by White, Gwynn
He shot me a hard glare.
“Yeah, that one,” I said, nodding.
Aaron did not speak. He just walked beside us in his armor—a big, black menace in a snowy white corridor.
Another set of double doors opened in our path. They were made of black-brown wood, each one engraved with three snowflakes over a castle fortress, the emblem of Everlast.
The great hall we entered was three times higher than the voluminous hallway we’d just walked down. It extended upward as high as the castle itself. Sparkling chutes of sunshine poured through a grid of slim windows sprinkled along the outer walls. Even as we stood there, I noticed the light was fading, succumbing to the force of the mounting storm outside.
Air whistled past my ears as a torch flamed up on the wall behind us. It was an eerie sensation, like a ghost walking past me. No one had lit the torch. This was Phantom magic at work.
The flames of the two torches on either side of the first puffed into existence. They were followed in turn by the next two. And the next. All the way down the sides of the chamber. With the birth of each new flame, a breeze brushed across my skin, until goosebumps covered my body from head to toe.
The faint blended scent of gas and burning wood that had accompanied the first flame grew stronger with the lighting of each new torch. By the time they were all lit—all those hundreds—the smell was almost suffocating.
Jason was staring straight ahead, so I directed my eyes that way too. Three wide wood steps led up to a raised platform, where a woman sat with her legs swung over the arm of a… I guess throne was the most fitting word for the chair of twisted wood. It had been fashioned using gnarled branches from a dozen different tree species, in colors ranging from speckled white to near black.
A scarlet red cloak was draped across the woman’s legs, rippling over the edge of the throne like a bloody waterfall. It was complemented by her thick braid of black hair—darker than night itself, with a tendency toward indigo. Her plait coiled out from her snow-white, fur-trimmed hood, falling over her shoulder. With her startling electric blue eyes and skin as pale as the tundra on her doorstep, she really did look like the queen of winter.
“Jason Chanz. You have returned.” Her voice, melodious and potent, echoed through the hall as she stood.
“All rise for Her Majesty Queen Gale, sovereign of Everlast and Queen of Phantoms,” the head guard boomed out.
His address was excessive, as everyone in the room was already standing.
Jason’s emotionless face had hardened, the Elite Phantom in him likely irked by the line ‘Queen of Phantoms’. He looked up at the Queen, his eyes turning obsidian as she returned his unblinking stare. Her eyes phased to an even more intense blue. The tension was making my skin crawl.
Jason waited until the female Phantom—an oddity in itself, as most Phantoms were male—looked away. Then he inclined his chin in a subtle acknowledgement. “Queen Gale.”
She descended the first stair, her red cloak kissing the floor as she moved. “I wonder…” she began, moving onto the next stair. “…what it is that has brought you back here.” She stepped off the final stair, walking forward until her nose was almost flush with Jason’s. He didn’t even flinch.
Queen Gale was no small woman. She and Jason stood eye-to-eye in height, two sets of unblinking, penetrating Phantom eyes.
I cleared my throat loudly. Queen Gale kept her eyes locked on Jason for a few long seconds before she disengaged to assess his companions. The hint of a sneer that graced her full lips told me that she wasn’t impressed by what she saw.
“A vampire.” Her gaze flickered to me. “And a little girl.”
Charming.
“Last time we met, you did not keep such…interesting company,” she said, turning a bright smile on Jason.
She was looking at me again. “Surely any mission you take on is far too dangerous to bring a child along. This one appears to be such a fragile creature, not up to the sort of rigorous activity in which a Phantom relishes. Would it not have been better to leave her behind?”
I glared at the Queen with unfettered abhorrence. I felt an acidic tingle in the air—then realized it was my own rage. I felt borderline murderous. This was a new feeling for me. There was a Phantom inside of me, raging to break out. If looks could kill, by now I would have boiled and then burned the queen to a crisp for good measure.
I quickly folded my hands together behind my back and did my best to control my temper. Queen Gale was trying to provoke me into an outburst. She wanted me to take the first misstep. She wasn’t even being subtle about it. But why? Why create conflict?
