Tower of Fire (Parallel Magic Book 3)

by Emma L. Adams

  While Lex and Roth clearly had the advantage in numbers, my allies’ assault had taken them by surprise. Weaving in and out of the chaos, I went to join them. As I flung a fireball and knocked an assassin off the nearest roof, my hands began to flicker. The invisibility spell was wearing off. Ah, shit.

  I ducked out of sight around a corner, frantically grabbing for a replacement, but dodging around duelling mages made it impossible to halt for long enough to get into my pendant.

  “I know you’re here, Bria,” said Lex, her voice ringing across the square. “Perhaps I can offer you an incentive to cease this pointless resistance.”

  I knocked down an earth mage with a punch to the jaw with my free hand, refusing to rise to her bait. The fight continued, brutal yet restrained, as the defecting mages had little desire to kill their former associates, and nobody could get near enough to the Family to land a hit on them.

  Finally, a sudden blinding flash of light pierced the air. Everyone cringed, covering their eyes from the brightness that emanated from the direction of the citadel.

  When the light dimmed, the square had cleared, the crowd pushed backwards as though by an invisible force. Lex and Roth remained in the centre, the former holding what appeared to be a sharpened tree branch. Green and white lights glimmered up and down its length, and unlike the smaller, stone-shaped Akriths, this one was vibrant, blooming, alive.

  The Elders’ Akrith.

  “If you don’t show your face right now, Bria,” said Lex, “then I’ll unleash this weapon on your allies. This entire city will be levelled to the ground.”

  22

  My breath caught in my throat. While I’d known one of them must have been carrying the Elders’ Akrith, I’d never expected them to openly use it on the battlefield, not when they relied on its magic to maintain their resilience. But they already believed they’d won, and I didn’t doubt for a second that Lex spoke the truth when she said the weapon in her hands could unleash unspeakable damage. Even if the whole city was levelled to the ground, they’d survive… and so would I.

  “Go on,” said Lex. “Show your face, Bria. I know you don’t want to watch them die.”

  As I prepared to reveal myself, another tall figure stepped out in front of Lex. Adair.

  “Actually, it was me who brought the Death King’s mages here,” he told Lex and Roth.

  “You?” said Lex.

  “Yeah, is that so hard to believe?” said Adair. “It’s not like you made any effort to help me out the last time I was locked up in the House of Fire. Thought that might get your attention.”

  “So you choose to oppose us, now of all times?” said Lex. “I thought I was right to give you a second chance, but perhaps I should have killed the both of you after all. Is your sister here?”

  They hadn’t seen me yet, but Adair must have guessed I was nearby. I didn’t have time to ponder the risk he’d taken by pretending he’d been the one who’d launched the rebellion, because he looked Roth and Lex dead in the eyes and spoke clearly. “Stay there. Put down your weapons.”

  While Lex and Roth didn’t put down their weapons, they didn’t attack him either. Meanwhile, everyone in the surrounding area backed away, either recognising his hypnotic talent or else taking the opportunity to run. Not fast enough, however.

  “Attack them. Fight among yourselves.” Adair’s words spread throughout the army, and a dozen elemental attacks rose into the air. None of them made contact with Lex or Roth, but whichever defences they’d used on themselves didn’t completely protect them from the backlash of their army turning against one another all at once. Roth was forced to back against the wall of the citadel to avoid a torrent of flames propelled by the Air Element’s magic, while Lex held the Elders’ Akrith out of reach while she dodged a tidal wave from the opposite direction. As she raised her free hand, a dozen flailing bodies rose into the air, then flew down to earth, their limbs contorting, blood spurting out of deadly wounds.

  I forced myself to ignore the carnage and focused on getting close to the Akrith. I ducked underneath arms and sidestepped trampling feet, only for Lex to release another deadly attack. More mages’ bodies fell like skittles into my path, bones breaking, bodies spurting blood. She was attacking her own allies, too, and had no care in the world for who she hurt. The pile of bodies stymied my progress towards her—and that was when Adair reappeared. He slammed into Lex, and her eyes flew wide as her head struck the tower wall. With a dazed look in her eyes I’d never seen before, she scrambled to lift the branch into the air—and stabbed him in the chest. The branch speared him like a sword, straight through—and a blinding flash filled my vision.

