by Blair Drake
"On it. I've got an idea," he said to Zora, eyeing the enormous Minotaur guarding the pool in front of him. "Or, I'm stealing his idea."
He opened himself up to the Current, feeling his fingertips chill. The ice that had flooded down the stairs suddenly grew thicker, and swept across the ground toward the Minotaur.
Elijah took the stairs carefully, walking directly toward it.
It took a step toward him, its hoof skating on the ice. A particularly bovine cry of alarm broke from its lips, and it staggered back, feet slipping, its spear jerking into the sky, as it hit the lip of the gateway pool....
The Minotaur tripped, its enormous body falling back into the gateway. Its head crashed against the platform where the Yarlstone awaited, horns shattering in the collision, and most of its body sank through the gate.
The rest formed a bridge.
Elijah started running. He slid a bit, regained his feet, and then leapt up onto the Minotaur's hoof. Putting his hands down to help him balance, he started loping forward on all fours. Don't look down. Don't look down. He could see the green haze of the gateway beneath him as the Minotaur began to sink within it.
Across from him, Ezra finally turned the Minotaur he was riding directly toward the gateway. It's foot hit the lip of the pond, and Ezra took a running leap, his body arching out over the glimmering gateway.
Elijah launched himself off the Minotaur's face, landing on the platform and rolling, just as Ezra hit the other side.
He reached for the Yarlstone, just as Ezra did.
Both of them collided with the Yarlstone at the exact same time, hands curling around it. The surge of vibration lashed up Elijah's arms, through his spine. It screamed in his ears, and he could barely keep hold of the yellow diamond.
Then the world vanished around them, as they were thrown apart.
Chapter 19
Elijah came to in a scented palace. He was flat on his back, and his head ached. Where was—? A groan trembled through him as it all flashed back to him.
The Ascension. The courtyard. The Yarlstone.
The Yarlstone.
He jerked upright, his head spinning. Ezra moaned as he pushed to his hands and knees, blood dripping down his temple. They were in a hallway in a palace Elijah didn't quite recognize. Gauzy curtains fluttered in several open archways, leading to gods-knew-where and the world was faintly tinged with yellow light.
"Where are we?" Ezra choked out. "What did you do?"
His alter ego called a ball of flame to life, but Elijah held out a hand, scrambling to his feet.
He knew the smell of that incense.
"Oh, shit."
"What is it?"
Both of them were on their feet, staring around.
"I get that we're enemies," Elijah breathed, "but I don't think you or I are the biggest problem we have to face right now. What do you know about Dameron?"
Ezra snorted. "Nice try, Elijah. King Dameron's been dead for—"
"One hundred years," he said. "Kind of poetic, isn't it? And now there's a Turning Point, and something's sucking all the Current out of the lands."
Ezra stared at him.
"I mean, you know more about magic than I do," he continued. "What would need that sort of power? How could you do it? The Yarlstone's connected to the lands, to the Current, so I guess there's a theory that anything connected to the Yarlstone might be able to drain that much magic, but you have to ask yourself, why?"
"You're trying to tell me Dameron's somehow alive, and he's been using the Yarlstone to draw power out of the Nine Lands?" Ezra said incredulously.
"Technically, he's not alive," Elijah replied. "That's kind of the point, I think. He spoke to me when I was inside one of the Wells. He's got power, he's got the knowledge of how to resurrect himself, he just needs one more thing."
And we just bloody gave it to him.
The question is, does Dameron want Ezra's body? Or mine?
Fire and Ice. This was what he'd needed to discover in the Black Keep. The Book of Eloa hadn't been warning him about Dameron's fire. It had been warning him about Ezra's. What had it said? It will need both fire and ice to create enough pressure to....
Damn it. He couldn't remember.
Ezra's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "You know... They warned me about facing you. They said you'd try and sway me."
A sudden surge of fire flew toward Elijah.
He flung his arms up, a shield of ice forming in front of him. The wall of fire washed over him, heat stealing the oxygen from the air. Son of a— He pushed strength into the shield of ice, and it started to move closer to Ezra, fighting the flame.
