by Lucia Ashta
In other words, he was a coward who let other people do his dirty work, and then blamed them when they failed.
“Of course, Your Grace.”
I couldn’t stand to hear one more “Your Grace.” I gritted my teeth and snuck a glance at Nando. He didn’t meet my gaze, refusing to look away from the duke. My brother sat straight and strong in his saddle. Although our movements were limited by whatever spell Maurisse enacted, Nando appeared far from defeated. That gave me hope.
Elwin? I tried again, but there was still no response. Oh, Elwin. Such a special firedrake. A creature a thousand times more honorable than the men who stood before us.
Trixie huffed heatedly at the men, as did Nando’s horse, but the duke ignored them, and for that I was grateful. If he held human beings in such contempt, what might he do to animals?
Sir Lancelot twitched and his deep breathing ceased. I suspected he might be waking, but I didn’t dare look down to confirm. I wasn’t sure the owl would keep his mouth shut, and I didn’t want to prod the beast or draw his attention to Sir Lancelot.
“Your Grace,” Sinter said, “I think the others are coming.”
Maurisse stiffened. Good. He considers the magicians of the academy a threat, as well he should.
“From which side?”
“Both.”
Hope soared in my chest. They were coming to rescue us! If they came from both sides, that meant we’d have the wrath of a vampire, the talent of a grand witch and many other magicians, Clara’s ability to rouse the elements and direct them to do her will, and Simon’s fireball magic. Things were looking up, and I dared allow myself my first deep breath since I’d heard Maurisse’s voice.
“Then I suppose we had better leave right away,” Maurisse said. “I’ll gather the full extent of my power, and as you know, it’s more than any of theirs, and then I’ll do the job everyone else had failed to do.”
I didn’t care about his arrogant posturing. They were leaving! For now, that was good enough.
“Open the portal.”
“I-I cannot do portal magic,” Sinter said. From the wicked grin that cracked Maurisse’s face in half, he’d been aware of the fact.
“You prove yourself less and less useful by the minute.” Maurisse emitted a long-suffering sigh. “I suppose I shall have to do it myself.”
I didn’t care who did it, as long as the portal delivered them far from here.
Nando said, “You’d better run, and fast, because once the magicians from the academy get their hands on you, they’ll tear you limb from limb.”
Maurisse sneered, and I would have sworn I was looking at an animal, not a person. His dark eyes gleamed in the dim light of his magic. “Is that what you think, boy?”
Nando stiffened, nearly imperceptibly, but he nodded. “I do.”
“Well then I suppose you’ll have to come along so I can teach you the error of your beliefs.” He was finally speaking to us, but of course it was only to threaten us. Obviously he fed on the fear of others.
He flicked astute eyes at me, and I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing my reaction. Instead, I smiled, feeling entirely unlike myself, but seemingly unable to help it.
“What are you smiling at, girl? Your brother’s impertinence just secured your passage with us.” But of course, that was a lie. I’d been foolish to consider he might leave us behind. We were the only leverage the man had, and he was desperate, although he hid it well.
“I’m smiling because I’m sure you will fail.” I didn’t understand where the words were coming from. But I couldn’t seem to stop them from coming, even as Nando shot me his first panicked look.
“Is that so?”
“Absolutely.”
“And why do you think that, you insignificant lump of flesh?”
Did he think that would offend me any more than his presence did? My smile broadened, and a piece of me wondered if I’d become unhinged. Had I cracked under the pressure? “Because you’re dark inside. You care for no one but yourself. Your magic only concerns itself with harming others, and true magic doesn’t work that way.”
“What do you know about true magic? You’re an inconsequential pupil of the academy. I’m—”
But I had no desire to hear his self-important fluff. “How would you know what I am and what I’m not? You can’t see anyone for who they are for the pompous piece of poo you are.”
Nando gasped softly, though the sound was concealed beneath Sinter’s inhale at the affront to his master. Sir Lancelot twitched in my arms, telling me he was indeed awake, though I wasn’t sure if he was worried or amused.
“You’ll pay for this.” One of Maurisse’s eyes twitched. His lips pulled back to reveal perfect teeth. In this light, bared, they looked like an animal’s.
“I won’t anything. I’m more than you realize, as is my brother. You’ve underestimated us terribly, and you, not we, will pay the price before the night is over.” It was like I was foaming at the mouth, sputtering nonsense. But the truth was that the words felt as if they came from somewhere beyond my fear, beyond a limited sense of myself.
I wasn’t sure if anything I said was true or not, but I’d said it. I wouldn’t take it back. In fact, I wanted to say more of it.
I felt Nando’s concern radiating off him in waves, his entire body clenched in preparation of the effort it would take to protect me from this man. Truly, I’d perhaps been foolish. Neither my brother nor I could move. We weren’t even strong enough in our magic to break the spell that bound our movements.
But I was so finished being meek and doubting myself. For goodness’ sake, I’d died and come back to life. I’d died. I wasn’t about to let myself feel insignificant again, and I sure as heck wasn’t about to let this man say that about my brother.
In the end, whatever I said wouldn’t change what Maurisse wanted to do with us. If anything, maybe I’d proven we were more than pawns, and maybe that would prove to hold value.