  “NO!”

  My scream went unheard, while I flung myself flat as the dazzling light obscured my sight for a long few seconds. In the background, the sounds of fighting continued. The weapon hadn’t levelled the city, or so it seemed. Had Lex lied, or had she been bluffing?

  I lifted my head, blinking the glare from my eyes. The blast had knocked down everyone in the vicinity, but Adair had taken the brunt of the hit. Blood flowed from a gaping wound in his chest. His mouth parted in surprise, his face turning greyish. My whole body locked in place, horror rippling through me at the sight of Adair falling to his knees. His hands disintegrated as they hit the ground, his bowed head collapsed in on itself, until within a few seconds, nothing remained of Adair but a pile of clothes and ashes.

  “How noble of him,” said Lex, with a false laugh. “Let that be a lesson to you, Bria, wherever you’re hiding. In the world after the war, it’ll be easy to replace you.”

  Elements. He’s… gone. The sinking feeling in my chest warned me that I needed to run. The weapon had reduced Adair to ashes, and they wouldn’t hesitate to do the exact same to me. There’d be no returning from death, no miracles… and yet surrender wasn’t an option any longer.

  As I pushed to my feet, Roth pointed in my direction. “There she is.”

  A sharp spasm of pain threatened to overwhelm my senses, but the agony lifted when Lex stepped in front of Roth, still wielding the Elders’ Akrith. “Since you can’t stand up to a bunch of pathetic humans, Roth, I’ll do this myself.”

  My hands shot into the air in surrender against my will, and the mental pain became physical as Lex’s power took hold of me. My feet walked by themselves, while my emotions muted to a faint quaver of fear deep inside my bones. I couldn’t resist, not even when flames crackled between my fingertips and pointed directly at my allies and enemies alike. The crowd stilled, every one of them held under the same power as I was. I couldn’t even shout out in warning, nor could they run away. Lex’s grin was unbearable to look upon as I reached her side.

  “Maybe I’ll have you burn them,” she whispered in my ear. “Or… maybe I’ll make you use this instead.”

  She pressed the Elders’ Akrith into my unresisting hands. I flinched, an involuntary movement which indicated a small percentage of me wasn’t under her control. Too bad it wasn’t enough. Try as I might, I couldn’t lower my hands, not even to spare my friends from the growing flames.

  The ground beneath my feet gave an almighty heave. A torrent of wind followed, along with a surge of water so high that it drenched me from head to toe and knocked the Akrith clean from my hands. Lex, also sopping wet, looked on in stunned disbelief as Ryan, Cal and Felicity approached, seemingly unaffected by Lex and Roth’s combined magic… and wearing blindfolds.

  Whoa. They’d figured out how to protect themselves, with the unfortunate side effect that they couldn’t see where they were going either. Yet whenever someone tried to grab them, a wall of air and water pushed them back, while anyone who got too close found themselves knocked off balance by the trembling earth.

  “You can’t keep that up forever!” shouted Roth.

  “Enough!” Lex grabbed the Akrith herself and pointed it at the Elemental Soldiers.

  At the same time, the sound of pounding hooves echoed through the air and a group of zombie horse
s rode into the square, bearing wights and liches. The Death King’s forces had arrived, and with them came a wave of darkness which scattered the already confused army of mages.

  Better, every single lich was immune to Lex and Roth’s magic. I spotted Harper amid their army, and she shot me a wave. Yes. She found them in time.

  I seized my chance to run, only for Lex to bar my path. Her deranged expression turned to shock when Neddie the zombie horse ran through the carnage and crashed into me from behind, headbutting me into the air. I flipped over and crashed onto the zombie horse’s back with a painful thud, my body trembling with the aftereffects of Lex’s magic.