But he could only get so far.
Evil Elijah had juice.
"I'm not your enemy!" he screamed. "You're going to get us both killed, and then Dameron gets exactly what he wants! He plans on overtaking one of our bodies. He just needed one of us—or both—to touch the Yarlstone so he could get a chance at us."
The fire vanished. Elijah's arms surged forward all of a sudden, and his shield evaporated, water sloshing all across the floor.
Panting breaths ripped through him. He didn't even know how he'd created that shield. He looked at his hands.
"You're untrained," Ezra said, facing him with fists held at both sides. "Acting purely on instinct. I could crush you as easily as I would a moth in my hand."
"Then why don't you do it?" he demanded, his chest heaving.
They stared at each other for long moments.
And Elijah's mind started racing. There were a lot of nature versus nurture arguments running through his head right now, but all he could think of was Zoe and Zora. At heart, Zora was the Zoe who'd been born in a brutal world, torn from her family, and sent to a training camp.
But she was just as disciplined and driven as Zoe, just as kind, beneath her tough exterior. She worried about failing her people, the same way Zoe worried about meeting her parent's expectations.
No matter how this Ezra had been raised, he had parts of Elijah in him. Elijah just had to reach them.
"You could overwhelm me," he admitted, swallowing his pride. Pride and jealousy were what had ruined his relationship with Zoe. Fear and doubt. It was an ugly mix. "I'm a novice. We both know that. But there's some part of you that wonders if I'm right, isn't there? Some part of you that's thinking of your family right now, of your home. What happens to your parents if I'm correct and Dameron comes back? If he takes your body, then do you think they're ever going to see their son again? If he takes me, you're suddenly facing a mage with a lot of raw power, and the ability to wield it. Do you think you can defeat him?"
Ezra's fingers twitched, and his nostrils flared. "Dameron's dead."
A whisper skated over Elijah's skin. "There you are."
They both turned.
"You felt it too, didn't you?" Elijah whispered. It was Dameron's voice.
Soft footsteps padded across the marble floors somewhere.
The vibration hummed louder, as if it shook the walls of the palace itself.
Elijah turned as the sensation shivered down his spine.
A man strode toward them, moving with a slow, predator pace. His chest was bare, and a black silk robe flared open around him. He wore a heavy gold medallion, along with the loose silk trousers the Pasternakians seemed to favor. Kohl rimmed dangerous green eyes, and the mage king smiled as he saw he had their full attention.
"Thank you, Elijah. For bringing me what I need."
"You were saying," he whispered, shooting a glance at Ezra.
Ezra's face paled. "You're dead. This cannot be. Where are we?"
Dameron curled the fingers on his right hand and Ezra gurgled as he was lifted into the air, fingers clenched around his throat as if something was choking him. "You are inside my prison within the Yarlstone."
"No!" A woman cried, and Asphodel darted out of one of the open archways, clad in violet silk. "I won't let you do this."
Dameron barely glanced behind him. He
gave a flick with his left hand, and Asphodel was thrown back, into one of the walls. She collapsed on the floor in a slouch of rumpled silk, groaning.
"You don't get to tell me what I will and will not do," Dameron said. "Not anymore."
He flung his hand to the right, and Ezra slammed into the wall, pinned there. His face was going red. He tried to summon fire, but Dameron's eyes lit up and suddenly the fire Ezra summoned was racing toward him. Dameron absorbed it, his expression one of delight.
"Delicious," he said. "I'm going to suck you dry."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Elijah held his hands up in a placating manner. "Nobody has to die here."
Dameron's head turned. "Why not, Elijah?" he mocked. "It's either you or him, and his fire powers suit me far better than yours. In fact...." He let Ezra go, and Ezra hit the floor, his eyes half popping from his head. Dameron stepped over him. "Ice doesn't suit me at all."
Then why is he looking at me like he wants to eat me alive? Or worse yet, wear me as a skin-suit?
"But then, he's a trained mage," Dameron crooned, "who knows how to ward me out. And you're not. You're perfectly ripe for the plucking."