“I should kill them now.”
Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut. There was no way to stop him if he tried it.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Sinter said, and I shot him a death glare. To my surprise, he flinched and said, “The others are almost here. We-you should perhaps hurry.”
Maurisse brought both hands to his slender hips, allowing the glowing light to float between us. He jerked his jaw back and forth a few times. “I think I shall kill them later, after I have a little fun with them. Besides, this way they might still draw out the others, which will give them a use after all.” He laughed. “I’ve never tortured a brother and sister at the same time before.”
Maurisse’s eye jerked repeatedly before he whirled with his arms outstretched, knocking into Sinter and then blaming him for being in his way. With a rapid staccato of muttered words, a portal sparked to life with a pop and a flash of lights. I squinted my eyes against the sudden brightness and, once more, attempted to check on Elwin and to relocate Trixie away from the probable path of the portal.
It was useless.
The portal must have acted as a beacon. It was as if we’d sent out an SOS, and our friends answered with cries so loud and frenzied that they reached us, from both directions.
I felt the vibrations of horses charging toward us. They’d reach us in a couple of minutes or less.
But Maurisse didn’t look concerned, and that was plenty reason to concern me, although I kept my determined mask firmly in place. Something was simmering inside me. It wouldn’t allow me to shrink before men who didn’t deserve respect.
“You will go where I tell you,” Maurisse began to chant, and I struggled as hard as I could against his invisible binding.
“Resist you can, but fail you will.
Walk straight through the portal,
and wait for me, unmoving, on the other side.
I am your master, and you my servant.
To my orders you will abide,
or else you will... die.”
H
e ended his spell with a wicked grin. How unjust that he should be able to command our free will! It wasn’t fair... so perhaps he couldn’t. A fevered hope bubbled within me as I fought his spell and the force he placed behind it.
But whatever I did wasn’t enough.
He flicked his hand first at Sinter, emphasizing what he thought of him, and the sorcerer walked through the portal without hesitation or personality, like a puppet.
Maurisse sneered at Nando and me, waggled his eyebrows, then gestured lazily toward us, as if to suggest that his magic was so powerful that he could override our will without effort. In effect, he had, but I wouldn’t give him the pleasure of seeing the terror that caused.
I hovered above Trixie and clutched Sir Lancelot as tightly as I dared against my chest. I touched nothing but air, and heat flared through my veins as I struggled to do something—anything—to stop Maurisse.
But he snapped his wrist violently toward the portal, and I tumbled ungracefully toward it, not even managing a final look at Trixie or Elwin. At least it appeared as though they’d remain behind, and for that I was grateful.
Top became bottom and bile pooled in my throat.
My flesh prickled with goose pimples as I neared the electric field of the portal.
With all my might, I pulled back, resisting its magnetism. Though I had nothing to hold onto, floating as I was, I managed to hold myself still for a few moments, during which I hovered above the ground horizontally, caught mid spin.
But then Maurisse growled, and he must have shoved the magic he attached to me.
The air left my body in a painful snap, and I tumbled headlong into the portal.
The next instant, it sucked the life from my body, tore it to shreds, and prepared to assemble me somewhere else.
There was no more fighting it. I was at the mercy of forces beyond my control. And so were Sir Lancelot and my brother.
All I hoped for now was that we’d survive it. Then I submitted to the pain and terror of coming undone and being nothing at all.
Chapter 8
I landed against hard, compacted dirt so roughly that I feared the sound of impact concealed the snapping of my bones.
But then I remembered to breathe, and the ache I suffered was all-encompassing. It didn’t emanate from just one place. No broken bones. Phew.
Nando hurtled through the portal seconds later, crashing into my side with a deflating thwump. “Agh,” he groaned as I wondered whether Maurisse had intentionally made our landing hard. Every other time I’d traveled through a portal, I’d walked right through it.
Nando rubbed his head, around the area of the bandage, as I became aware of the set of beady eyes that watched us from the shadows. Sinter sat, giving me the impression that his master had transported him harshly as well.
“Sir Lancelot!” I cried as I remembered, with a jolt, that I was holding him. I hurried to adjust my hold on the bird, who was upside down and backwards in my arms. His feet jutted over the side, rigid as if rigor mortis had set in.
He didn’t even twitch. “Sir Lancelot?” I whispered.
He snorted, coming back into himself. “Yes, yes, I’m here.” His voice was muffled against my shirt. “Lady Isadora,” he added weakly, and I shook my head that the owl should think to use manners in a situation such as this one.
I turned him gingerly until he sat upright in my arms, his head leaning against my chest. Never had the owl been so weak... or this disheveled. Arianne had tasked me with protecting the bird while he healed. I’d already failed her, and him.
“Are you... all right?” I asked him, but he was busy pulling in frail, wheezing breaths. Finally, he nodded, looking as if that’s all he could manage.
“And you?” I asked Nando with trepidation. Would life never stop throwing us into awful situations?
“Shh.” He shushed, though not unkindly. He pinned his eyes on the empty portal, which continued to spark and sputter as if it were a campfire that someone had thrown a fresh log onto.
