Ignoring the battle, she squinted down the shaft, sizing up the Ascension Tower. It was about two hundred heights tall, and not overly wide . . . what if she filled it with water and jumped?
No, she thought, chastising herself for the ridiculous idea. Even if she used all her magic, would it come close to filling the tower?
“Yes,” she breathed, her eyes widening. She, who knew next to nothing about magic, who hadn’t done any arithmetic calculation about the volume of the pit, was sure she could produce enough water to fill a satisfactory portion of the Ascension Tower. She didn’t know how she was so certain—it was a gut feeling, the sort of instinctive confidence you get when gauging a distance to jump and knowing you can make it to the other side.
A blast of air knocked into Seba. More guards had arrived on the scene. It was now or never.
She connected to her magic and once again felt that sweet rush of energy as she became one with her source. The threads of her soul strained to be free. So she stuck her hands into the shaft, fingers splayed, and let her mental barriers down, opening the floodgates once more.
Water erupted from her. A wave splashed sideways, slamming a palace soldier against a pillar before sweeping him away. The angry shouts turned fearful and frenzied. Clenching her jaw and fixating on her goal, Seba mentally narrowed the floodgates, imagining a tunnel leading from her soul into the tower. Miraculously, the liquid listened. The flood thinned to a concentrated waterfall that thundered from her outstretched hands.
A wall of flame spread from a point behind her, encircling the open pit of the Ascension Tower and trapping her within. At first Seba feared it was Tanthflame, but Endred came stumbling into view, his hands aloft and his wide brow slick with sweat.
“That should hold ’em off,” he was saying, “but not for long!”
“You were smarter than me,” Cezon called from the left. “I kept eating their damn poisoned meals. Still got a few days before I get my wielding back.”
“How about Iako?” Endred’s fire flared as someone from beyond the glowing red-orange wall blasted it with airmagic, but the barrier held.
“That idiot,” scoffed Cezon. “Never met a food he didn’t like, even if it’s prison bread. He won’t be any use.”
“The princess is doing a fair job in his place. Where is he, anyway?”
“Dunno. Out there distracting them, I expect.”
“He’ll get himself killed without his magic.”
Seba couldn’t see Cezon—she was preoccupied, watching energy distort the air around her fingertips like a heat mirage as her magicthreads became water—but in her mind’s eye she imagined him giving Endred a negligent shrug as if to say, Who cares?
Now space itself was distorting. The world narrowed around Seba. Everything caved in toward her shaking hands. She heard Endred’s voice, but it sounded distant and drawn-out, as if he were speaking in slow-motion.
She had been stupid. She could fill the Ascension Tower if she had time, but the problem was she didn’t have time. The soldiers were regrouping on the other side of Endred’s fire. Tanthflame might return at any moment, and if he joined the battle, they were done for.
The flickering of the fire slowed. Seba’s vision dimmed, as if light were struggling to reach her. Sound faded and her head grew heavy. The only constant was the relentless outpouring of water. It remained unwavering in its power and consistency, a furious, driving force.
A wave of drowsiness hit her and she gritted her teeth, fighting to stay alert. It felt like a foresight dream was trying to catch hold of her. She’d been a fool, made herself vulnerable—she knew using her base magic was a trigger for her other power.
She blinked. How had the tower filled so fast? It was hard to see, but it looked to be about a third of the way full with liquid.
It doesn’t matter, she thought, closing her eyes in defeat. That fall would still be fatal.
Behind her, Cezon and Endred were busy arguing about something. Cezon was talking about physics.
“You don’t know physics from a hole in the wall,” Endred cried.
“Nah, if I jump into the waterfall it’ll sorta push me down, and when I hit the surface it won’t hurt so much because of the turbulence and whatnot!”
“It won’t hurt because it’ll kill you,” the Fironian shot back.
There was a pause as Cezon thought. Seba gave a start when he shouted next to her ear, “Hey! Can you lift the water?”
Seba was about to scoff at the request, but she’d raised water before—she’d done it just a few months ago in the Galantrian Village. Why not manipulate the water up to shorten the drop?
With a stout nod, she mentally severed her connection to her power. There was an unpleasant pinching sensation in her chest, a prickle that spread throughout her veins—her body’s reaction to being cut off from her magic so inelegantly. There must be better ways to close the gates, to turn off the faucet, but she had never learned.
Without the deafening pounding of her waterfall, she heard the men beyond Endred’s fire shouting. Meanwhile, Seba reconnected with her source. Soothing strands of energy oozed through her, filling her once more with that intoxicating sense of invincibility, and she directed a river of threads into the water many heights below.
There were two subsets of manipulation magic: adverse and confluent. Confluent manipulation spells were simpler because they worked with the flow of threads. Adverse manipulation spells were difficult because the wielder had to work against the laws of nature. It was the difference between pouring a glass of water onto the ground and trying to scoop that water back into the cup with your fingers.
It was the difference between a waterfall . . . and a water-rise.
But Seba had risen water before, and she was not yet spent. She concentrated as she never had before. Her threads sank into the water below and she lifted her hands, flexing her fingers into claws as she willed it up, up, up.