“My mission necessitates her assistance,” Jason said, shifting his body so that he formed a wall—physical and visual—between me and Queen Gale.
“Tell me of this mission,” the queen prompted in a fierce purr.
“I cannot say,” he replied. “I ask only that we be allowed to use your portal to Temporia.”
“An interesting location,” she commented, her gaze contemplative. “Since that is a world controlled by the witches of the Avan Empire. What are you up to?”
“Nothing.”
Queen Gale clapped her hands once. “Very well. I agree.” Smiling widely, she added, “On one condition.”
My pulse quickened. Here it came.
“You agree to a duel with me. If you win, you and your traveling companions will be our guests until the storm clears.”
“Why can’t we use it right away?” I asked.
“Because, dear girl, that is the law,” she said with false sweetness. “The portal may not be used during the storm. Turbulent weather interferes with its magic. People have been known to go missing in the cosmos.” She winked at me. She held up a finger, and her smile grew wider. “But if I win, your companions must go, and you will be my guest here for the next month.”
“Jason, I don’t think—” I began.
He stepped forward, silencing my protest. “Agreed,” he told the Queen.
Queen Gale smirked at me. “Excellent. You may select one blade.” Her eyes slid over the armory of weapons strapped to him—or perhaps more likely, his muscular body that had been sculpted by an endless barrage of training sessions, clearly defined by his fitted leather armor.
“Jason, this is a bad idea,” I told him as he turned to hand me the leather straps of knives he’d peeled off his body.
He selected his weapon—a Wing knife with a sapphire-studded hilt and a blade about as long as his forearm—then he draped the last weapon belt over my arm. “Do you think I will lose?”
“Even you don’t win all the time.” I paused, my eyes narrowing when he began to nod. “This is no time for jokes, Jason.”
“Who’s joking? I will not lose,” he assured me.
“If you do—”
“I won’t,” he repeated.
“But if you do, you will be stuck here for the next month, entertaining that…that harpy,” I spat out, glaring at the queen.
Ok, so my insults needed work. But I was too angry right now to think of any good ones.
Jason stepped to the side so that I could no longer see past him. I persisted in trying to bore a hole through him for several stubborn seconds before I turned my head up to glare into his eyes instead.
“Careful,” he warned me. “You’re playing with fire there, Terra.”
“I don’t care about your silly Phantom staring contests,” I ground out through my teeth.
“Are you ready to begin, or do you want to send your child companion out of the hall first? Phantom fights can be a lot to take in for such a gentle mind,” Queen Gale’s voice lilted, sweetness tempered with fire.
Jason turned toward her and declared, “I’m ready.”
As the guards ushered me and Aaron toward the wall, Jason and Queen Gale lifted their blades in preparation. The queen had selected a Wing knife similar to Jason’s, set with diamonds rather than sapphires. Blue and clear, the two swords’ gemstones sparkled in t
he firelight as the fighters circled around each other like two tigers in the heated prelude to a fight. Queen Gale thrust up her free hand, flinging her cloak high into the air. A magic breeze caught the cloak, rippling silkily across the crimson fabric.
Queen Gale opened the duel with a diagonal slash so quick it would have taken a slower opponent’s arm right off before he could even move to block. Luckily, Jason was no common fighter. The thundering clash of metal against metal meant she’d put as much power as speed into the attack. She sure didn’t waste any time warming up.
Pushing up hard with his blade, Jason threw Queen Gale off of him. He took a swift step to the side, then followed with a swing toward her shoulder. She slithered out of reach. She was quick, but Jason was quicker. As she evaded his knife, he thrust out his arm. A burst of Phantom energy, more focused and volatile than wind, split through the air and hit the queen hard in the stomach. It catapulted her back ten meters at breakneck speed, so fast she was little more than a blur.
