by J. J. Green
If Carina replied, she didn’t hear her. Parthenia held on to her sister’s fingers and sank down to the ground. She wanted so much to help her but she didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t get inside the machine or move it. The stadium was being steadily demolished and Carina was trapped. How could she save her sister?
As Parthenia held her sister’s fingers, she rubbed away the tears that were mixing with dust on her face. She had finally stood up for herself when she’d gotten away from Castiel. But it wasn’t enough. It didn’t matter how brave she was if she couldn’t help the people she loved.
***
Parthenia had resigned herself to staying with Carina no matter what happened. She couldn’t leave her sister there to die trapped inside an ugly mechanical monster. When they’d been together on Nightfall, it would have been much easier for Carina to escape if she’d been alone, but she’d risked her life to take all her family with her—even Castiel, though he didn’t appreciate it. Parthenia could never abandon her now.
Another explosion resounded. As Parthenia looked up to see what part of the stadium had been hit, she saw figures running out to her from one of the entrances to the pit. She cringed. So Langley had left behind some guards to find her after all. Parthenia had thought they must have all left.
But then she noticed through the dust and gloom that three of the figures were shorter than they should be. One of them was very short. Her heart nearly burst with joy.
“Darius,” she yelled. She leapt up and ran to the little boy, scooping him into her arms. Oriana and Ferne grabbed her, jumping up and down with happiness.
“Wait,” Darius said, struggling. “I have to get Carina out.”
“Can you?” Parthenia asked as she put him down. “Have you got some elixir?”
The fourth figure walked up. Parthenia was shocked to see Carina’s friend, Bryce, was with her siblings.
“We’ve got some left, but not a lot,” he said, handing a bottle to Darius. “Do your work, kid.”
Clutching the bottle in his little hand, Darius ran over to the mech. He reached up to Carina’s fingers. In another moment, their sister was out of the machine and standing next to him. As the two embraced, Parthenia burst into tears again. “I can’t believe it. We finally did it. We’re finally together again.” As she spoke, however, she realized that wasn’t exactly true.
“Come on,” Carina shouted as she began to run.
Everyone sprinted with her to one of the sets of massive mech entrance doors. One of the doors remained ajar, and they slipped through it to the backstage area. The noise of the bombing faded somewhat. Carina led them through the workshop areas and offices until they finally emerged from the building into the parking lot.
The vehicles that remained were wrecked and in places the ground was cratered.
“We need to Transport somewhere,” said Carina. “But I don’t know where we’ll be safe from the Sherrerr attack.”
They jogged across the lot while they thought about what they should do.
“You should thank Darius,” Bryce said to Parthenia. “All the time you were in the pit Dirksen guards were spotting you and coming in to get you. Darius Transported them away.”
“His Casts are so powerful,” Oriana broke in. “He’s been moving them to the other side of the planet so they couldn’t quickly return in a hover vehicle.”
“He must have Transported about thirty of them,” Ferne exclaimed.
“I was worried that Castiel would Cast you out of there when the bombardment started, though,” Bryce said.
Parthenia laughed. “Well, he wouldn’t have been able to for a while. I knocked him out!”
“You did what?” Bryce asked.
“I broke his elixir bottle, and then I punched him. Like this.” She made a fist and swung forcefully into the air. “I really hurt my hand, but I don’t care. It was fantastic. His eyes rolled back and he keeled over. He was out cold. And then, when I looked around, the bodyguard, Harmon, was gone, and everyone was distracted by the bombing, so I jumped over the edge of the box and into the crowd below.”
“But what about when Castiel comes around?” Oriana asked. “Won’t he be able to Locate you? He must have something you were in contact with.”
“I don’t think so,” replied Parthenia. “I made a point of washing everything I wore or used every night and I was careful to always clean out my hairbrush. He might think he has something he can use, but he doesn’t.”
“I know,” said Carina, spinning around. “We should go to the forest. The Sherrerrs won’t bother attacking that. They’ll target inhabited areas and tactical sites.”
“But wait,” Parthenia said. “We’re forgetting Nahla. We have to get her, Carina. We can’t leave her there with that monster.”
“You mean go back to Langley Dirksen’s estate?” Carina looked troubled. “I feel sorry for Nahla too, but do you really think she wants to leave Castiel? She seems to adore him.”
“Not any more,” Parthenia replied. “Not since he learned to Cast. He’s been behaving terribly toward her. It reminds me of how Father used to treat Mother. I’m sure she hates him now. She’s just too frightened to show it. We have to help her. Even if she isn’t a mage she’s still one of us.”
