cream. My dream was short-lived, however, hijacked by an untimely visit from the God of Heaven’s Army.
Faris stood out like a sore thumb against the tropical gold and turquoise backdrop. His hair was glossy black and shoulder-length today, like ripples of liquid ink. Dressed in a set of black and silver armor, he looked like the lord of the castle. A feathered layer spread across his shoulders from the top of his cloak, sliding down his back like a black waterfall. I couldn’t tell if it was a cloak or his wings.
He moved toward me, emanating menace with every breath that he took. “Why did Ronan visit you in Chicago? What are you two scheming?” he demanded, foregoing all pleasantries. He sure didn’t waste any time cutting to the chase.
“Ronan was just training me.”
“Why has he taken such a particular interest in you?”
I was tired of his questions. Not to mention just plain tired period. Faris’s foul mood was disturbing my much-needed sleep.
“I don’t know. Why are you interested in me?” I deflected.
He made a derisive noise. “You flatter yourself. You are insignificant.”
“Obviously not. You came here to talk to me,” I said, smirking.
He caught me in the iron jaws of his magic, his grip as hard as his voice was silky. “Is Ronan training you to fight the gods?”
His magic was cracking me like a nut. It felt nothing like the pleasant buzz of an angel’s aura, the power they used to make you want to fight for them. What Faris was doing hurt, and it hurt bad. This was the hard, cruel side of Siren’s Song. It was not persuasion through pleasant means, through using people’s desires to direct them where you wanted them to go. No, this was crushing someone’s will under the heel of your boot.
“Is Ronan building an army to fight me?” Faris snapped, his magic squeezing down on me.
“No. He wants more angels for the Legion.”
“To threaten the gods.”
His magic was suffocating me. It was getting hard to breathe.
“To fight the monsters and other threats that besiege the Earth,” I choked out.
Faris gave his hand a dismissive flick. The invisible claw around my throat that had been slowly squeezing the life out of me roughly jerked away. I coughed, sucking in air.
“I don’t believe you,” Faris declared, watching me with an expression of utter distaste.
“I don’t care if you believe me,” I snapped at him. “It’s the truth. And my self-worth is not dependent on your approval.”
His nostrils flared, my defiance enraging his pride. He knocked me back with a telekinetic blast. It hurt, but not as much as it would have before my training session with Ronan. I really was improving.
Or maybe it hurt less because this was all a dream, and there was only so much he could do to me without actually being here. Could a god kill you in your sleep? I didn’t care to ponder the question further. I doubted I would like where it led.
Faris caught me in his magic again. “What is Ronan planning?”
Like a war hammer, his will crashed against mine, trying to crush my mind. My head felt like it was splitting apart in a hundred places at once, but I refused to scream. Faris would enjoy that too much.
“Ronan is not planning anything,” I said. “He is just trying to build up the Legion of Angels to fight the demons.”
“And why does he think you can help with that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I am in the Legion of Angels.” I managed to summon enough strength to roll my eyes.
Faris’s magic hit me harder, his phantom fingers tightening around my neck. I could hardly breathe.
“Your impudence does not amuse me,” he said in a low snarl.
“Well, your temper tantrum sure amuses me,” I snapped back.
Faris threw me aside, and I hit a nearby palm tree like a rag doll.
I stood up, my head hurting more than my body. Because this was a dream and his attack was a mental magic one, I realized. My head was pounding so hard I thought it might explode. I gritted my teeth, holding in the pain.
Faris folded his hands together. “Let’s try this again,” he said with a coldness that sent chills down my spine. “What are you to Ronan?”
“A tool,” I replied honestly. “Nothing more. Just as we all are to the gods.”
Faris was watching me closely, probably dissecting every expression on my face. “Indeed.”
As he approached me, I couldn’t help but wince in anticipation of his next attack. His eyes sparkled with vicious delight. Apparently, my fear amused him.
He stroked his hand down my face, grabbing my chin roughly between his fingers. “But what is this tool’s purpose?”
“Ronan thinks I can be an angel.”
I watched Faris for his reaction, and as expected, he did not seem surprised. Yes, he wanted me to be an angel as well. He wanted me to advance up the Legion so that I could find my brother Zane, a telepath, and then Faris would use Zane’s magic for himself.
But I didn’t say any of this. I hardly dared to think it, keeping those thoughts in a secret, hidden place in my mind, locking them away where the God of Heaven’s Army would never find them. I didn’t want him to realize that I was on to him.
Back when I’d first joined the Legion, Faris had pushed Harker to give me Nectar that would have made me a second-level angel. If I’d drunk it, I would have gained all the gods’ gifts up to the power of telepathy, which would have allowed me to use my connection to my brother to find him.
Well, assuming I’d survived the Nectar. Consuming all that magic in a single sip would have killed me soon afterwards. It might have even killed me before I’d gained the power I needed to find Zane, and then I would be yet another causality, just more collateral damage in Faris’s immortal quest for power.
Since then, Harker had defected from Faris’s side, joining Nyx and Ronan. That might have been what Faris suspected, that Ronan was countering his power plays. I didn’t completely trust Ronan and Nyx, but I trusted them a hell of a lot more than I trusted Faris. For starters, they hadn’t tried to poison me.
I wasn’t going to expose my friend Harker’s defection. Nor would I tell Faris about my other friend Stash, the demigod who was being trained by Ronan and Nyx. A troubling thought came to me. Was Ronan only countering Faris and trying to build a Legion army to protect the Earth, or was the God of War actually making a power play himself?
