Axel dashed toward the car, took cover behind it, and fired off another blast of magic. This one also hit the big crow in the back, sending him stumbling to his knees. He repeatedly shook his head, trying to shake the spell loose. Axel whipped another spell at him, but Karkov whacked it away without even looking, catching Axel by complete surprise.
Then came Delia’s attack.
One well-placed hit was all she needed; was all any mage, needed, really, unless they were going up against Vivimancers. It was like being hit in the shoulder with a brick. Axel spun and went down hard against the earth. His joints seized his muscles all contracted at once, making his fingers and toes scrunch up, and forcing his jaw to slam shut.
He could’ve bitten off his own tongue if he’d been a little unluckier. Then again, he’d just been brought down by crows; luck wasn’t with him right now.
Axel tried to fight the effects of the body-locking stunning spell he’d just been hit with, but there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t free himself. His Guardian couldn’t free him. That wasn’t what Guardians were for; they protected a mage’s soul from being tampered with, not their bodies. Despite the pain, he chastised himself for allowing the crows to have gotten the better of him.
The last time they’d faced off on the roof of the Atlantis, he’d beaten them both away with ease. Had they been practicing? Or was it, maybe, the fact that RJ had injured them both before they tried to take Axel on in a fight that allowed him to defeat them without even breaking a sweat? It didn’t matter. He’d lost, and now he was theirs.
Every time he tried to move, his muscles and joints would scream with pain, causing the veins on his neck and forehead to pop, but he couldn’t tell his body to just sit there. Not as Delia was approaching. She crouched beside him, cocked her head to the side, and grinned like she’d just found a gift-wrapped present with her name on it.
“Poor boy,” she said, her black-lacquered lips parted wide, her pearly white teeth flashing. “Looks like those friends of yours have made you a little soft.”
Axel wanted to tell her to go and screw herself, but his jaw had clamped shut.
Delia placed her finger against his lips. “Don’t struggle,” she whispered, and then she leaned in to whisper against his ear. “When your little girlfriend comes out of the Tempest—if she even makes it out alive—we’re gonna make sure to have a wonderful little welcome party for her. How does that sound?”
Axel struggled, but he still couldn’t speak. Anger, pain, hatred—even fear, fear for Izzy—all these feelings were surging through him like fire, but he couldn’t act on them.
Delia pulled away slowly, stopping to delicately kiss Axel’s lips. “That’s what I thought,” she said, and then she aimed her fingertips at his face. Green light swirled around them, blooming like flowers. “Night, night, sweet prince.”
A flash of light, and then utter and complete darkness.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Gargling, choking, I didn’t know which way was up. The currents tossed me around like a rag-doll, like a thousand hands had gripped me and were taking turns pulling me in all directions. I could hear my heart thundering inside of my head. I could hear the bubbles rolling past my ears as I screamed beneath the waves. Finally, I opened my eyes, and I caught a hint of flashing light through the murky darkness.
I swam for it, my arms and legs kicking and beating. My lungs were straining from holding my breath, my eyes stung as I forced them open, and my muscles were starting to feel like lead, but I fought with everything I had. I needed to reach the flashing lights, and I needed to do it fast.
Another hard push of the current forced me to topple underwater, causing me to lose my sense of where I was going. All was black around me, the water thick and unforgiving. Until I saw another flash of light, this time much closer than it had been before.
I raced for it, pushing my body harder than I’d ever pushed it before. I counted the seconds in my head as they passed, trying to keep my brain sharp as I raced to reach the surface. It was like I could feel the fight draining from my bones with each push of my arms, with each kick of my legs.
I breached the surface, gasping like I’d never taken a breath before in my life. My bones and muscles ached, my lungs were burning, but I’d barely taken three breaths of air before a wave smashed me in the face and sent me under again.
Water filled my mouth, my throat. I thrashed under the frothing surface, trying to right myself again. There was nothing to hold onto; no handrails, no ledge, nothing to help me pull myself up to the surface. All I had was my own willpower and the failing strength of my body. I didn’t want to drown in the Tempest, but as the frantic seconds passed, it was starting to look more and more likely.
I reached the surface and took a desperate breath, hoping I wouldn’t get sucked under again. The ocean around me roared and frothed, waves breaking furiously on all sides. Up above, a dark sky was cast in tones of purple and green, arcs of vicious lightning ripping across it like they hated the very clouds themselves.
I wasn’t sure how I was doing it, but I’d managed to keep myself afloat long enough to catch my breath and start thinking properly. It was now that the reality of where I was really sank its teeth into me. Besides the wind, and the lightning, and the waves crashing all around, was the crushing force of magic itself.
It pressed on all sides like invisible walls, and my entire body reacted to it by buzzing, vibrating. From my toes all the way to the hair follicles in my head, it was as if I’d become a lightning rod for magic. I’d only ever felt anything like it in the instant before I needed to cast a spell, but this was like that same feeling in overdrive.
This is why some mages don’t come here.
If you could avoid throwing yourself headfirst into this bat-shit crazy realm, you totally would. Any sane person with a working brain would. I had no doubts in my mind that I could be killed in here at any moment. That wave breaking nearby could be the one that sends me under and keeps me there. Whatever angry God was working that lightning up above could decide to focus its anger on me and zap me out of existence.