“Parthenia,” Carina said sadly. “I hear you. But it’s too dangerous for any of us to go there. We would have to search to find her and someone would be sure to spot us.”
“Not if we know exactly where she is,” said Parthenia. She pulled out a handkerchief. “It’s hers. She was using it the other day when she had a cold.”
“Oh, er… ” Carina wrinkled her nose and took the handkerchief, pinching it between her thumb and forefinger. “Okay. That could work. Let’s Transport to the forest first.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Carina appeared in a dark room. All she could hear was the sound of someone breathing, deeply and regularly, as if asleep. As her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, Carina realized with relief that she was in the right place. She also realized that Castiel was an idiot. No one else was in the room except little Nahla, fast asleep in bed. Her brother hadn’t imagined that anyone would bother to take her from him. He probably thought everyone else held her in the same low regard as he did.
Langley’s mansion didn’t seem to have been attacked by the Sherrerrs yet, which was odd. If Carina’s suspicion that the woman she’d spotted was one of their spies, the Sherrerrs definitely knew exactly where the estate was and that a high-ranking Dirksen lived there. Well, it wasn’t a puzzle she needed to figure out, Carina reasoned. She hoped to leave the Sherrerr/Dirksen struggle for power behind as soon as she could.
The elixir was down to its last dregs. After she Transported Nahla and herself out they would only have a little left. They would have to find a way to make some more, which might be challenging in a burnt forest. Never mind. Saving the little girl was absolutely worth it.
In two steps, Carina was beside her bed. Kneeling down, she took Nahla’s hand where it lay on the blanket, then swallowed some elixir. She Cast.
They appeared in the forest. Nahla’s eyes opened and she sat bolt upright in surprise.
“Yay! Carina’s back,” Darius yelled. “She got Nahla.”
The children ran over to their sister and started making a fuss of her. They began to explain to the shocked girl where she was and what had happened.
“Wait,” Carina said. “We have to check Nahla and Parthenia for tracers. Darius, here’s the last of the elixir. I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to sense them if they’re there. Do you want to do it?”
Her brother took the bottle and set to work. After checking both his sisters for the devices he declared confidently that he’d found them. In a matter of moments, he had also removed them without causing any harm. Ferne set off to scatter the tracers over a wide area before the family moved on from that place.
Relieved that they were finally free of the Dirksens, Carina walked over to Bryce whe
re he was leaning against the burned remains of a tree. He hugged her and wrapped his arms around her waist. She rested her head on his chest. She was exhausted. Three mech fights had tired her out and the emotional turmoil of the night’s events had also drained her.
“It’s strange how things turn out, isn’t it?” Bryce said. “This wasn’t the plan, but you ended up getting Parthenia back anyway, and now you have another member of the family with you.”
“Yeah,” said Carina. “I hope Parthenia’s right about Nahla no longer having any loyalty to Castiel, though. If she does, she could easily betray us.”
“I don’t think she will. She’s just a little girl.”
“Darius is just a little boy, yet he saved me and Parthenia tonight, according to what you say.”
“He did. He was amazing.”
Carina watched her youngest brother work chatting with Nahla, his head of thick, tousled hair bobbing around and his arms making expansive gestures. So much mage power in such a little body. She wondered what he would be capable of when he grew up.
“So, what now?” Bryce asked.
“We have to find a way to go offplanet. If the Sherrerrs’ attack is successful and they find Castiel they’ll be looking for us too. I want to get everyone as far from both the clans as I can.” Carina was about to tell Bryce about her desire to find Earth but Parthenia walked up to them.
“Thank you for rescuing Nahla, Parthenia. You won’t regret it. She’s so happy to be away from him.”
“I’m glad she’s away from him too,” Carina said. “I hope she recovers from his maltreatment.”
“I think she will,” said Parthenia. “We’re all better since leaving the Sherrerrs, even though things have been so hard. But I wanted to ask you, what are we going to do now?”
“I was wondering the same,” said Bryce.
“Because we have to do something to stop Castiel,” Parthenia continued.
Carina made a noise of disgust. “Is he really any of our business any longer? Let the Dirksens have him, or the Sherrerrs, or whoever else wants him.”
“But no one else can stop him but us,” Parthenia protested. “You should have heard what he was telling me tonight. He plans on taking over the Dirksens and then the Sherrerrs and then whoever else might stand in his way until the entire sector is under his control. Can you imagine how things would be if a mage like Castiel were in charge?”