  “Neddie, wait!” I groaned. “I need that weapon.”

  As per usual, the horse refused to listen and cantered away, carrying me through the growing forces of the Death King’s army and past the other Elemental Soldiers. As Lex and Roth struggled to fight their way through the melee, a tremendous screeching noise rose from above our heads.

  Wyrms. Not just one of them, either, but at least five lithe reptilian creatures soaring through the sky to join the army. The one I’d set free must have gone in search of others of its kind, and it seemed they had their own grievances to inflict on Lex and Roth. For a moment, everyone stopped fighting, looking up at the new arrivals. Then panic erupted. Some of the mages tried to run, others hid inside the abandoned buildings or ran for the Houses of the Elements, no longer under the Family’s control. When I spotted Miles among the confusion, I leapt from Neddie’s back and landed at his side.

  “You all right, Bria?” he said.

  “Yes, but I need that weapon.” I rotated on my heel, waiting for the path to clear, and my heart sank. Lex and Roth had disappeared from the square, along with the Elders’ Akrith. If I had to guess, they must have run into the tower, which ignited from top to bottom in piercing white light.

  “They’re running away!” I shouted to the others. “They’re going to escape through the portal, I bet.”

  “Not on my watch,” said Ryan from behind me.

  With a curse, I ran through the battlefield again, dodging limbs and bursts of elemental fire and water. Chaos erupted, mages duelling with one another, wyrms soaring overhead, and the Death King’s forces too busy cutting through the remaining assassins to notice the missing Family. At least the other liches were still alive, relatively speaking, but where was the Death King?

  Miles caught my arm. “What’s going on?”

  “Lex and Roth gave us the slip,” I responded. “Where’d the liches come from?”

  “Harper brought them here,” he said. “She managed to get the Death King to help… ah, there he is.”

  The crowd on the battlefield parted as the Death King himself rode into view, with Liv riding another zombie horse at his side. She gave me a brief surprised glance before the enemy closed in around them. I began to move through the crowd again, fighting my way through to their side.

  Liv peered at me from her horse. “Got rid of that Family of yours, did you?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “I need to get into that tower. Then I’ll have them.”

  “We need to get into the tower, too,” said Liv. “We have to shut down the spell that’s affecting all the liches.”

  “All right.” The Death King climbed off his horse and strode up to the citadel, simply pushing aside anyone who got in his way. He then reached the tower door first and opened it on the lower floor.

  Several assassins waited on the other side, but I turned them to ashes in one sweep of lethal fire and sprinted around the spiralling stairs to the top. There, I shoved the door open, skidding to a halt in the centre of the room. The fading light of the transporter confirmed my suspicions.

  The Family had fled through the portal… along with the Elders’ Akrith.

  23

  I turned to Miles. “Where do you think they went? Because if it isn’t somewhere we’ve already been, I’m not sure we’ll be able to follow them.”

  “I can,” Miles said, with certainty. “I can use my spirit magic to track them down. It’s usually hard to do that with someone who isn’t a spirit mage, but that weapon of theirs left a hell of a trail behind them.”

  “Are you sure?” I said. “Where are your parents?”

  “Helping anyone who can’t take part in the battle stay hidden at the Spirit Agents’ house,” he answered. “They’ll be fine. I’m coming with you, Bria.”

  I didn’t stop to argue. We needed to catch up to Lex and Roth—and get that weapon back, preferably into the elves’ hands. While the Death King and Liv examined the machinery, I hopped onto the platform. “Anyone who wants to chase down the Family, come with us.”

  Harper drifted in behind us, while Miles faced the Death King. “Is the spell here?”

  “No. We’ll look elsewhere.” The Death King’s gaze slid over to me. “Good luck, Bria.”

  In a flash, Miles transported us away. We landed in a familiar room, identical to the one we’d left except for the door at the back which led to a room which had once contained trapped sprites. We’re in the middle of the old elvish town.

  Except this time, a larger cage surrounded the platform, preventing us from walking into the room. On the other side of the bars, Lex and Roth watched us, the former still holding the Elders’ Akrith in her hands.

