Bethal’s next blast tore through his shielding.
She grinned.
She took a step toward him, and he tried something different. He wondered if he might target the stone. He tried to blast, but it bounced off, ricocheting, and hitting the wall behind him.
She grinned at him. “Once we have these two opened, the power will return.”
Sam stared at her.
He couldn’t overpower her with magic. He didn’t have enough power, nor did he have enough control. However, what he did have was size.
Bethal was a small woman.
Sam charged at her.
She shifted, but she hadn’t expected him to come running at her. He barreled into her, dropping his shoulder, and he slammed into her chest, driving her to the ground.
He brought his fist up to strike her and then paused.
He was going to punch—
A blast of power slammed into him, throwing him free. He went rolling and crashed into one of the other Nighlan. As Sam tried to get up, another burst of power struck toward him. He tried to contain it, trying to reach for the source, but doing so in the circumstances proved far more complex than he had found when he was not under attack.
Lilith jumped forward, stepping in front of him, blocking one blaster from striking him.
It bought him only a moment.
“We have to keep them away from the lock,” she said.
“I don’t know how you intend to do that,” Sam said. “It’s just you and me.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be,” Lilith said, her voice soft.
The others in the tower. That’s what she meant.
Others who were supposed to be here, fighting alongside her, others who were meant to ensure that the Nighlan couldn’t succeed.
They had been lost.
And the Nighlan had continued to destroy them.
He backed up near Lilith, pressing close to her. He could feel the energy within her. He didn’t need to see it. He was all too aware of how she was holding onto her power and how she was throwing it. Sam could see aspects of it radiating off of her.
He tried to mimic what she was doing, but he didn’t have the speed or strength to do so. He didn’t have the experience.
They were forced forward.
Toward the seal.
Lilith deflected to more attacks and then angled one toward Bethal, forcing the previous Grandam to shift her attack so that she could deflect the blast.
Lilith pulled Sam toward the seal, and the two of them stood over it.
“Keep them from opening this.”
“How are we supposed to do that?” Sam asked.
One of the Nighlan used arcane arts, blasting at Sam, but it started to fizzle out as it came toward the seal. He shielded himself, using a barrier of the source, and was thankful that it was mostly effective, but not completely. He could feel it and the energy within himself, but there wasn’t anything else that worked.
The attack came again.
He could do nothing other than deflecting the attack. Each time he felt the surge of arcane arts, Sam was forced to react, creating a shielding around himself. The shielding was strong enough to deflect most of it, but he feared for when it would fail. With the ongoing attacks, he couldn’t help but think that it would soon be overwhelmed.
Bethal and the two Nighlan came toward them.
Lilith tried to hold her hands up, but something happened.
A blast from Bethal managed to get past the protections that Lilith had formed, and it struck her.
Struck her hand, specifically.
And as it did, that power spilled into her vrandal.
Then it went down.
To the seal.
Lilith wouldn’t move. He didn’t know if she even could move.
He grabbed her, trying to pull her, but they were blocked by the Nighlan that surrounded them.
It seemed like the two Nighlan were holding her most of all, and he noticed the lines of angulation that they were using. He immediately targeted one of them, shifting his focus, and he sent a blast at it, striking one of the lines of angulation, cutting through it, and then through another. It was barely enough, but he could move.
Finally able to move again, Sam grabbed Lilith. He went running, pulling her with him, holding a shielding on both of them.
“What are you doing?”
“We can’t stay here.”
A blast of arcane arts went past him. It struck the doors.
Not that way.
There was another possibility, but he didn’t know how to do it on his own.
“I need you to activate the lanterns,” Sam said.
“You can’t leave. We can’t stop—”
“We can’t stop her,” Sam said. “But we can keep her from fully opening the seal, can’t we? Regroup, then you can come back here.”
Lilith sent another spiraling attack at one of the Nighlan, but it was blocked just as easily as the others had been.
“The lanterns,” he said. “Or we are getting out of here.”
She glowered at him.
“Now.”
Finally, she turned her attention to the lanterns.
Sam did his best to block, but the power coming off of her was considerable. Each time an attack came, it slammed into him and sent him nearly to the edge of the lanterns.
Lilith looked at the seal, and he could see the question in her eyes, the fear about leaving, but if they stayed, he knew what would happen.
“Please,” he said.
She finally shook her head, and she turned her attention to the lanterns.
A burst of energy came from her, power from the source that touched each of the lanterns. He had no idea how she could create five different lines, but each of them began to glow with a pale green light. It was different than the light that he had seen when they were used for communication. It was more like the light from his vrandal.
He tried to ignore the blasting at him, trying to hold his barrier up, keeping them safe. Lilith surged with power.
“Get closer,” she said, her voice strained.
Sam hesitated only a moment before joining her in the lanterns.