Dameron gave a twist of his hand and Elijah screamed as the bass exploded through him, vibrating so hard it felt like the veins in his temples were going to pop. The amulet around his neck burned hot in response. He grabbed it, and instantly the pressure in his head vanished.
Elijah found himself on his hands and knees on the floor. He dropped the amulet, and saw the round burn in the middle of his palm. Son of a bee-atch.
Dameron flinched back. "What is this? What are you wearing?"
"Don't use.... magic against him," Ezra rasped. "He's absorbing it."
Yeah, I figured.
How were they going to defeat him? Elijah took a step back as Dameron started toward him. Couldn't use magic. Couldn't escape his little mind prison. Couldn't—
He had the stupidest idea.
Elijah launched himself forward and tackled Dameron. It happened so fast he took the mage king by surprise. Dameron's head and Elijah's shoulder slammed into the marble.
"Run!" he screamed at Ezra, for no other reason than it seemed like they were on the same side now.
An enemy of my enemy....
Rolling to his feet, he launched himself up, thanking Coach for all those sprint sessions. Ezra leaned against the wall, and Elijah simply grabbed him and towed him along.
"You vile little miscreant!"
An enormous wall of force smashed into the pair of them. They both went down, and Elijah's palms slammed flat on the ground. Pain rang through him. He was pretty sure his nose was bleeding.
"Dameron! Stop!" Asphodel.
This time it was Ezra who hauled him to his feet. "You have got to learn to ward," Ezra snapped.
They both turned to see Asphodel drawing a knife from Dameron's back. The mage king barely flinched. He grabbed her by the throat and threw her against the wall.
"I shall not be thwarted this time," Dameron snarled. "You ruined my Ascension. You shall not ruin my restoration."
A burning ball of fire blazed to life in his hand.
Elijah started toward her, but Ezra yanked him back. "Don't."
Asphodel turned toward them, and he could see she knew she was already dead. This was merely an effort to buy them some time. "You can't defeat him," Asphodel cried. "I've tried. He's too powerful."
"Then how do we stop him?" Ezra demanded.
"You have to hurry! Run! I'll try and hold him off," she replied, turning to face Dameron.
Sounded good to him.
Elijah turned and bolted, hearing Ezra hot on his heels. They hit the end of the hallway and Elijah's boots slid on the marble as he came to a halt. Three corridors branched off.
"This way," Ezra grabbed his arm, and yanked him down one of them.
Heat washed through the hallway behind them. The walls seemed to pulse in time to Elijah's heartbeat and suddenly a scream ripped through the world.
Asphodel.
He faltered, but Ezra was merciless. "We cannot save her," he snapped. "She's buying us time to do what we have to do."
Down staircases. Bolting through rooms, and leaping through the arched windows. Across a small walled garden, then up, up, until both of them were struggling to breathe.
They found themselves inside a small corner tower built into the wall. A city sprawled below them, tinged with the yellow of the Yarlstone, but silent. Dead. Nothing moved.
Ezra finally slowed.
"Oh, so you believe me now?" Elijah said.
Ezra slammed a hand over his mouth, holding one finger up as he listened. Heat ran over Elijah's skin, until sweat dripped uncomfortably down him. What was Ezra doing? He tried to summon his own powers, to cast it off.
"I'm trying to ward us both," Ezra hissed. "Stop fighting me."
Then a shiver of Dameron's power glided over them, and Elijah held his breath. It paused, caressing him from the inside, but then it moved on.
Both of them started breathing again.
Ezra paced, raking a hand over his mouth. "Curse the skies." He pressed his fingertips to his temples.
"How do we get out of here?" Elijah asked. "Because I don't think we've got that long."
"I'm trying to think."
"Think faster!"
Ezra glared at him.
"We're not really here," Ezra said slowly. "This is a mental prison world, created for Dameron. That's how Asphodel did it. She was a mage, but she was nowhere near strong enough to defeat him. So she trapped him instead.