  “I wondered if you’d have the sense to come alone,” said Lex. “Apparently not.”

  She swivelled in my direction, and I ducked my head to avoid eye contact. “Your promise to level the city fell pretty flat.”

  “Oh, I was holding back, she said. “The Elders’ Akrith works best in conjunction with the elves’ other technologies. Like this very tower, for instance.”

  My gaze went to the machine and then to the weapon in her hands. “I don’t follow.”

  I had an inkling I knew exactly what she meant, though. The machinery had an amplifying effect on any cantrips placed inside it. Would it have a similar effect on the Elders’ Akrith, too? The citadels had certainly played a part in the devastation caused during the last war, and only now did I wonder if the elves’ creations had held a bigger role than I’d ever imagined. The Akrith was almost a template for the modern-day cantrips, in a way, and even Lex and Roth weren’t immune to its effects. Given what they’d done to Adair, I had little doubt that its magic was lethal—and whatever they planned, I had no chance of stopping them as long as I was stuck in this cage.

  But Harper could. Her shadowy form drifted straight through the cage bars, unseen by anyone but me, and I did my best to keep my gaze from flickering in her direction as she approached Lex and Roth from the side.

  Lex, however, spotted her right away. “You brought a lich?”

  “I know that lich,” said Roth. “She’s the one who gave us the slip last time.”

  “She’s the reason Bria beat you?” said Lex in incredulous tones. “I think she ought to be our first test subject.”

  “Perfect.” A vicious smirk appeared on Roth’s face. “I think that’s fitting, Bria, don’t you? We’ll test our weapon on your friend.”

  Lex pressed a button on the machine. Lights flashed along its surface, and a smile identical to Roth’s curled her lip as she pointed the Elders’ Akrith straight at Harper.

  “No!” I flung myself at the cage bars, to no avail.

  A moment later, a blinding flash came from the weapon, and a resounding crash echoed around the room. I heard Miles say something in my ear, but I couldn’t make out the words—and then the crashing of metal and stone filled the background. My teeth rattled in my skull, and a blinding light seared my vision. I squeezed my eyes shut and crouched on the floor of the cage, waiting for the end.

  When I raised my head, the source of the light became apparent. The roof of the citadel had gone, opening the room to the heavens, while the walls gaped open to show the ruins surrounding the citadel. Lex and Roth remained untouched, but the back of the room had been torn to pieces.

  Nothing of Harper
was left.

  “You fuckers.” I clawed at the bars, then the cage’s odd emptiness hit me. The light I’d seen… damn, Miles had vanished through the transporter. If he’d told me where he was going, I hadn’t heard him over the sound of the blast.

  “So everyone on your side has abandoned you,” said Lex. “Except for that lich, and it didn’t do her much good, did it. That spirit mage of yours isn’t as noble as you thought, but who can blame him?”

  A hollow sensation filled my chest. “I’d have done the same if I wasn’t the only person who can destroy you.”

  “I beg to differ.” She gestured at the ruins of the town now visible through the gaping hole where the back room used to be. “This is all that remains of the former elven stronghold. The elves would do well to remember it.”

  “You can’t seriously want to cause the same destruction as the spirit mages did in the last war?” I indicated the town’s ruins at the foot of the tower. “There’s nothing left of it. You don’t build new things. You steal, and you destroy.”

  They’d killed Harper. They’d even killed their son for daring to stand up to them. I won’t let this be the end.

  “You’re nothing,” said Roth. “You were always nothing, Bria, as long as you refused to allow yourself to be what you were created to be.”

  “You mean what you created me to be,” I said. “You’ve never had the right to dictate who I am. Only I get to choose that.”

  Harper had befriended me despite all the crap that’d come to light about my past. She wasn’t the only one, either. The other Elemental Soldiers had welcomed me among them, the Spirit Agents had done the same—especially Miles, who’d seen the good in me when I hadn’t been able to see it myself. I refused to believe they’d all truly abandoned me.