Boots ground into stone as she kicked off the back wall, the force setting off eruptions of tiny rocks and a sprinkling of fine dust. Queen Gale landed in a neat crouch, grinning at Jason as she rose. Behind her, the wall was newly decorated with twin intertwining webs of tiny fissures.
She lashed out with her own Phantom mind blast to hit Jason square in the chest. As the invisible energy made contact, the spasm of his muscles was eerily visible through his leather armor. He managed to hold his ground for a second before her spell overpowered him, tossing him back. That moment of resistance slowed down the mind blast. Jason rode the energy wave, launching himself into a backward somersault that drained the last of its energy.
His feet had only just touched down when he sprinted forward in a burst of speed, closing the vast space between them within a split of a second. Queen Gale was waiting for him. Her blade whistled five staccato notes as she greeted him with a series of crisp slashes. Jason dodged each one, then hopped back far enough to focus his eyes on the hand holding her knife.
Her blade began to glow deep red. The Queen smiled and struck out at him. Jason parried and advanced with an attack sequence of his own. The strikes blended together into a continuous barrage, forcing her to hold securely onto her knife, the metal by now smoldering orange. Queen Gale gritted her teeth, stubbornly pushing through the pain. The stench of burnt flesh wafted through the hall.
Jason didn’t let up, striking faster with each successive slash of his blade. The clinking chime of metal against metal crescendoed. Their daggers were two intertwined streaks of unbroken silver swirls, dancing between them.
Slowly, the queen’s blade glowed lighter. When it reached bright yellow, it burst out of her hand and slid across the floor. Jason turned his wrist to thump her in the nose with the blunt end of his dagger’s handle. As she stumbled back, Jason whipped around her and pressed the edge of his blade to her throat.
“Yield,” he said.
A stream of blood trickled down Queen Gale’s face, dripping from her broken nose. She grinned.
“Yield,” he repeated more forcefully, pressing his blade closer.
She slid her tongue slowly across her bloody lips, as though the thought of being skewered by him delighted her. “I yield,” she finally said.
I let out a sigh of relief. Jason released his hold on the Queen. He walked over to me to reclaim his other weapons.
“Perhaps you would consider a rematch?” Queen Gale suggested, a hopeful gleam in her eyes.
Jason had only just finished beating her bloody, her hand was hideously burnt, and she already wanted more? She was sick.
“Some other time,” Jason replied, turning his back to me so I could secure the last of his straps.
I buckled the weapon belt across his back.
“Of course.” Queen Gale nodded, giving his body a penetrating once-over that would have made anyone but Jason flush.
His face remained blank. “Please show us to our rooms while we wait out the storm.”
The delighted cackle that burst from her lips threatened to split my skull open.
“Oh, no. You’re not getting away that easily,” she purred. “You will dine with us tonight at a banquet in your honor, Jason Chanz, Elite Phantom.”
From the way she said it, I had a feeling attendance wasn’t optional.
16
Foresights
The banquet in the great hall lasted late into the night. Every time I thought it was nearly over, Queen Gale called for another course to be brought to the tables. By midnight, I was very full—and many hours overdue for my appointment with my pillow. But I swallowed my yawns and suffered my exhaustion. I couldn’t leave yet. The mages of Everlast were sticklers for protocol, and they would take my early retreat as an insult.
And I refused to leave Jason alone with the Queen, who seemed more interested in devouring him than the food on her plate. All night, she had nibbled only small morsels from her supper, foregoing eating in favor of hitting him with an unceasing barrage of chatter. Since Jason was a sparse conversationalist at best—as a rule, he responded to questions with stony-faced silence—the Queen was doing most of the talking for the both of them. She didn’t seem to mind.
I did. Queen Gale was strong, stunningly beautiful, and a superb fighter. She wore power around her like that luxurious red cloak of hers, oozing tendrils of Phantom energy behind her as she moved. While not equal to Jason, she was good. Too good. She was certainly more than skilled enough to make me look like an utter fool if it ever came to a fight between us—which it would if I didn’t stop fantasizing about leaping over the table to stab my fork through her hand. A Phantom might just take that as a challenge.
