Blades Of Destiny (Crown Service Book 4)

by Terah Edun

  And she noted with surprise that he was fast. Her foot swung in toward his soft head, but didn’t connect with flesh and land in a bone-crunching impact, as she’d guessed. Instead, a tense hand gripped her boot and amused eyes glinted with an opal fire that she would have recognized anywhere…had he not been shielding those beauties from her before. Even after she had thought he had revealed every aspect of his physical appearance to her, he still managed to surprise her.

  Because she recognized him for a second time. But this time the memory was as crystal clear as a summer’s day.

  Sara sucked in a sharp gasp of surprise and yanked her foot back.

  “Nice kick,” Gabriel said.

  Stupefied, Sara asked, “Did you ever intend to reveal who you were really?” He studied her, and she added, “If I hadn’t forced your hand, that is.”

  He shrugged.

  She snarled, “What was the point of questioning if I knew who you were, when the whole time you were just playing tricks and games?”

  He smiled. “I never said I was going to be fair about my line of questioning.”

  She shifted her feet, prepared to retaliate, but she had one more question first.

  “My father…was…was that all just to get me to transform?”

  He was still.

  Then he said in the coldest voice she’d ever heard, “That transformation was admirable, I’ll admit. I’ve always wanted to the see what a true Berserker looked like.”

  “Well, now you’ve met one,” Sara said. “And I’m going to make you regret every word.”

  As she lunged toward him, she didn’t really care who he really was or what purpose he served. It didn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, anyway. Kade first guard, Red Lion Guard, or bumbling assassin from Cormar’s force—he’d learn not to mess with Sara Fairchild. Besides, she was darned tired of people sneaking up on her.

  With a yell, she swung her sword in a hard movement that was intended to slice him from the top of his head to the middle point of his belly. He dodged her with ease and threw off the thick cloak he’d been wearing over what she could see now was his bare body. Her gaze caught on his taut stomach, but it wasn’t his abs that impressed her.

  It was the runes inscribed with dark ink on the glistening muscles in neat, circular rows. She counted four—no, five—rows of runes before her concentration was fixed on the man she had to kill.

  As he dodged blow after blow, she was getting highly irritated. She had been angry before, but now she was just disgusted. In a move meant to startle as much as to confuse, she swung her sword at his neck, watched him duck, and brought the pommel up to connect soundly with his chin.

  Direct hit, she heard the inner darkness cheer.

  Well, at least somebody was on her side! She watched Gabriel sail backward from the force of her blow, and as he was lifted off his feet, something happened. The world they were in flickered. It was only for a few seconds, but she bet she knew why it had happened. Wasting no time, she drew back her foot and laid a wallop of a kick directly into the kidnapper’s sternum. She heard what she hoped was a nice crack of a rib as he sat up with a howl.

  That was when the sky flickered again, and this time it lasted a full minute, and when she gazed at the flashes of space in between the visions…it was interesting. Because it looked a hell of a lot like her encampment. It looked like home.

  As he began to groan and rise, she noticed with a smile the blood trickling down his chin and the two teeth he spat onto the ground with a baleful look up at her.

  With a painful gasp, he managed to say, “Nice kick.”

  This time, he actually sounded impressed.

  Her face set in stone, she said, “Enough games. Drop whatever prison it is you’ve captured me in. Do it and no one dies in the next few seconds.”

  Breathing heavily, he said, “And if I don’t?”

  She gave him a cold smile. “Then I’ll kill you and just see where I land.”

  He raised his eyebrows and put a hand flat on the ground to push himself up.

  “No,” Sara said while lowering the point of her sword to his neck. “From where you lie, if you don’t mind?”

  He hugged his ribs and said, “Of course I don’t mind. Why would I?”

  Her grip tightened on her sword. “I just want to go home. Make it so.”

  “Already tired of my company, battle mage?” he said.

  She moved the sword so that the point was just above his heart. Her thoughts were abundantly clear on the subject.

  Backing away from the tip of her sword as much as he could, he chuckled. “Right, well then. One escape portal coming right up.”

  She smiled.

  That was the best news she’d heard all morning.

  Including the time Captain Barthis had promoted her without warning and she’d managed to find out that her father’s journals were still out there…somewhere in a distant fortress, just waiting for her to get her hands on them.

  She just had to get there.

  8

  “Get it going,” she demanded.

  Letting out a hacking cough, Gabriel said, “Okay. It’ll take a minute, but you’ll be gone.”

  “No tricks.”

  “None will be given,” he said. “I’m not inclined to have my life taken, so I’ll gladly give you yours.”

  Sara said, “For a man who talks big, you sure are a second-rate mage and fighter when a person gets their strength back.”

  He shrugged, not offended at all. “I know when I’m beat, that’s all,” he said as he waved a hand and the scene around them changed. The dirt wall disappeared, and in its place, a brilliant rolling meadow emerged. And off in the distance, she saw the bright pennants of the Imperial Armed Forces flying over a large encampment.