"Both of our bodies are still in the real world, but the second we touched it, our minds were drawn here. That's why mages go mad when they touch the Yarlstone." Ezra paused by the window, and glanced out. "They're being pulled inside this world, and Dameron's attacking them. He's probably draining their powers too. That's why any mage who touches the Yarlstone loses his mind and his magic. They become husks, with nothing left inside them."
"And Dameron gets a tasty snack or two. Maybe that's how he gained enough strength to start draining Current out of the real world."
"If his power comes through the Yarlstone," Elijah said slowly, "then can we destroy the stone?"
Silence.
"Maybe. But I don't have the power to do this alone," Ezra said slowly, and looked at him.
Elijah blinked.
"You want my power?"
"I couldn't take it if I wanted." Ezra looked faintly disgusted. "Fire is my calling, not ice. But together.... We need to draw as much of the Current as we can both hold. And then we need to channel everything we've got into the Yarlstone. Diamonds explode at a certain heat level, but I don't think I can make it hot enough."
"Fire versus Ice," Elijah said slowly. Fire and ice. Harry had said all along he couldn't do this alone. "Hot water freezes faster than cold. It's the Mpemba paradox—thank you, Zoe, for drilling that into my head. If you make it hot enough, then I might be able to shatter it by slamming my ice through it. Maybe. Like, I'm kind of pulling some random chemistry facts out of thin air here, and it's entirely possible I wasn't paying that much attention in class, and.... I'm babbling. I have no clue if this will work. I just know we need pressure. Fire and ice and pressure."
Ezra arched a brow. "I was talking about flux effect. Energy shift? The Adolenes Problem? The Yarlstone is a diamond, which means it's ridiculously hard and won't scratch, but you can smash one with a hammer if you wield enough force. We simply have to channel enough power into it to fracture it."
"Sounds good."
Ezra held his hands out. "Hold my hands."
Elijah grabbed them. Holding hands with himself was the pinnacle of the weirdness he'd encountered in this world. But the edge of that faint whisper seemed to stroke through his senses, if only he could hear what it said.
"Open yourself to the Current."
It was simple, really.
The whisper seemed to stop, almost as if it were listening to him. That v
ibration began to shiver through his hands, and this time Elijah opened up to it.
It thundered through his veins.
Beat like a ragged drum in his heart.
He could suddenly feel the Current flood the world around him, like a glimmering mantle that lay over everything, surged through it. It was life, at its very heart. Power. And it quivered in time to the vibration within him.
Elijah turned toward the gardens. An enormous force was buzzing against his senses, scraping them raw, sucking at everything in its path.
"Yes, he's coming," Ezra said. "Focus on me."
Heat began to pour between them. Elijah could somehow feel something in his hands. Something hard.
In the distance he heard the ringing clash of steel on steel as Zora screamed, "Elijah!"
"There it is," Ezra breathed. "Are you ready?"
Please let us save Orynthica.
Please let me go home to Zoe.
The amulet against Elijah's chest seemed to warm. He could almost smell the scent of Zoe's favorite perfume.
"Elijah?" she whispered, as if she'd somehow sensed him thinking of her.
It was the amulet. He'd thought it merely a gift Miss Lalane had slipped in the pocket of his blazer, but what if it was something more? What if it had powers?
He was pretty sure it had protected him from the full force of Dameron's might in the hallway.
What if it could somehow connect him to home? Like a homing beacon? Or allowed him to communicate with the ones he loved?
"I really need you right now," he thought.
"I'm with you."
"Ready." Somehow the thought of Zoe reminded him of everything he was fighting for.
Their hands were connected, but he could also feel the diamond between them. Ezra sucked in enormous amounts of Current and channeled it all through the diamond.
"Now!" Ezra called, and Elijah turned his focus onto the diamond in their hands.
"Ice," Elijah whispered under his breath, as he curled his fingers up into Ezra's. He could feel the heat washing against his senses, and poured everything he had into cooling it down as fast as possible. The temperature between them plunged.
"Keep going," Ezra said, with a gasp.
The diamond seemed to pulse in their hands. Heat was draining out of the world. Elijah's breath fogged, and his lungs seemed to catch, as if he'd ventured outside in the middle of the Canadian winter.