Perhaps it was easier this time because she’d performed this exact spell half a year ago. While the effort to lift the tonnes of water was indeed monumental, it didn’t create the almost-physical stress on her soul she had felt last time.
There was a sharp cry, and arrows whizzed through the blaze. She heard Cezon grunt in pain. A heavy thump told her Endred had fallen to his knees. His fire spell flickered, then guttered out.
“Jump!” A hand closed on Seba’s arm and someone yanked her forward. She pitched head-first into the pit and hurtled into the water. After the heat of Endred’s spell, it felt icy cold. The shock of it caused her to drop her threads. Without her magic to counteract gravity, the water in the tower plummeted, pulling its human cargo with it.
Seba briefly saw a group of angry faces crowding around the opening of the Ascension Tower. Then she was swallowed by the gurgling, frothing mass of liquid. She pawed at the water, but a dragging sensation gripped her, yanking her under.
Before she could panic, the water bent around her and forced her through an archway, expelling her into open air. The glass door on the ground level of the tower had shattered, perhaps because of the vacuum she’d created when she’d raised the water. The liquid flooded into the main lobby of the skyscraper and through the front doors.
Seba swept into the street on the crest of a wave and washed up on the sidewalk across the road. A brutal wind sliced through her sopping garments. She coughed and gasped in relief, but she couldn’t savor her triumph—someone grabbed her, yanking her to her feet.
“And now, princess, we run.” Cezon gripped her hand and fled into the night, dragging her along. She coughed again, but couldn’t seem to expel the water in her throat. She tried to breathe, but her lungs weren’t working. Her body was shutting down, exhausted from her wielding exertions. Her vision went black and she stumbled.
The foresight sleep found her, as it always did when she was at her most vulnerable. There
was no fighting it. She surrendered to the dream, for she could only go where the current took her . . .
A woman and a man stood together in a prison cell, their figures stark against a jagged hole that revealed a burning city. They were close together, but they seemed worlds apart.
The man offered his hand and spoke imploringly, inviting her to join him. The woman responded in a voice that was quiet and broken. They grew angry and began to argue.
“Keriya, you’re going to die here. You can’t keep punishing yourself for what happened.”
The woman closed her eyes, and a pitiless smile touched the corners of her lips. “I can, but this isn’t about that.” She opened her eyes again and purple light spilled from them, drenching the stone cell with an otherworldly glow.
“I can save you,” said the man.
“I don’t want to be saved.”
“Your Grace?”
Far away, someone was shaking Seba’s shoulder. Idiots. They should know better. They always tried to wake her from the foresight sleep, but she wouldn’t regain consciousness until the vision had relinquished her willingly.
“I think she’s havin’ a fit,” said a scratchy voice.
“Give her a smack,” snapped a third speaker. “We ain’t carrying her across the whole kingdom.”
“I’m up,” she croaked, forcing her eyes open. The present reluctantly faded into focus. She found herself staring at three men and the rotting rafters of a low ceiling beyond them.
She wasn’t in her palace and she wasn’t surrounded by her servants. Reality came crashing back to her: she was on the run with Cezon, Endred, and Iako. She was on a quest to save Max and Thorion. Now, thanks to her vision, she knew where at least one of them was.
“Indrath Nazrith,” she rasped.
“What’s that?” said Cezon. He had a dirty cloth tourniquet tied around his left arm. Endred bore a bloodstain on the shoulder of his uniform. Iako looked unscathed. How he’d managed to escape, Seba could only guess.
“Indrath Nazrith,” she repeated, sitting up. “Max is in the Fironem with that witch, in the dungeons of the royal palace.”
“How do you know?” asked Endred.
“I—” Seba paused, then decided against telling them about her foresights. It was too much to explain. “I overheard them talking before they escaped. I thought they were going to the Valaani Temple, but their plans must have changed.”
Or maybe they got caught, she thought, suppressing a shiver.
“Anyway, if Max is in Indrath Nazrith, that’s where I must go.”
“The Patrol is crazy on the southern border,” said Cezon. “We’ll never make it through.”
“I wasn’t asking you to come,” Seba snapped. Although, now that she considered it, Cezon’s crew were experienced and resourceful, and powerful wielders to boot. “But if you want to help, there’s another hundred-thousand derlei in it for you.”
Cezon fixed her with a beady eye. “Make it three-hundred-thousand total for all our trouble.”
“Done,” Seba agreed without hesitation.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“Any answer a book can’t give you isn’t an answer worth having.”
~ Rikoru Ryesleet, Twelfth Age
Max had only packed one sylphskin blanket, so when they stopped, he and Keriya had to sleep side by side. While it provided little warmth, it was an excellent insulator, keeping their body heat in and acting as a break against the furious gales that swept the plains.
Alphir had taken a more reasonable pace after their initial flight from the twin cities. They intercepted the West Outlet River again on their third night of travel. Keriya dismounted, wobbling on sore and unsteady legs, and stared across the water. The far bank couldn’t have been more different from the flat, grassy land they’d been traversing. The ground lay in pieces—fractured rocks jutted at sharp angles, rising and falling in uneven patterns, wreathed in dark mists.
