Gods, I sure fucking hope not.
Upstairs, everyone was waiting for me, huddled outside Becket’s office. I walked up to the door and stood aside, allowing Becket to open the door himself and step through. He signaled for us to enter behind him, and we did like a solemn procession in prayer; silent, and perfectly in line.
Once we were all inside, Becket pulled the box out of the drawer in his desk and set it down. He opened it, and as he did so, I walked over to it. Already I could feel my heart pounding, its thunderous beat smashing against my temples, my ears. I caught sight of Ifrit on my shoulder, watching things unfold from his vantage point.
Becket turned the box with the scroll around, allowing me to get a good look at it… and then he waited.
Swallowing, I took another step closer to the desk and brought my fingers to rest just a couple of inches away from the scroll itself. I wanted to feel for the ward around the seal, to listen for its hum—its essence—as I’d done many times before. When I heard it, it was like the first time all over again.
The ward’s scroll was distant and quiet, subtle. Nothing like the others I’d come across in my life. Maybe that was because it was so old that its power had receded, faded away into the background. As if, I thought. The truth was, that thing was probably just as powerful now as it had been the day it was created.
Wards didn’t just break over time.
“What do you think?” I asked Ifrit.
“Are you asking me if you can open it?” he said.
“Yeah… I know I couldn’t before I found you, but with your help…”
“Let me be clear on something, I can’t help you open this thing. That all has to come from you. All I’m here to do is make it easier for the magic from the Tempest to reach you, and occasionally be that thorn in your side that gives all kinds of unsolicited advice.”
“I get all that, but can I do it?”
Ifrit looked at me. “You can do it. Whether you succeed or not, though, that’s up to you.”
“Do you understand how Wardbreaking works?”
“Even if I did, which I do, you know I couldn’t tell you more than you already know. What I can do is help you remember things better, which’ll make cracking wards a little easier, don’t you think?”
I nodded. “I could get used to having an eidetic memory, that’s for sure.”
“Alright, well… the world’s watching. It’s time to do your thing… and please, get it right? I don’t want our partnership to be a short-lived one. I’ve only been here a little while, and I’m already highly entertained.”
I pulled my hand away from the scroll, confident that I could do it, even if I wasn’t confident that it wouldn’t kill me.
“So?” Becket asked, his eyebrows arching.
I nodded. “I’ll need to be alone.”
“Take all the space you need… but be careful.”
“You’re telling me.”
“How much time do you think you’ll need?” Karim asked.
I shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. Maybe a few minutes, maybe an hour… I won’t know until I start.”
“I’ll put a kettle on, then…”
“That sounds good to me.”
Karim turned around and slowly exited Becket’s study. The others followed, Axel leaving the room last. He stared at me for long moment, maybe trying to work out in his head whether I’d let him stay if he asked. Something like that, I could tell, was brewing behind his eyes, but whatever it was going to be, he decided not to ask.
Instead he left with the others, shutting the door as he went.
I turned to face the scroll, my heart hammering against the walls of my throat. “This is it,” I said, “One misstep, and this is all over.”
“If you don’t do this,” Ifrit said, “It’ll be over soon anyway. At least you’ll get some closure?”
“I’ll be dead.”
“Yeah, but you’ll have closure, so that means you probably won’t linger on as a ghost for Karim to torment.”
“You know what, that’s a really good point. I hadn’t even considered that.”
Ifrit beamed. “It’s what I’m here for.”
Nodding, I slowly reached for the scroll and pulled it out of the box. The last time I’d touched it I’d felt a spark from it, but not this time. This time, the scroll just vibrated softly against my skin, almost like it was humming to itself.
I decided to set the scroll down on the floor in the center of Becket’s study. Then, after taking a series of nervous breaths, I stretched my hands out and reached for the ward inside the scroll with my mind. This part was no different to any other ward I’d ever come across, but that was where all familiarity ended.
