City of War (Chronicles of Arcana Book 4)

by Debbie Cassidy

  “We need to find out where those pipes lead,” Valance said. “If we can turn off the machine, we can get the key.”

  “The child,” Azren said tightly. “She’s just a child.”

  “Maybe we can get her out of here. Maybe she knows a way to reverse the original enchantment?” Noir suggested.

  Too many maybes, but he was right about one thing. First we had to get the child out of the box.

  “Gilbert, can you check where those pipes go?”

  Gilbert vanished.

  “There’s a lever!” Quinn pointed out excitedly. “It’s on the side of the box. I think if we can flip it we can turn the whole thing off.”

  His eagerness was infectious, and hope fluttered in my chest. Gilbert materialized a moment later, and his expression stabbed hope in the heart and left it bleeding.

  “What is it?”

  “The rods in the ceiling lead all the way up to the surface. They’re conductors. I believe she intends to use them to conduct the lunar energy of the full moon.”

  “And the rods in the wall?” Valance pressed.

  Gilbert met Valance’s gaze. “They’re being used to draw energy from a Draconi.”

  Valance’s brow crinkled. “Who?”

  “Your father.”

  Valance stared at him as if he’d suddenly grown an extra head. “My father is dead.”

  “Your father, Orion, was my best friend,” Gilbert said. “He was one of the most powerful Draconi next to me, and it seems that Elora is using that power now to work her machine, until the full moon can give the key the boost it needs to amplify the enchantment spawned by it.”

  “Orion ...” Azren looked from Valance to Gilbert. “He spoke to me while I was trapped. He gave me hope and kept me sane. I thought ... I thought he was a figment of my imagination, a way for my psyche to keep me alive.”

  But Valance was staring at the wall, his body rigid. “I need to see. I have to.”

  “He doesn’t have long left,” Gilbert said. “The machine has all but drained him.”

  Valance turned to Quinn. “Get me through that wall. Now.”

  Quinn grabbed hold of Valance and then they were blurring over the railing and across the floor below.

  Pain lanced through my chest and a queasy sensation flared in my stomach. Something was wrong, something was happening outside, but the door between Seb and me was closed. So there was no way of knowing if the problem was with Taylem or Seb. I pushed out with my mind, hammering on the door, but it remained closed to me.

  The room was suddenly bathed in crimson light and then Draconi dressed in black combat gear and toting guns spilled onto the balcony, penning us in against the rail. The click and clack of safeties being discharged was followed by the clip of boots as a figure strode into the chamber below us.

  Kelter looked up at us gathered on the balcony and sighed. “Elora is going to be super pissed.”

  26

  Valance

  His copper-bronze scales had lost their sheen, but I’d know that dragon form anywhere. Orion. My father.

  Sunshine and smiles, warmth and love. Long flights around the Keep. He’d made me feel safe in the midst of uncertainty and carnage. He’d been the mother Elora had failed to be, and then one day, he’d been gone.

  Killed saving Elora’s life. Killed protecting her from Ivan’s wrath, or so she’d told the world.

  He was here. Always had been. Right under my nose.

  “Father?”

  His body shuddered. He opened a red-veined eye; his pupils dilated and contracted, attempting to focus. A plume of copper smoke drifted up out of his nostrils.

  Valance. My son.

  I fell to my knees before him, words a tangle on my tongue, lips numb with white rage and crimson regret.

  Stop her. You have to stop her. Kill me.

  “No.” The word was a bullet launching from my lips and punching the air. “It’s her that needs to die.”

  Almost done. His huge dragon form shivered. You were always in my heart.

  “And you in mine.” I shuffled closer and pressed my hand to his flank. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

  It’s too late for me. My journey is about to begin. She has taken all of me, but you must stop this travesty. Do what I failed to do a century ago.

  A century ago? And then his incarceration suddenly made sense. “You tried to stop her killing Ivan.”

  Yes.

  “And she locked you away.”

  Yes. I’m glad to see her insanity has not touched you. That you remain my son. Protect your people. End the lies. Promise me.