  With a self-conscious cough, he said, “I hope you don’t mind if I drop you off there. Breaking you back into your tent will be a lot harder than breaking you out was. Besides, I’d rather not to be captured and flambéed.”

  “Wouldn’t we all?” Sara murmured without taking her eyes off his face. She was wary of tricks. She was also wary of the fact that she could feel the strength given to her by her transformation into a War Mage waning—waning as long as she wasn’t fighting, anyway.

  She decided to ask one more question. “How do I know this isn’t a trick?”

  He looked up at her from where he crouched on the floor and said, “I guess we just have to trust each other.”

  Sara spat off to the side of his face. Not close enough to get on his cheek, but nearby.

  “I trust you about as far as I can throw you,” she said in the empty silence after her show of what she thought of him.

  From the cold fury in his eyes, spitting at him was actually more infuriating than breaking his ribs.

  Rolling her eyes, Sara said, “I need proof.”

  He opened his mouth, but quickly closed it when she pressed her sword over his heart to make her intentions clear.

  “I need proof,” Sara repeated softly. “Incontrovertible, undeniable proof that I am going home. Or neither of us will be living to see that beautiful sunset tonight, because if I die here, I’m taking you with me.”

  He blinked slowly. “Well, I have no intention of killing you, you know.”

  Sara gave him a predatory smile. “Oh, I know. You’ve had a few chances to do so now, and yet never racked up the courage to accomplish the deed. I, however, will stab you through your soft heart and then slit my own throat before I spend another hour in this world you’ve built. Make sense now?”

  “Perfectly,” he said, staring at her with an unreadable gaze.

  As he spoke, he looked off to the vision of the encampment he had shown her.

  “I can give you proof,” he said. “But you’ll need to understand what I am first.”

  Sara raised a brow. “So talk, then. I’m listening.”

  If the darkness in her was upset at her stalling its bloodshed, it didn’t say anything. J
ust sat in silence. She had the feeling it was conserving its energy, but she couldn’t quite prove it. It was all so new to her. This new sentience—this living being—was a part of her just as much as she was a part of it.

  Raising the sword so that the pommel pointed down and the blade continued to center over his heart as she slowly crouched down, Sara waited for him to speak, to explain what he was and perhaps even who he really was.

  As he took a moment to gather his thoughts, she snapped, “We don’t have all day, so what are you?”

  He gave her a look out of the corner of his eye and gently nudged the point of her blade away from his vulnerable organs. She swung it right back as soon as she got the idea that he planned something untoward, and he let her.

  “I’m an Illusions Mage.”

  That caught Sara off guard.

  She actually stopped fighting for a moment and looked at him incredulously.

  “A what?” she asked, stumped.

  He shot her a diabolical grin. “A mage who can make you see or even feel anything I want.”

  She huffed out an irritated breath. There were a lot of questions running through her head. But not many doubts.

  The first question she voiced was actually about the first thing she’d seen when she’d woken up from the blast.

  “What about the cave? Was that, too, an illusion?” Sara asked.

  He waved his hand and a fantastical mirage appeared. The cave in all its magnificence, this time lit so she could see stalactite dripping with water falling from the sky, and pools of water surrounded by a ring of large rocks, all enclosed underneath a dome of earth.

  If she didn’t know any better, she would have sworn that they were back underground.

  It even smelled different this time.

  She took a deep, shaking breath. “Well, that’s all well and good, but it doesn’t explain your ability to travel and take me with you, kidnapper.”

  He nodded. “True. When necessary, I can also warp the boundaries of reality. I consider it a…bonus, if you will, when I can open up a gate between one location and the next. Not a big one, and certainly not very far, but it’s enough for me and a few others to travel through.”

  “What do you mean by gate?” she asked.

  He snapped his fingers, and a doorway to a part of the world she had never seen before opened up. One of lush gardens of wild plants with tree trunks as wide as the houses in Sandrin. As she stared up and up with wild eyes, she saw so many shades of green that she couldn’t make sense of all the verdant nature surrounding her. For a moment, just a moment, she was inside the most wonderful sample of wild nature she’d ever seen.

  “The forest of Ameles,” he said.

  She turned to him and took another unsteady breath. “More of your illusions?”

  “No,” he said. “This time it was a portal.”

  She nodded. “So why all the theatrics, then? You created a portal with a snap of your fingers. Create one for me to go home and I’ll spare your life.”

  “As much as I’d love to take you up on your offer immediately,” he said dryly, “even my magic has limitations, and I can only send someone awake through a portal of my making, if they consent to it.”

  Sara’s eyes lit up as she said, “So that’s how you snuck me out of camp with you. I was freaking unconscious you asshole.”

  He shrugged. “Did what I had to do. So are you willing this time?”

  Sara snorted. “Not a chance.”

  “Precisely my thoughts,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

  “Fine,” she said with an irritated sigh. “Two choices: unconscious or through trust. There’s no way I’ll be doing the former.”

  “So the latter?” Gabriel asked, unconvinced. “No offense, but you don’t seem to be the trusting type.”