“Where is this going to—”
Sam didn’t get the chance to finish. A surge of power exploded around him. Blasting everywhere. At first, he thought it was coming from the Nighlan attacking, somehow overwhelming his protection, but it didn’t seem to be. It was coming from the lanterns. Pressure squeezed on him.
He had felt something similar but didn’t remember it quite like this.
As the power coalesced and collapsed upon them, he could feel the shift of energy as the Nighlan blasted through his protections.
Lilith stiffened, and then power burst through them and washed over them.
Sam blinked.
They were no longer standing in the room with the lanterns. Now they were on the stone bridge, the evening sky overhead filled with dark clouds and the sound of thunder rumbling distantly. A river ran beneath them, the current rapid and violent.
Lilith breathed out. “This isn’t quite where I thought we would end up,” she said, “which means…”
Before she had a chance to tell him what it meant, Sam felt something.
Arcane arts.
They hadn’t traveled alone.
Chapter Nineteen
He grabbed Lilith’s arm, quickly dragging her with him to the side of the bridge. The power was building, and Sam worried that a battle would be upon them suddenly. He looked up briefly at the dark sky. Lightning burst around them, and the occasional beat of thunder sounded within his ears, within his body, and even within his veins. With each clap of thunder, he felt something pulse within him.
Power. Energy. Something that called to him.
Lilith resisted his grip, but Sam pulled her along the slick surface of the bridge. He glanced behind him. Where they had been standing, there was now a lone figure.
Ferand?
Bethal?
Sam shook his head. It was neither. Instead, a dark-haired man Sam hadn’t seen before stood on the bridge. A different fear came to him: What if it was Rasan Tel? There was the possibility that he had been freed. If there was another seal that could release him and open his power to the world, it was entirely possible that he had escaped and was already coming for those who opposed him.
Lilith jerked her arm free and spun her hands in a circle, and the power that flowed from her spiraled in a similar manner as what he had seen in the tower.
“You need to go,” Lilith said, pushing back on him. “I tried to get us back, but something pulled on me. It prevented me from getting you where you needed to be.”
“I can help.”
“Go. Hide. They will free Rasan Tel soon—if they haven’t already. I know how dangerous that power is. You don’t.”
“I can lock the seal again.”
Lilith looked over at him. “It’s too late. You haven’t learned what you needed.”
She turned her attention back to the man.
The man was surrounded by a pale white light that glowed—not Rasan Tel, Sam decided. He faced Lilith, a wolfish smile on his face. “Did you really think you could escape us?”
“She won’t be able to follow me here,” Lilith replied.
“She might not be able to, but I did.”
Lilith nodded to Sam. “You should go,” she said softly.
Sam wasn’t sure what to do, but he could see the strands of power swirling around the stranger. Whatever energy he pulled upon was pushing back Lilith’s magic.
Sam knew the source was deep within himself. He hadn’t been using it during the attack, and now that he was out of the tower, there was no need for him to secure a barrier—even that amount of power was freed up for him.
Could he use that? He reached for it.
“No,” Lilith said to Sam, shaking her head.
The other man grinned widely. “You have been quite elusive.”
“You aren’t going to get what you want,” she spat.
“Are we not? I think we already have. How many years have we been looking for your place in the Barlands? Now you have led us to it.”
Lilith shot Sam a look, and he frowned. Had it been his fault?
This man was one of the Nighlan. Sam had little doubt about that, but he did question what role the Nighlan had in what was taking place. The energy continued to build, rolling away from him toward Lilith.
She pushed outward with her barrier. Out here with the thunder and the lightning and, surprisingly, the water flowing beneath them, Sam could feel that energy much more acutely than he had been able to before. He paid attention to what Lilith was doing, wondering if he could replicate how she was holding on to power. He could feel it, even if he couldn’t see what she was doing.
The other man was pressing inward to try to overwhelm her.
It was a battle of wills.
From what Sam could see, they were evenly matched. The man strained against her magic, and he used his own power to push her back. Sam could feel the effect of the power surging out from her, much like he could see the tension in the corners of her eyes, the way she clenched her jaw.
“If they capture you, they will—”
Lilith didn’t get the opportunity to finish. A burst of power came from the man and crashed into her. She was thrown toward the side of the bridge and slammed against it, crumpling to the ground.
Sam was left to face the man alone.
He hurriedly reached into the source, pushing power outward and solidifying it. He barely had time to do anything more. The man darted forward and tried to knife through the barrier Sam had formed.
“You are still young,” the man said. “You haven’t even learned how to remove the coloration from your attempt. Eventually, you will. Or should I say you would have learned?” His power continued to build, and he slammed himself forward.
The barrier Sam held started to crumble. Bethal was talented, but this man had a brute strength she didn’t possess. He might have been even more powerful than she was, which meant that trying to carve through his lines of power would be futile.
That didn’t mean Sam wasn’t going to try, though. It had worked against Bethal, and he had to believe that something similar would work now. Pulling on those strands might cut this man off from his power. Even if it were brief, it would give them a reprieve.