“We’ll rest here tonight,” Max said as he unpacked his bag. “It’ll be more comfortable. Any word from Thorion?”
Keriya shook her head and cast her thoughts out, trying to reach the dragon. She hadn’t been in contact with him since the dream, but she knew that he had powers that enabled him to conceal his consciousness. She wasn’t worried. Thorion had said he’d meet her at the Temariyan Gorge, and so he would.
They sheltered from the wind behind a large boulder. Max caught a fish and built a small fire. Alphir grazed while the humans settled down to watch their meager dinner roast over the flames, suspended by a simple airmagic spell.
Keriya knew Max would eventually want to talk about what had happened before they’d fled the palace. They’d hardly spoken since their escape, for their travels had exhausted them—but she feared she couldn’t avoid the conversation much longer. Indeed, Max took a breath and raised his head, and Keriya braced herself.
“Keriya, I think I owe you an apology.”
She closed her eyes. An apology would warrant an explanation, and an explanation would inevitably end with words she did not want to hear: I can’t be with you.
“I haven’t been forward about the situation with Seba. In avoiding it, I wronged you both. I just never expected any of this to happen.”
“What is the situation?”
“It’s as she said: we’re betrothed.”
“But you’re so young,” Keriya protested, as if that were any kind of excuse. In Aeria, people had spouses chosen for them as soon as they were named and accepted into society at the tender age of fifteen.
“Not so very young. I’ll be twenty in a few months.”
“Can’t you . . . I don’t know, not get married? Seems it’s second nature for you to go against your father’s wishes,” she added, only half-joking. She glanced up in time to catch a glimmer of mirth fading from Max’s face.
“Certainly, if I wanted to be selfish. But I think our marriage is the only thing keeping my father from declaring war on the Galantasa. He covets the north for its iron mines, and with everything that’s happening in the empire, it’s a perfect time for him to strike.”
Keriya nodded. Fidgeting with the ends of her sleeves, she asked, “How long have you known you’d have to marry her?”
“When Seba was born, King Wavewalker sent an emissary to my father seeking the union. He’d hoped it would soothe tensions between our two kingdoms.” He shook his head, turning the fish to cook its other side. “Guess it doesn’t matter now, does it?”
“It does if it’s preventing war,” she conceded. “If we can delay the states fighting each other, it gives Thorion and me more time to do our part.”
Thorion had a solution. He would soon be free of the darksalm. Then they could finish their quest and kill Necrovar. In her mind, defeating the Shadow would save Allentria and restore peace between the four kingdoms.
After a few moments, Max casually said, “Seba suspects something’s going on between us.”
“There isn’t,” Keriya muttered. She thought about all that had passed between the two of them, nothing of which had been particularly momentous. Her feelings were simply the whimsies of a child, and she had been foolish to believe they might ever be reciprocated.
“Isn’t there?”
“Are you kidding?” she said. “You’re trying to have this conversation now?”
“I know you’re angry, but the only reason I acted the way I did is because of this arranged marriage.”
“Does that just mean you’re sorry you got found out?”
“You’re making it awfully hard for me to spill my heart to you,” he growled.
Keriya cast him a searching glare. He was staring into the flames, arms crossed over his chest, hair falling in an elegant wave across his brow. Was he trying to imply that he had feelings for her?
She found it unlikely. She and Max had grown c
lose during their adventures, but no self-respecting prince would have anything to do with a peasant like her under normal circumstances.
“Did Seba give you that?” Keriya said suddenly, pointing at Max’s diamond amulet.
He turned and saw what she was indicating. “Why do you ask?”
“You always wear it, so obviously it has some importance to you.” In truth, the diamond was incongruous with Max’s style, which was elegant but not opulent. The necklace screamed of Seba’s influence: ostentatious, showy, even a bit gaudy.
He placed his fingers over the gem. “It came from a teacher of mine. It’s enchanted with lifemagic, and he gave it to me for protection.”
“It’s magic?” Keriya leaned forward. Now she was intrigued by the trinket—especially since she no longer felt obligated to hate it, seeing as it hadn’t been a gift from the princess.
“I channel my feelings and intent into it, and it in turn emits energy that can influence people around me.”
Something about that explanation bothered Keriya. She thought back on the times she’d been particularly starstruck by Max, from the first night she’d met him, to the Galantrian ball, to when he’d demanded that she summon Thorion after sending him to safety. In a carefully neutral voice, she asked, “Have you been using it on me?”
“I haven’t been able to use it at all of late.”
While Keriya was relieved to hear that, she noted it was not an actual answer. It sounded more like misdirection and omission. “Why not?”
“Because I have been conflicted,” he murmured.
Keriya had an interrogation’s worth of questions that she yearned to ask, but Max looked so thoroughly miserable by this time that she decided to leave it be.
When the fish was done cooking they ate in silence—it was clear neither of them wanted to continue the conversation. Max extinguished the fire, letting the night collapse on them, the only brightness coming from the stars above.
Dragon Child Page 32