  She shrugged. “I’m not.”

  “Then what do you suggest?” he asked, looking at her sword hand pointedly. “And I hope it doesn’t involve our deaths.”

  “It might soon, but you said you want me to trust you.”

  “Need,” he said.

  She waved the sword. “I’m not so sure I believe your explanation,” Sara said, “but I know how to prove your point and do what you ask. You’ll have to give me something in return to get that trust, though.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “A thread of your magic to hold within mine,” she said with an unwavering voice—she was adamant about this. “You have my word that I will only use it so long as I am here and through the portal. You’ll be able to live life as you please afterward.”

  “You’re asking a lot, battle mage.”

  Sara gave him a fierce look. “As are you, and it’s War Mage, now.”

  If he understood the significance of her correction, he didn’t comment on it. “If I give this to you, you will be able to control parts of my own gifts. Perhaps use them against me.”

  “Yet you’re asking me to trust that you won’t drop me into a volcano,” Sara said. “I think we’re about even on this.”

  “Is there no way—”

  “None,” she said icily.

  “Very well,” he said, closing his eyes.

  When he opened his opalescent eyes again, they shone with the glow of a mage working with his gift. When he opened his hand, a thin, delicate rope, glowing the same color as his eyes, lay in his palm.

  “It’s yours,” Gabriel said in an unsteady voice. “Take care of it well.”

  Sara held out a cupped hand. “With my life.”

  She waited for him to pour the tiny bit of power from his magic into her hand, because she couldn’t take it by force—not while they still stood in a world of his own making. There was no guarantee of what would happen if she had tried that.

  Patiently she watched, and so did he as the magic unspooled in his upside-down palm and reformed in her hand, only to sink into her flesh as if it was never there.

  Shielding it carefully with her own natural gift, because she didn’t know what her sentient darkness partner would do if it could get hold of the stranger’s magic, she shepherded it into her core. With a heavy sigh, Sara accepted his cool magic into her own blistering inferno and then let it settle. For a moment, she watched and felt its owner watching her tensely.

  When she opened her eyes, all was well and she actually smiled.

  Lowering her sword, as she held no ill will toward him now, she said, “Proceed.”

  Sara knew—and Gabriel knew—that as long as she had his magic within her, attacking her was an attack on himself. So he had no choice but to open the portal. Besides, beyond the leverage she had over him, she also had many small, secret weapons.

  That was part of the power of a mage, being able to absorb and secret away the gift of magic from another mage. It unlocked a window, even a small one, into the giver’s soul.

  9

  In this case, it would also make her immune to his illusion charms. Before, she hadn’t known what was real and what was a façade, but now? Now she could discern which was which, and he was less an enemy and more of a curiosity. Until she got out of here, anyway.

  Tapping his magic, to ensure that she would have the ability to spot him no matter what illusion he took on, Sara stretched out a little bit of her gifts, as well. Her reserves were bordering on exhausted as she relied on the darkness’s partnership more and more, but it couldn’t be helped.

  Still, she could do this much. It didn’t take that much effort, after all.

  Reaching down for a wisp of power, she spun it into a thin but strong thread, whirling her gift as fast as she could from within the well of reserves that she had, until it had been turned around and around in her mind at least half a dozen times. That was to ensure that, even if a single string of power frayed, the thread would hold.

  Satisfied at what she’d made, Sara neatly gathered up her thread of power and softly pitched it toward the Illusions Mage. The one good thing about being low on magic right now was that a
nything she did was almost guaranteed to fly under the other mage’s radar, simply because it was a tiny flicker of gift in the sea of his glowing power.

  Keeping her gaze defiant, even belligerent, she let her magic’s natural instincts do their work. Once her magic was anchored to his with the thinnest line she’d ever seen, Sara began weaving a spell that would leave him dead if she so much as felt a twinge of illness in her bones.

  She had meant it when she had said she would take them both to the underworld, and a physical attack wasn’t the only way to get there. This was just a secondary precaution, but it made her feel good.

  When she was done and she saw that he was already conjuring up the portal, Sara hesitated, but she had to ask. Had to know.

  “My wounds? My burns?” she said. “Were those fake, too? Figments of my imagination?”

  He shrugged. “No more than that time you tried to kick me in the face.”

  Sara flashed a satisfied grin. She wasn’t going to apologize for that. He had deserved it. That and more.

  “But how?” she said, growing serious again.

  “How what?” he said, slowly putting down a map—a real, physical one—on the flat stone before them. As he studied it, a small furrow appeared in his brow. One that reminded her of a certain scholar.

  Pushing her thoughts of Ezekiel away, Sara focused on keeping her kidnapper’s attention on the present rather than the immaterial. She did not want him conjuring another illusion just for the heck of it. It didn’t help that she had to react to every threat he posed in the illusion, as if it was a real one because, although she could see him now no matter what, she was still tired, drained of magic, and doing her best not to struggle with her own nature even when the darkness inside was being compliant for the moment.