At long last, Jason stood, peeling off the hand Queen Gale had kept glued to his arm the whole night. “It is late.”
Expelling a woeful sigh, the Queen nodded to one of her guards. She gave Jason a little flirtatious wave—and me a smug smirk—as we left the great hall.
The guard led us into the castle’s guest wing, stopping in a dead-end hallway. Without a word, he pointed out three adjoining rooms, then left.
I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow, but it wasn’t a restful sleep. I tossed and turned, plagued by nightmares of what we would find at Vib’s lair—and by a deluge of foresights. They carried me away, plucking me out of my dreams.
A gunshot roared in my ears. In my dream, a man fell backward into a pond. It was someone important to me. I knew that, even though I couldn’t see his face. I cared about him—and he was dead.
My throat erupted in a scream. My head snapped around to find his murderer, but my eyes went dark before I found him. I lifted my hands in front of my face. No, it wasn’t my eyes that were the problem. I could still see myself. It was everything around me that was fading out. I blinked rapidly.
Then I was staring into Aaron’s eyes. His hands held tightly to my wrists, pinning them against the cold wall. His lips kissed up my neck, slowly working up to my face.
“Stop,” I whispered as his mouth hovered before mine.
“You don’t want me to stop,” he replied, his voice soft and seductive.
“No,” I admitted, giving in to the kiss.
My magic catapulted me into a jumble of sights and sounds, flashing past faster than I could focus. I no longer had any sense of time or place, or even people. My head spun and my body convulsed. It was nauseating.
Finally, the spinning stopped.
“I missed you,” Jason said from behind me.
I opened my eyes and turned, trying to calm the rapid rush of images shuffling through my mind. They slowed down just enough for me to view the scene with some semblance of clarity.
Jason, his body thrown into the over-saturated high contrast of foresight, stood in the doorway, his arms folded tensely across his chest. Slowly, he approached me, rolling the silver chain of a necklace between his fingers. It was as if he had to be doing something with his hands.
He stopped in front of
me, so close that his chest brushed against mine as he breathed. His unblinking eyes locked with mine, and I smiled and looked down. He tilted my chin up with his index finger until my gaze met his, and the necklace slipped through his hand. My arm shot out and caught it by the chain. The sapphire on the end swayed between our bodies.
“You dropped this,” I told him.
“It’s yours,” he replied, closing my fingers around the warm metal.
His hands remained cupped around mine. The soft thump of his pulse bubbled and popped against my skin. His head was lowering, deeper, deeper toward me. His lips brushed lightly past mine, and it burned. But it was a good burn. A warm, delightful, encompassing burn. I looked into his eyes, and they were no longer cold. I grabbed the back of his neck, pulling him closer. He moved in to kiss me…
I woke up.
I jumped out of my bed, pacing across the room, my mind buzzing with stolen kisses and forbidden foresights. I couldn’t think about what I’d seen. It would drive me mad. The future was not set, not certain. It was a kaleidoscope of possibilities. I needed to…
“What, Terra?” I muttered to myself. “What do you need to do?”
Anything but this. I put on my boots and opened the door, slipping into the hallway. The halls were dark and quiet, but the howling chorus of the snowstorm pounded outside.
Inside, it was hardly warmer. My breath puffed out in frozen clouds, and I shivered in my black tank top and shorts. Maybe I should have put on a jacket.
I was about to head back to my room when the sounds of a battle echoed through the castle. I stepped onto a balcony that overlooked the great hall. The tables brought in for the evening banquet had been cleared away, an effortless task for a castle full of Phantoms. Without them, the room felt even larger.
I thought I might find Phantoms fighting down there—or, if the universe was really frowning on me today, witness Jason’s rematch with Queen Gale. I didn’t expect to see Aaron.
The vampire was fighting Queen Gale, and he was doing it without his armor. Instead, he was dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a black undershirt that showed he really was a tank under all that armor.