I wasn’t going to survive in here if I had to keep fighting only to stay afloat. I also couldn’t go back until I’d done what I had come here to do. The only option was to go forward, head deeper into the Tempest, and hope my Guardian knew I was here.
Despite having no sense of direction, and no landmarks to follow, I started swimming. It was hard to keep my head up at first, but as long as I kept away from the waves as they crashed, I was alright. For the ones I couldn’t avoid, my best bet was to try and swim through them, and hope I came out on the other side.
More than once, that didn’t work out. I kept tumbling in and over myself and swallowing more of the Tempest’s ocean. I tried using magic to level myself out, to help keep my head above water, but I couldn’t summon my power.
I was literally swimming in the realm from which all magic came, and I couldn’t cast a spell to save my own life. I couldn’t understand it. No one had been able to prepare me for what was coming because the Journey was different for every mage. Mine, it looked like, was going to involve more swimming than I’d done in… ever..
I should’ve joined the swim team in High School.
Then I saw it. A light in the darkness. The sky wasn’t dark for long between lightning strikes, but while the heavens fell silent, this little light remained. It was like a star on the horizon, twinkling gently. A jewel in the black. Hope.
I swam for it. I didn’t know how far away I was, how long it would take me to get there, or what would be waiting for me if I ever did reach it. Whatever it was, though, was bound to be better than floating in a black ocean surrounded by huge, frothing waves. But the Tempest had other plans than to let me simply swim toward potential salvation.
Those waves somehow got taller, and more violent. The current wasn’t only pulling me sideways and trying to veer me off course, it was trying to drag me under. Something grazed past my leg
as I swam, something slimy and long, and while it didn’t do anything to me, I still froze when I felt it.
Frantically I scanned the water around me. Lightning flashed overhead, illuminating the surface only for brief moments at a time. I couldn’t see anything swimming toward me, no fins in the water, no strange eyes looking up at me from the black. But the lightning couldn’t penetrate the surface, so if there was something underneath me right now, I had no way of knowing.
The best thing I could do was keep swimming, so I did. Despite my aching muscles, despite the constant burn in my lungs and chest, I swam for that light as hard as I could, and I watched it grow impossibly closer. It didn’t make sense. In the real world, that light was miles away, twinkling no brighter than a star in the night sky. Now it was more than just a blurry spec of light.
It was a flame.
Lightning struck overhead, blindingly bright. I had to shield my eyes for fear they’d get burned off. When the thunder came, it wasn’t a grumble, but a series of disjointed roaring, like a cacophony of lions. It was deafening, my senses were being thrown into chaos, and it was taking more and more of me just to stay afloat.
When I opened my eyes again, the lightning was still going, only now looking up into the sky wouldn’t burn my eyes off… and there was something in the clouds. Something winged, circling above me like a dark vulture.
Was it a Guardian? Was it my Guardian? As far as I knew, Guardians were the only beings that inhabited the Tempest. But what if that wasn’t true? What if this thing was hostile? Or, like a real vulture, what if it was waiting to pick at my remains after the Tempest was done with me?
I didn’t have a choice. I had to keep swimming. If the thing under the water didn’t get me, if the waves didn’t drown me, then this creature hovering above me would surely finish the job. Keeping my head down, I swam as hard as I could, allowing myself to go under from time to time to gain a little speed.
Whenever I had to come back up for air, I’d scan the sky for signs of that bird, and it was always there. It was following me. But the flame was getting bigger, at least. In fact, now I could see more than just the flame. There was land, too. I could see waves crashing against rocks, and a shoreline.
Dry land.
This was the last push. Despite the Tempest’s best efforts at dragging me under, I held my head above water and pushed the last few meters. A large wave swelled beneath me, and I rode it all the way to the shore where I rolled onto my back, coughing and wheezing.
I picked myself up as fast as I could and stumbled another couple of feet, getting far enough away from the water before falling on my back again. My breathing was ragged, my lungs and chest were sore, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to go swimming again, but I was alive.
Lightning broke high above; no streaks, just a gentle illumination of the clouds. That bird was still there, still circling. I fought to catch my breath, knowing full well I’d have to get up in a hurry if that thing decided to come down on me.
Looking around, the ocean didn’t quite look as violent now as it had a moment ago. The waves were still tall and foaming, the sky still turbulent, but its demeanor had changed. It was as if the world had quietened the moment I’d set foot on dry land, leaving a ringing in my ears, but thankfully little more.
I let my eyes close as I breathed, taking big, deep breaths in through the nose and exhaling sharply from the mouth. When I opened them again, something huge, and black, and skeletal was looming over me. My skin ignited, my heart wedged itself into my throat, and my muscles seized up—but only for an instant.
I scrambled away from the thing, digging my heels into the sand to help me get away from it. The thing in front of me unfurled a pair of feathery, black wings and cocked its black bird-like skull. It had hands, and feet, features that made it almost look human, but it… wasn’t. At all.
“Stay back!” I yelled, searching frantically for a rock, anything I could use as a weapon. When I found one, I grabbed hold of it and prepared to throw.