He needed Lilith to get back to her feet. He needed her to help.
First, he had to give her a moment to come back around. Sam held onto the source, and he tried to use angulation to draw upon even more. He found that he needed more than he had with Bethal.
The barrier continued to crumble as the attacker pushed against him. Sam didn’t have much time. As soon as his barrier collapsed, the man would reach him and undoubtedly overwhelm him.
Sam pressed against the arcane arts the man used, then attacked. There was a hint of resistance, and the man jerked back in surprise, trying to twist away from the magic. At that moment, Sam glimpsed success. He pressed power out from him, blasting the other man with as much energy as he could to cut him off from his connection to the source.
But the man recovered, and as he did, he solidified his connection. It was something Bethal hadn’t done. Perhaps Sam had gotten lucky against her. When he had faced Bethal, she’d already fought Lilith, so it was possible she was tired and weakened from that attack.
Sam attempted to slice through the connection to the source, but the man was well-built and powerful, able to move closer and push him backward. Sam was forced to take another step away from where Lilith lay, who still hadn’t moved.
Maybe he should have run when she’d suggested it. Lilith had far more experience, and he had no idea what he was doing. The only thing he understood was that the power he could call upon was not enough.
The man grinned at him. “There are far too many in this part of the world who think to cause trouble. They will soon be shown a different truth.”
Sam stumbled as he tried to get away. He still held his barrier in place, dragging energy from the source and hoping that the thundering around him would allow him an even greater connection. But as he felt the power intensifying all around him, he didn’t know if he was going to have enough. The barrier kept the other man back, but it did so with weak energy.
The man pushed against Sam. The barrier started to bulge, bowing inward with the force of his attack. It made Sam change his own focus, and now he paid more attention to the barrier instead of thinking about how to cut the man off from the source.
Sam’s attacker used his leverage to force his energy upon the barrier, and Sam was pushed down against the bridge. He eyed Lilith, willing her to get up.
The man laughed, his voice dark. “You have some talent, I’ll give you that, but no finesse. She hasn’t been able to work with you long enough to show you more.” He carved through the rest of the barrier.
When it collapsed, pain burst through Sam. He tried to ignore it and reach for the source yet again. He couldn’t do so quickly enough. Power slammed toward him in a thick strand of angulated power, stronger than Sam had seen. A beam of power. He hurriedly tried to resist, but at the last second, he changed his mind and swirled his magic against it. He managed to carve through that beam, but barely.
The man staggered back and caught himself. “I don’t care for that,” he said, storming toward him once again.
Sam got to his knees. The moment had given him a bit of a reprieve, long enough that he could regain his connection to the source.
The man used more force, squeezing Sam with a burning sort of pain. “We’ve learned ways of countering your kind of power. It might’ve taken us a while, but we always learn in the end.”
The Nighlan.
Sam knew they were masters and learning and understanding the connection to magic and knew that they had conquered many different places because of that.
But he had to ignore this man.
/> He had to ignore his taunt.
He couldn’t see Lilith anymore, and he didn’t know if she was still crumpled in a heap or whether she had somehow gotten up. If she had recovered, she hadn’t done anything to suggest she was in any shape to fight.
He needed her.
Sam backed up along the bridge. He resisted the attack, pushing more energy out from him, trying to use whatever he could. This wasn’t going to be effective against someone like this. The man was using something to make Sam’s ability to access the source more difficult.
The barrier hadn’t worked.
He had to try a different type of attack.
Sam thought through the various patterns from the almanac, trying to come up with anything he could use. Most of the patterns had been variations of defensive postures, and only a few of them had any sort of attacking abilities.
A soft moan. Lilith.
He needed to give himself time. He tested a different connection to the swirling power he held. He honed the spiraling pattern. Rather than target the man’s connection to the source, Sam instead aimed his spiraling pattern at the man himself.
He heard another soft whimper from Lilith. He couldn’t linger.
The man stormed toward Sam. Something wrapped around his legs, and Sam stumbled, falling back to the stones.
The man was there in a heartbeat, leaning over Sam. A menacing look contorted his face as he sneered. “And here I thought about holding you for study, but maybe I will just dispose of you and report back that there was an explosion.”
Power began to build from him, and Sam could feel how he was trying to use it. He could see the strands of power the other man started to draw and how the lines came out of his source, weaving and twisting in such a way that caused even more energy to blossom within him.
He tried to reach for the source, but he failed. There was some connection to it still within him, but not nearly as much as he needed. His access to the source was fading, the energy starting to seep out of him. Had this person done something?
The man grinned. “You begin to see your challenge?”
Sam scrambled backward, but there wasn’t anywhere he could go. The man was moving too quickly toward him. He was too powerful. Everything that he did, everything he pushed against Sam, was stronger than he could withstand.
Alchemist Illusion (The Alchemist Book 3) Page 19