  He was slipping away, his scales growing duller by the second as a necrotic darkness crawled over his body. This was a dragon’s death. This was the end. There was no coming back from this, but I’d keep my vow. I’d make sure Elora paid for her crimes.

  Goodbye, my son.

  “What’s happening?” Quinn asked.

  “I love you, Father.” I stood up and stepped back. “Take me back to the key chamber.”

  27

  Sebastian

  The world was on fire, the sky filled with embers and choked with smoke. Liana fought to my left, her sword keeping the Draconi surrounding her at bay. Where was she? Where was the queen?

  I ignored the pressure in my mind, the one that told me Wila was trying to push through. She didn’t need to see this carnage, didn’t need to know that I’d failed, and that too many lay dead on the ground.

  There couldn’t be war without death, and the survival instinct in us was too strong to rein in each blow.

  I pulled my blade from a Draconi’s abdomen and turned to catch a flash of crimson. Elora. She was here. On the battlefield, surrounded by her elite guard and cutting a swathe through our troops with a fucking battle-axe.

  This one needed to die.

  But even as my feet picked up the pace, even as I ran toward her, a blur of muscle and rage cut me off.

  Taylem.

  He smashed through Elora’s defenses, taking her down, slamming her into the ground, his roar a triumphant bellow. But now he was surrounded. Vulnerable.

  His fist came up, ready to pummel, as a Draconi blade made an arch toward his back. There was no way to get to him fast enough, not while maintaining the illusion of being Wila. There was only one thing to do.

  The Wila mask fell away, and I coalesced into a bullet made of ether gunning for Taylem’s attacker. The impact created a shockwave that flung the Draconi outward and away. Taylem was thrown back with them, and Elora rolled free, coming up to face me in my ethereal form.

  Her eyes widened, and then her lips curved in a satisfied smile. “I was hoping I’d find you.”

  She pulled something from her sleeve, a stick, a wand?

  “Abracadabra.” She pointed it at me with a smirk.

  “What?” And then my body was torn asunder.

  28

  “I should probably just kill you all right now, but Elora’s in charge here so we’ll just have to wait and see what she wants to do with you.” He fiddled with the settings on his machine, and then watched the child floating in the water. “Don’t try anything funny, like taking on dragon form or using Arcana, because bullets laced with Subzero are so much faster.”

  He nudged his spectacles up the bridge of his nose and leaned in and tapped a gauge. “Primitive compared to the rest of our tech, I know, but we make do with the resources we have. Can’t exactly be shipping huge quantities of materials across the border, right?”

  “Why are you doing this? Why are you helping her to enslave your people?”

  He snorted. “My people?” He rolled his eyes. “There are no my people, only those that can be of some use, that can provide manpower and brainpower to my empire, and Elora will be delivering those people to me. Together, we will usher in a new era, one that will take technology and magic into the future, that will change the world as we know it, and there won’t be a damned Arcana Institute standing in the way cl
aiming the Arcana as its own. Arcana will be available to all ... All that can foot the bill, that is.” He winked.

  Telling him that he was insane would be a corny move, but it had to be said. “You’re insane.”

  “Possibly, but then I wouldn’t know if I was, would I?”

  “What are you going to do with us?” Azren asked.

  “Me?” He looked genuinely surprised. “Oh, I’m not going to do anything. That sort of stuff is Elora’s domain, and she’ll be here in …” He glanced at his watch. “Three, two, one.” The doors behind him burst open, and Elora stormed in, her crimson cloak flapping behind her. Her face was smeared with soot, and her hair was a mass of tangles, but her smile was white and wicked in her face.

  “Baby cakes.” She pulled Kelter in for a kiss that lasted a little too long. When they came up for air, his cheeks were flushed and his glasses fogged up. It was only then that she even bothered to look up at us.

  “Well, there you are. Clever move, by the way, placing your ether-kindred in your place on the battlefield, you almost had me fooled. Almost but your kindred has an ego, and that will be his downfall, right about now.”