As soon as I reached for the ward within the scroll, it stopped singing and started screaming. The hairs on the nape of my neck and arms all stood on their ends, as the power inside of this thing washed over me like a violent wave. I could see the hand gestures I needed to follow all flowing in front of me, but it was impossible to keep up with how fast they were moving.
At least, it would’ve been impossible if not for Ifrit sitting on my shoulder.
Maybe it was the Guardian, or maybe it was my own brain, but I was able to make sense out of the chaos unfolding around me. Frantic, I followed the symbols with my hands as they appeared in front of me, but it was like taking notes for your boss, only your boss also happens to be a bat-shit crazy, thousand-year-old banshee.
I struggled with this ward more than I had with any other in my entire life. Each of my movements was completely guided by instinct, by a sureness that what I was seeing in my mind—the sense Ifrit was helping me make of it all—was good and true. One wrong note, one mis-placed hand or finger, and I had no doubt in my mind I’d be dead in an instant.
All around me it felt like the world was going mad. A phantom wind had filled the room and started knocking down anything not bolted to the floor. The walls were shaking, the floors and ceiling, too. A vortex of light grew from within the scroll’s heart, stretching until it looked like a miniature tornado in dazzling hues of blue and green.
Then I reached the final note, my hand following it to its precise end point, and the storm imploded back into the scroll. The wind kicking around the room died down. The howling and screaming stopped, but left a ringing in my ear like shellshock. I blinked hard, wiping my eyes with my hands and clearing the tears that had started to pool there.
On the floor, the seal holding the scroll shut suddenly broke apart on its own, allowing the scroll to unfurl, if only a little.
I almost didn’t dare pick it up. I must’ve stood there, staring at it, for a good, long minute before I finally snapped out of the trance and walked up to it. Slowly, I picked the scroll up from the floor and pulled it open, careful not to damage it further. Its edges were already frayed, bare threads that had been holding the whole thing together once upon a time now exposed.
A moment later, the door to Becket’s study opened. In my periphery I saw everyone standing there, watching me from the door. The room was a mess, lights flickering and flashing, some of the walls cracked and chipped, but none of that seemed to matter in the face of what I’d just discovered.
“Izzy?” Danvers called out.
“Yeah?” I asked, though my mind was distant.
“Are you still alive?”
“I… think so…”
“What does it say?” Becket, now, eager to have the question finally answered
“It doesn’t say anything…” I said, “It’s… a map.”
“A map?” RJ asked, “A map to what?”
I looked up at them from across the scroll’s top. “A map to the drowned city…”
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Also by Katerina Martinez
**(NEW)** THE WARDBREAKER SERIES
Book 1: Heart of the Thief
Book 2: Soul of the Storm
Book 3: Crown of the Queen
THE OBSIDIAN ORDER SERIES
Book 1: Wings of Light
Book 2: Wings of Night
Book 3: Wings of Shadow
Magic Blood Series
The Warlock
Book 1: Demons and Deception
Book 2: Mages and Masquerades
Book 3: Scions and Sorcery
Book 4: Hellfire and Homicide
Book 5: Warlocks and Wickedness
Magic Blood Series
The Primal
Book 1: Hunter’s Calling
The Blood and Magick Series
Book 1: Magick Reborn
Book 2: Demon’s Kiss
Book 3: Witch’s Wrath
The Half-Lich Series
THE HALF-LICH BOXED SET
Book 1: Dark Siren
Book 2: The Void Weaver
Book 3: Night and Chaos
The Amber Lee Series
THE AMBER LEE BOXED SET
Book 1: True Witch
Book 2: Dark Witch
Book 3: Shadow Witch
Book 4: Red Witch
Book 5: Devil’s Witch
The Cursed and Damned Series
Book 1: The Dead Wolves
The Order of Prometheus Series
Book 1: Smoke and Shadows
Book 2: Cloak and Daggers
SOUL OF THE STORM
The Wardbreaker
Book Two
Copyright © 2019 by Katerina Martinez & LJ Sampere
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Soul of the Storm (The Wardbreaker Book 2) Page 18