Carina wanted to disagree with her sister. She wanted nothing more to do with Castiel. But she knew exactly what Parthenia meant and she knew her sister was right. A heaviness settled over her heart as she realized her work wasn’t over. She couldn’t take her sisters and brothers and escape to somewhere safe. She would have to find a way to defeat that scion of his evil father.
“Okay,” she said. “I get it. We have to do something, but I don’t know what. The truth is, I don’t know what I’m dealing with in Castiel. I don’t know why his mage abilities developed so late, the same as I don’t know why Darius picks up on everyone’s emotions and can throw thirty grown men and women halfway around a planet without breaking a sweat.”
“But I thought you knew all about mages,” Parthenia said.
“Not at all,” said Carina. “My grandmother died when I was quite young. Though she might have told me a lot I must have forgotten half of it. I don’t even know how Ma and Dad managed to meet when mages are so isolated and secretive.”
“Oh, I know that,” exclaimed Parthenia. “Mother told me that she’d been married before and that she’d met her first husband at a festival… somewhere. I can’t remember right now but it’ll come back to me if I think about it. She swore me to secrecy, of course, so Father wouldn’t find out what I knew.”
“Really?” said Carina. It was a lead if only a small one.
“Weren’t you saying there was some information about mages in that religion’s holy book?” Bryce asked.
“Yes,” Carina said uncertainly, “though I had to read between the lines.”
“Well, that’s a start, isn’t it?” Bryce asked.
“I guess so,” replied Carina.
Parthenia returned to the group of children, who were laughing and chatting as if they hadn’t a care in the world. It was hard to believe what they’d each endured recently. If the boys and girls had been at home or in a park, no one could have guessed the trials they had been subjected to over the previous days.
Yet they were under the stars in the remains of a forest fire at nighttime, the sky flashing and booms pulsing from the Sherrerr bombardment in the distance. They had no food or water or anywhere to sleep, and they had a challenging time ahead of them striving to prevent their malevolent brother from achieving his bid for ultimate power.
Carina hoped with all her heart that, whatever happened, her little family would come out the other side unscathed.
Author’s note
I hope you enjoyed the second installment in Star Mage Saga. Carina and her family were certainly put through their paces, weren’t they? And were you surprised when Bryce popped up? Or maybe you were expecting to see him again.
Readers often ask what inspires my writing. It’s safe to say that all the books and stories in the Star Mage Saga have been strongly influenced by the time I’ve spent living in Taiwan. The temple in Dark Mage Rises, for example, is roughly based on a Chinese temple, and the food Carina recognizes from her childhood is derived from the fact that traditional Taiwanese and Chinese dishes are extremely region specific, down to particular restaurants and family recipes.
Of course, the science fiction I’ve read since I was young is a big inspiration too. I have always been fascinated by the idea of a future so far distant that humanity’s origins are lost to history, which is a concept I first encountered in the Dumarest Saga by Edwin Charles Tubb. I also loved Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun.
Another inspiration behind Star Mage Saga is my interest in religious mythology and how stories that are based on true events change over time, adapted by the teller to reflect their viewpoint and opinion. I often wonder what stories people of the future will tell about our time.
Hopefully without giving too much away, I can reveal that in Star Mage Saga book three, Wildfire and Steel, influences from Chinese culture and language play a role again, and we learn more about the history of humankind in the galaxy.
What minor characters did you like in Dark Mage Rises? Did you like Jace, Asha, or Harmon? Or perhaps you’re curious about the dark-eyed Dirksen officer Carina meets at the beginning of the book? I had a lot of fun creating the supporting cast and I’ll definitely bring some of them back in book three. If there’s a character who you loved or were interested in and would like to see again, drop me a line at my website contact form or post on my readers’ page on Facebook.
I hope to hear from you and see you again in Wildfire and Steel.
Jenny Green July 2018
Carina’s story continues...
WILDFIRE AND STEEL
STAR MAGE SAGA BOOK 3
Appears fall 2018
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ALSO BY J.J. GREEN
SHADOWS OF THE VOID SERIES
SPACE COLONY ONE SERIES
CARRIE HATCHETT, SPACE ADVENTURER SERIES
THERE COMES A TIME
A SCIENCE FICTION COLLECTION
DAWN FALCON
A FANTASY COLLECTION
LOST TO TOMORROW
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Copyright © 2018 J.J. Green
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the publisher or author. The exception would be in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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