The spinning lights of the portal, which circled in an endless loop, sputtered with greater energy. They shone brighter and became more insistent, which must mean...
Maurisse strode through the portal with his supposed elegance intact. Sinter squinted his eyes before the duke noticed. Did Maurisse punish everyone, just because he could, or had Sinter done something to offend him?
Maurisse brushed invisible lint from his pressed shirt and slacks and stopped immediately in front of Nando and me, forcing us to crane our necks to make eye contact.
“I remained behind long enough to tell your friends that it was up to them whether you live or die.” He chuckled and swept his hair from his face, doing an accurate impression of charisma. “Of course, it isn’t up to them, but it’s good that they think it is. Give them a little something to motivate them to walk straight into my trap.”
“What makes you think they’ll fall for your trap?” Nando asked. “They’re smarter than that.”
“Oh?” His eyebrows rose. In the light of the portal, the expression was particularly sinister. He flicked a languid hand behind him, then snapped it into a fist. The portal sputtered once, twice, then shrank to nothing in five seconds flat. The next moment, it vanished, plunging us into darkness.
“You think your friends are smart, do you? What do you think of that, Sinter?”
“I think they’re fools. They’re all fools.” Sinter’s voice sounded nearby. I shivered at the thought that the stringy-haired man had moved closer to us.
“Yes, they most definitely are. They underestimated me, and that’s the most foolish mistake they could have made.”
“And the last, isn’t it, Your Grace?”
Brown noser.
“Definitely. It seems the travel through the portal has revived your brain, Sinter.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” I wanted to smack him and make him never grovel again. It was so... demeaning, even for a misguided sorcerer like him.
“No, your friends will come,” Maurisse said to Nando and me. Unable to see him, his voice was even more menacing. I drew my knees to my chest and propped Sir Lancelot against them, then I inched closer to my brother.
“Not only will they come, they’ll come running. But no matter how fast they arrive, I’ll be ready for them. And this will end, once and for all.”
Once and for all? Maurisse had only been trying to take over the world for a few months from what I understood. Perhaps in his mind that was too long, or maybe he’d been plotting his takeover for longer than we’d realized.
“The resistance will fail,” he continued, “and the academy will crumble.”
“And what?” I asked, unable to help myself. If he was going to kill us in this dark... place—where were we, anyway? I had the sinking feeling it was another dungeon, and I’d certainly had my fill of those. “What are you trying to accomplish by telling the world about magic? They aren’t ready for it.”
“I don’t care whether or not they’re ready for it,” he snapped. “I don’t care about them at all, just as they haven’t cared about any of us since the beginning of times. There isn’t enough room in the world for people with magic and those without it. They’ve made that abundantly clear by trying to kill off our kind. Since it has to be us or them, I choose us. And whoever wishes to accept magic, can serve us. We’ll need a servant class of course.”
Of course. I scowled. “So you don’t care how many people will die in the bloodshed your plan will cause?”
“Not one bit. Do you know how many wizards and witches they’ve burned at the stake, or drowned, or hanged, or quartered, or done a variety of other colorful things to?”
I didn’t, but I was certain I didn’t care to find out. It wasn’t that I agreed with what people like Uncle had done in their ignorance, but neither did I want more violence. More senseless death.
Maurisse wasn’t waiting for my reply. He began to pace in front of us; I could make out his predatory steps as he stalked across the d
irt, padding softly. “It’s plain and simple. It’s us or them. There’s no middle ground, really.”
But there was always a choice, wasn’t there? With a start, I realized I could move again. Maurisse hadn’t bothered to bind us here, where he thought we couldn’t flee.
“I would have invited Mordecai and Arianne, and even that twin of hers, to join the Sorcerers for Magical Supremacy”—he took the time to enunciate the name of his group with evident pleasure, telling me he’d been the one to select the name—“but when I put feelers out, they reacted poorly. I even tried with Giselle, whom apparently has joined the academy.” A scowl colored his voice. “I’m surprised she didn’t see it my way. She’s the only one of them smart enough to do what needs to be done, no matter the costs.”
His steps quieted, and I suspected he’d whirled to face us. “No matter. I’m plenty strong without them, and even without that boy Simon, our faction is powerful enough to wipe out our opposition.”
“We’re stronger than you think,” Nando said.
“No, boy, you aren’t. You just think you are. There’s a big difference.” Of course, Maurisse had no problem ignoring the hypocrisy in his statement.
“Time will tell.”
“Indeed, time will. And thankfully, I won’t have to wait long.” He rubbed his palms together like an excited child, the sound of friction sending a shiver through me.
“What makes you say that?” I asked fully hesitant.
“I know Mordecai and Arianne well. Even Giselle. Or didn’t they tell you. I knew Mordecai wouldn’t be able to stay away once I trapped Albacus. Just as I know none of them will stop until they find you.”
I sensed his dark grin as prickles across my flesh. “They’ll come, all right. But things won’t go as you think they will.”
“Oh, yes they will.”
“No, the magicians will defeat you. Of that, I have no doubt.” Maybe I had a little, but I wouldn’t admit to it. Not a chance.