  The doors opened again and two guards dragged a figure into the chamber. Sebastian was limp and bloody, his head hanging between his shoulder blades as the guards dragged him across the room and dropped him at Elora’s feet.

  This couldn’t be, how could this be?

  “A temporary shift in atoms,” Elora said. “After our little tangle in the arena, Kelter here was kind enough to build me a device.” She held up a wand. “I zap it, and the ethereal becomes corporeal, or in the case of your ether-kindred, flesh and blood, and it’s so much easier to draw blood this way.”

  She spun and buried a dagger in Seb’s gut.

  Pain lanced through mine, and I fell to one knee, gasping for breath.

  “Wila.” My mates reached for me, but there was only darkness and pain and Seb, so close, yet too far away. The door was finally ajar, and there he was, bound by the laws of nature.

  “Let him go.” I grabbed the barrier and pulled myself up.

  “I will, once he’s served his purpose.”

  Kelter was practically hopping in excitement.

  “What are you talking about?”

  But they were done explaining themselves. Instead, the guards shoved Seb against the generator. Elora ripped off Seb’s shirt, and Kelter set to work attaching wires to it.

  “Stop!” I gripped the rail. “What are you doing to him?”

  Elora stepped back while Kelter worked.

  Seb remained unconscious, his body limp and unresponsive.

  “We’re going to speed things up,” Elora said. “You see, hanging out with Kelter here has expanded my mind, and as I was fighting your kindred out on the battlefield, I had a most ingenious thought. The full moon’s power is nothing more than concentrated ether energy, and guess who else is ether energy?” She grinned. “So why wait to set things in motion.” She nudged Seb with the toe of her boot. “We have our very own battery.”

  Kelter stepped away from Sebastian and walked over to a panel wall. “Do you have your wristlet?” he asked Elora.

  She held up her arm, where a copper band winked on it. “I’m ready.”

  Kelter looked up at us, finger hovering over the big red button. “Get ready to lose your fucking minds.”

  Elora’s cackle filled the air. Up until now, Gilbert had remained silent and watchful, but he materialized in the chamber below, right in front of Elora.

  Elora’s laughter cut out as if someone had snapped her neck. She stared at Gilbert, wide-eyed.

  “Ivan? How can this be?”

  “Have you missed me?” He grinned boyishly.

  Elora merely stared at him, drinking him in as if he were an oasis in a desert. “I … I killed you.”

  “Yes. Yes, you did,” Ivan said. “Shitty move, by the way, but I forgive you, and I’m sorry I couldn’t love you the way you needed to be loved. The way you deserved to be loved.”

  She shook her head and stepped back. “No, this is a trick.”

  Ivan bridged the gap between them and cupped her face. “This is no trick. It’s time to wake up.”

  And then he stepped into her and, for a moment, they were one person—a flesh and bone and incorporeal entity entwined.

  Her body bucked and a raw cry filled the chamber.

  “Stop. Stop it!” Kelter pressed the button.

  Seb’s body jerked, and his eyes flew open, and then his body exploded in a mess of crimson.

  My scream was a primal force. Hands grabbed my waist, pulling me back, stopping me from leaping over the rail to get to him. His body, or what was left of it, floated in the air and then turned to motes of light and coalesced.

  Oh, God. Oh, fucking God. He was okay, he was—

  Glowing. He was glowing brighter and brighter until his features were nothing but light, and the glass tank was glowing, the electricity jumping all over it. The generator was humming, the lever covered in tiny lightning bolts.

  Get out. Seb’s voice was in my head again. You have to run. I can’t stop it.

  “I won’t leave you.”

  There is no me without you, but the rest is a lie. There is a you without me. Run, Wila. You have to run. Your mind is immune to the enchantment, but this blast will be more than that, it will bring down the walls, it will bury us. You have to go, save your mates.

  And leave him to die. Fuck that.

  The lever ... I had to get to the lever and pull it.

  Below us, Gilbert pulled Elora to her feet, and she looked up at us, her face pale, her hands trembling as she pushed back her hair.