I plugged those thoughts. I had to believe in Ronan and Nyx, in Nero’s trust of them, because otherwise I’d have to decide that I could never trust a single soul. If I could put my faith in anyone in this dangerous, cold world of angels and gods I was now a part of, it was Nero.
I would keep these secrets, not for Ronan or even for Nyx, but for my brother Zane and my friend Stash, for Harker and for Nero, and for myself. And also to piss off Faris.
“You’re hiding something. You will tell me what it is,” declared Faris.
The anger over what Faris had done helped fuel my resistance, but it was really my love for those I cared about that powered my resolve and allowed me to resist the god who was trying to break me.
His magic hit my mind again, pushing harder. I held on.
He frowned. “Stop fighting me. Tell me your secrets.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I do,” he said, his magic tightening its grip.
I could barely see from the excruciating pain. “Ok.” I swallowed hard. “But don’t come crying to me if you don’t like it.”
“I am a god. If I don’t like what you have to say, I won’t cry. I will kill you.”
I cringed. “You see, that’s not really convincing me to tell you anything.”
Faris gave me a hard look. “You’re stalling. There’s really no point. Pigheadedness will only get you so far.”
“I don’t know. Pigheadedness has gotten me pretty far in life. Though I prefer to think of it as strong-minded resolve.”
“I grow bored of your games. Spill your secrets, or I’ll crack your mind open and drink them from the shattered remains of your tangled thoughts.”
Yum, delicious imagery.
“I don’t have all day, child. Give me a reason not to destroy your mind.”
He was bluffing. He would hurt me, sure, but he wouldn’t break me beyond repair. He still wanted to use me. I was his best bet for finding Zane, so he wouldn’t discard me just yet. He didn’t seem to realize that if I became an angel and found Zane, I would do everything in my power to protect my brother from him.
“You won’t even be able to think ever again. You’ll be a vegetable.”
I could feel the boundaries of my mind splitting against the strain of his attack. I kept telling myself that he wouldn’t shatter my mind, but with each passing moment, it was getting harder to hold on to that conviction. Pain rattled my mind, plucking the stitching that held it together. I could see the way out, the path that promised an end to the pain. The answer was right before me, as clear as day.
I only had to tell Faris what he wanted to know, and the pain would stop.
“Ok, I’ll tell you what you want to know.” Catching my breath, I met his unyielding eyes. “Those boots don’t match at all with your belt.”
Faris blinked.
“And the hilt of your sword is clashing horribly with your amulet,” I added.
Outrage flashed in his eyes. “How dare you!”
“How dare me? No, how dare you come into my dreams uninvited and attack me for no reason.”
“My reasons are none of your concern.”
“Right. Because you torturing me has nothing to do with me,” I said, my voice thick with sarcasm.
“What will Ronan do with you when you become an angel?”
I shrugged. “Use me on the front line to fight demons, I suppose. I’m far too much of a troublemaker to put me in command of anyone. I’m much more useful as an expendable battering ram.”
“You’re not wrong about that. You are trouble.” Faris was frowning. “You’re either the best liar I’ve ever met, or you’re just a clueless pawn.”
“Or maybe there’s really nothing going on.”
“We’ll see.”
I shook, jolting upright in my bed, heaving in deep breaths. Faris would be watching me. And the closer I got to finding Zane, the more his gaze would be turned my way. I would have to be careful.
My bedroom door shook. Someone was banging on it like the building was on fire. That’s what had woken me up, freeing me from Faris’s interrogation. I slid off the bed and walked to the door. I found Jace on the other side, dressed and armed.
“The storm has cleared. We’re heading out.” His gaze flickered to the tank top and boy shorts I’d worn to bed. Then, likely thinking of Nero, his eyes hastily met mine. “Get dressed.”
I yawned. “What time is it?”
“Five in the morning.”
Of course it was. Danger never hit at high noon. It always came knocking in the middle of the night. Because, as
I’d told Nero, the universe just didn’t give me a break.
14
Magic Origins
It was still dark outside when Jace, his team, and I boarded the train out of Chicago, loaded down with enough gear for twice our numbers. On our way to the station, I’d texted Calli and Bella, but they’d told me that they had already left on the earlier train and would meet me on the Frontier. I wondered if they’d slept at all. Probably not. I hadn’t slept either. Having a god invade your dreams wasn’t exactly the most restful experience.
The train would bring us as far as the Frontier town of Infernal. From there, we’d drive a Legion truck out onto the Field of Tears, the wilderness that lay beyond the town wall.
“Purgatory. Infernal. Abyss. These Frontier towns have such posh names,” commented the female soldier.
“What did you expect?” said Bodybuilder One. “These backwater lands are hardly more civilized than the plains of monsters.”
“You could say the same about the pedigree of citizens they produce,” added Bodybuilder Two.
They all looked at me.
“You know, Frontier towns have the highest crime rate in the world,” said the nimble knife-wielder.
I’d already heard all of this before. More times than I could count, in fact. They weren’t wrong. Of course there was a lot of crime in poor areas. When people were desperate, survival took a front seat to propriety. People like these soldiers—privileged citizens who’d never had to worry about when their next meal would come, about whether they would have somewhere safe and dry to sleep that night—could not possibly understand. Sometimes you had to live it to get it.
I tuned out their hateful comments. They were just trying to annoy me, to get a reaction out of me, but I wasn’t playing along. I was too tired for that kind of nonsense. And, besides, nothing I could say would change their opinion if they were hellbent on hating me.