Lightning illuminated more of the thing’s sinister looking features. Then it stuck its skeleton hands out. “Don’t shoot!” it yelled, in a voice that could’ve belonged to anyone I’d ever met.
“Don’t… what?” I asked, confused.
It pointed at the rock in my hand. “What are you planning on doing with that, hmm?”
I glanced at the rock, then back at the bird-man skeleton thing. “Just stay the hell back, got it?”
“Will you relax, already? You made it here, so now we can talk.”
“Now? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you made it through the first part, and that means you’ve earned yourself a guide through the next part.”
I could feel the fight ebbing out of me. Sure, the monster standing a few feet away looked creepy enough, but I wasn’t feeling threatened by it. “Who are you?”
It shook its bird-like head. “My name is Oktos. I’m a psychopomp.”
“A psycho… pomp?”
Oktos shrugged. “That’s just a fancy word for soul guide. Don’t think about it too much.”
I let my arm fall to my side, but I didn’t let go of the rock. “I’m Izz—”
“—I know who you are, Isabella Warden,” Oktos said, shaking its head. “Don’t worry about the pleasantries. I know everything there is to know about you. I’ve been waiting.”
“Waiting?”
“Yeah, and a damn long time, too. I’ve got things to do too, you know. What took you so long?”
“I…” I didn’t know how to answer. The rock slipped from my fingers and fell into the sand with a thud.
Oktos shook its head. Its feathers ruffled. “You know what, it doesn’t matter. Your Guardian is waiting, too, and he’s more messed up about it than I am.” The skeletal bird gestured toward a path leading away from the beach. I couldn’t see the flame anymore, as the path lead toward a tall, dark wall, but there was light behind the wall at least. “This way,” Oktos said.
I had a ton more questions to ask, but I was also eager to get away from the water, so I walked.
At least I wasn’t swimming anymore.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I walked behind the human-bird skeleton thing, curiously watching the way its bones and joints moved. It was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen, and I’d once seen a pack of rats fight a feral cat over feeding rights to a severed human hand before. The hand itself was bad enough. It was half-chewed up, grey, and with bits of black showing. But the skirmish itself had an almost intelligent quality about it; like the animals were thinking the way humans did.
Oktos was weird in a different way. He was like something out of a movie. This construct of bones and feathers was such a huge step out of reality, that I almost saw him as a human wearing a costume. That, at least, was the way I felt around him. He was non-threatening, despite looking like something straight out of the depths of the Underworld.
He’d also said he was some kind of spirit guide, which made me wonder.
“How many more mages have you guided?” I asked. The walk to the wall was starting to drag. Talking, I thought, would help with my nerves.
“I’m about to say something to you that your Guardian is probably gonna repeat a lot,” Oktos said, “I can’t answer that.”
“You can’t? Why not?”
“Magic has rules. You understand that, right?”
“I do.”
“Well, the Tempest has rules, too, and so do all of us. The first and most important rule is that we’re forbidden from telling you anything that doesn’t concern you.”
“I’m not asking for a list of names, just an overall success rate.”
Oktos stopped and turned around, his feathers ruffling. Lightning cracked above us, silently this time. “Are you trying to figure out whether I’m going to get you killed or not?”
I shrugged. “Is it wrong to want to know how good you are at delivering mages to their Guardians? It’s not like I can look
you up online.”
It really was impossible for a creature made almost entirely out of bone to look like it was frowning, but Oktos made the message clear. “Are you serious?”
“Hey, wouldn’t you want to know the same thing if you were in my shoes?”
“I would want to know everything if I were in your shoes. Isn’t that what you mages are all about? You just have to turn over every rock, ask every question imaginable.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Oktos shook his head. “Alright, it’s not exactly a bad thing… but it’s rude.”
I stared at him, my eyebrows wide. “Wow… I didn’t think aliens from other dimensions cared about manners.”
“Yeah, well, I do.” Oktos spun around and kept walking. “For your information, my success rate is one hundred percent, but that doesn’t mean you’re gonna make it. Alien from another dimension,” he grumbled. “She’s the alien.”
I followed him along the cracked path. “That was harsh, but fair, I guess. I’m sorry. Unless you haven’t noticed, I don’t know what I’m doing in here. I fully expect not to make it out alive.”
“Then why’d you take the trip? You could’ve kept living your life… and then after you died, your Guardian would’ve started calling out to another soul. No harm, no foul.”
Why had I come here? I’d spent years refusing to answer my Guardian’s call, too paralyzed by fear to even consider entering the Tempest. It didn’t matter to me that having a Guardian would’ve made me more powerful. I didn’t care that not having one made me less than. I was happy where I was, exploiting my own extraordinary skill for a little money.
Then Asmodius happened, and Axel happened, and… I remembered everything Asmodius had said to me back at the Athenaeum. I remembered the way I’d fled the party like my ass was on fire. And I realized, it wasn’t a fight or flight urge that had taken over me. It was the Tempest. It had finally called me, maybe because of where I was, maybe because of who I was with, but it had called in that moment, and I had to answer.
Soul of the Storm (The Wardbreaker Book 2) Page 11