  “Stop it,” she said to Kelter. “Stop the machine. We were wrong. This isn’t the way.” The insanity had bled from her eyes, her mouth was softer, her gaze clearer. “I didn’t see ... I didn’t see it all.”

  “Too late for recriminations now.” Kelter’s smile was cunning and sharp as he dropped his mad scientist facade.

  “You have to stop it,” Elora insisted. “I saw the Shedim at the end of the world, but it wasn’t their fault. It was never their fault. It was right here, right now, that caused it all.”

  His lips curled. “I’m banking on it.” He raised his hand, holding a small handgun, and a pop was followed by a red dot blooming on Elora’s forehead. Gilbert’s bellow of rage was cut off by the doors closing behind Kelter as he made an exit.

  Dead, she was dead. Just like that, just ... The lever. Nothing could stop this but that lever. Azren’s hold on me had tightened in response to Elora’s death, and then a blur cut across the floor below and Valance and Quinn materialized beside the generator. His grip loosened a fraction, his attention on Valance. It was the advantage I needed. Wrenching myself from his grasp, I leapt over the balcony.

  Valance’s cry greeted me, but there was no stopping me, because Seb was on the brink, the glass cage was pulsing, and all hell was about to break loose.

  Gilbert made a grab for me, but too late, the lever was within my sights.

  “No, it’s electrified.” Quinn lunged at me.

  Yeah, I knew that. I knew it, but it didn’t matter because I wasn’t letting my ether -kindred die.

  And then a body slammed into me, knocking me sideways, leaving me scrambling to regain my momentum.

  Liana stood by the lever, her mouth twisted in an emotion I couldn’t identify, and then she gripped the lever. Her body lit up with the charge flowing through it, bucking and shaking as she fried internally. Her grip welded to the metal, she pulled.

  All the lights winked out.

  I crouched in a mountain entrance high above the city, my mates and my allies at my back and a wicked dagger grasped in my trembling hand. Elora was dead. My mother was dead. Seb was weakened but alive. It was almost over.

  Almost.

  “Let me,” Valance had said.

  “No, me,” Azren had insisted.

  They wanted to take the burden
, just like Liana had done in the end. Her redemption had been short and painful. In the end, she’d acted like a mother.

  Far below us, our armies were still at war, unaware that their queen was dead. We’d stopped the amplification of the spell, but the only way to end the war was to end the source of the lies. The only way to prompt Elora’s Draconi and Shedim to lay down their weapons was to strip away the original enchantment and force them to see the truth.

  The silver-haired child lay on the ground before me like a sacrifice. A gentle breeze ruffled her hair, brushing it off her forehead and drying it almost immediately.

  She opened her violet eyes and stared into my soul. “Can it be over now?” she asked. Her sweet, innocent voice tore at my heart just as my dagger would tear at hers.

  I gripped the blade in my hand, tears dripping down my face over the monstrous thing that I was about to do. An act that would taint me forever. She gazed at the blade, her smile beatific, almost welcoming.

  “Don’t cry,” she said. “Give me the blade. It is time for me to go home.”

  She gently pried my fingers from the hilt and gripped the weapon, pressing the point to her heart.

  “I’m sorry.” My voice was a choked whisper.

  “Don’t be sorry, Wila. I will tell tales of your bravery, and one day we will meet again.” Her mouth parted on the final word, eyes glazing over then dimming.

  She’d done what I’d feared to do. She’d taken the burden, and below us the fires began to go out.

  Noir, Sebastian, and I materialized in the kitchen, charred and bedraggled but alive. Noir pressed his lips to the top of my head and then released me. Sebastian stumbled against the table, grabbing a chair to stabilize himself. I broke away from Noir and grabbed my ether-kindred, wrapping my arms around his chest and inhaling his charred aroma. My eyes burned and pricked. I’d almost lost him. Oh, God. It had been so close and there was still so much to do. This was merely a pit stop to pick up the others and get back to Draconi territory. Valance, Azren, Tay, and Gilbert were keeping the peace, gathering the Draconi and Shedim, calming the masses the best they could now that the truth was out, but I needed to be there too. We needed to establish a new status quo and quick.