“For my father,” he said.
He pulled his right arm back, making shadows dance over him, and then he tossed the sizzling fireball toward the two men and the woman.
“Down!” the woman shouted.
She managed to avoid the fireball by rolling off to the side, but the other two weren’t so lucky. Basher took the brunt of the attack and fell back. He got up, shook the flames off his body, growling as his hands wiped at the burning liquid, and roared up at the sky. He may have been immune to the heat and the flame, but he wasn’t immune to an insult.
Ascher took over. He attacked the Feral woman and the Berserker. They wrestled against the packed snow, the woman stinging Ascher in his furry hind with her tail. The Berserker was doing his best to punch the grizzly bear. Ascher roared back at the orphans, a command meaning, Get out of here!
Coscoros experienced the worst of the spell. His black wings caught fire and he loosed a shriek of agony into the night so dreadful it caused Emma to break into a fit of shivers. Lifting his flaming wings above his shoulders, he looked like a demon that had just climbed up from the depths of Hell. The smell of burning feathers was acrid and awful. He collapsed into the snow and rolled around like a dog to put out the flames.
“Let’s go!” Emma shouted. “Let’s get out of here!”
But Milo was just standing there, watching the Acolyte burn. The magician at his side gripped him by the shoulder.
“Milo, snap out of it! Let’s go!”
Milo blinked as if coming out of a dream. He found Emma and ran alongside her.
“We can survive this, Emma. Just stay with me.”
They ran toward the ship, slogging through the snow and panting from the effort. Emma didn’t know how many times she fell. At one point, Milo picked her up and began to half-carry, half-drag her along. He had to push aside her wings to do it. She tried her best to keep from hitting him in the face with her feathers.
“You’ll be OK,” he said into his sister’s ear. “I’m here, Emma. I won’t let anything happen to you. Golden wings. I don’t believe it!”
Sevarin appeared by Emma’s other side. “Let me take her, Milo.”
Milo gave him a hard look. “Fine. But don’t let any…”
“I know,” Sevarin said. “I got it, Banks!”
Emma was about to plead with them to stop bickering when suddenly a current of energy caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up.
CRACK! The energy had come from directly above the ship, a bolt of lightning so thick and bright that it seemed to split the night sky in half.
The ship exploded, raining fiery debris all over the snow. Milo met Emma’s gaze, eyes struck wide with terror.
“He’s here.”
Chapter 72
A ring of fire sprang up around the orphans.
It had begun as a single spire of flame, a yellow core wrapped in white, which then split into two towering bodies that slid away from each other to trace a burning circle around them. Emma watched the flames form an impenetrable wall, then looked back to see the man from her nightmares approach.
Iolus walked through the flames, untouched, lifting his knees higher than normal to better trudge through the deep snow. The light of the fire illuminated the sour expression on his face. He was glaring at someone behind Emma. She turned and saw the magician that had accompanied Milo, and then she saw the magician reach into his coat and take out a pair of coin-shaped sunglasses and plant them on his face.
“You’re going to lose this battle,” he said.
“Oh?” Iolus put his hands on his hips. “Is that so?”
The magician stood between Iolus and the group. “You’re outnumbered. Go back and try again some other day. There’s no shame in it.”
Iolus’s face twitched as if a fly had landed in one of his eyes. He looked at the children behind the magician and saw Milo, and his face broke into a grin of sweet malice. Emma thought he would start dancing.
“Milo Banks,” Iolus said. “The one and only.”
He reached out with his left arm and extended his fingers. A bluish light grew from his palm, brightening the snow at his feet. A moment later, the snow was gone, leaving only a hole. An enormous bubble filled with water hung from the sorcerer’s palm.
Iolus swung the ball in Emma’s direction. She ducked, turned, and saw that the water ball had not been meant for her. Milo had been the intended victim, and he was now choking and trying to free himself from the flexing ball around his head. Emma could see his eyes go wide with fright as he began to drown.
“Help him!”
The magician grabbed Milo’s arm with one hand and used his other hand—the fingertips bright blue with energy—to pop the bubble. Water spilled all over Milo. He fell into the snow, gasping for breath.
“Milo,” Lily said, going to his side and helping him stand.
The magician, scowling now beneath his glasses, turned his attention back to the sorcerer.
“Back off, Iolus!”
The magician’s entire left arm turned bright blue, resembling an ice sculpture lit from the inside. He tried to punch Iolus with the glowing arm, which stretched to an incredible length in an attempt to reach him, but Iolus ducked away. Then Iolus’s arm burst into flames and he did the same, punching in the magician’s direction, stretching the flaming arm to a length of at least six feet. The magician blocked the fiery fist with his ice arm.
“Elemental spells aren’t your specialty, Emmanuel,” Iolus said. “You’re making this too easy.”
Emma watched the man named Emmanuel—and there was something so familiar about him—stagger from the impact of Iolus’s attack. Her hands went to her mouth. She wanted to scream for him to hurry. The magician’s arm had stopped glowing and began to steam from the heat of the surrounding flames. He shook it until it went back to normal, then quickly put up his other arm to stop something in midflight.
It was a cluster of red-hot, flaming arrows.
“Nice try,” Emmanuel said, melting the arrows into harmless black liquid.
“I wasn’t finished,” Iolus said.
He stepped back, almost tripping in the snow but catching himself, and extended both arms. The circle of flames contracted with a deep whoosh and Emma could feel the heat pressing in on her, filling her lungs and making her eyes sting and water. Any longer and her wings would catch fire. She could feel the heat crawling along her feathers like ants.
“Milo,” she said.
“I’m here.”
Milo was in the process of casting a spell. He raised his right arm, and he seemed so tall in that moment that Emma was speechless. Looking up at the sky, he made a broad swirling motion and plunged his fist into the snow.
Another whoosh as the circle of fire expanded. Emma felt cooling wind against her face and wings. Milo had done something to counteract the spell; that much was obvious. But what she didn’t understand was the look of shock on her brother’s face.
“It can’t be,” he said.
Emma followed his gaze. Someone had come up behind Iolus. A woman with dark hair—
—and white wings.
“Mom?” Emma said.
Their mother stood behind Iolus, wings lifted above either side of her, little more than a silhouette against the receding flames. But one side of her was lit, and Emma could see that her mother’s face was twisted into an angry scowl.
Iolus looked stunned. He tipped his head forward so he could examine the front of his body.
There was blood on his shirt. The tip of a short sword was sticking out of his belly, having entered through the back, past his spine.
When he turned to see who had stabbed him, Alexandra punched him, sending him down to his knees.
“Where’s Ascher?” she said, yanking the sword out of him. With a groan, Iolus clutched his belly and curled himself into a ball.
Coral was the one who answered.
“He’s back there,” she said and pointed toward the ranch.
> “And my children?”
“Here,” Emma and Milo said at once.
Alexandra flapped her wings and flew across the snow toward them. She wore a long brown coat with fur lining and leather boots that went all the way up to her knees. She was dressed in a full suit of leather armor.
“Kids,” she said, smiling and reaching for them.
Something long and shiny rose behind her.
“Mom!” Milo shouted, but it was too late. The shiny blade Emma was able to identify as Iolus’s dancing, floating sword, descended and impaled her mother through the chest.
“No,” Emma said.
Emmanuel caught the twins before they could run to her. “Stay back!”
“Mom!” Milo screamed. He struggled to get past his uncle.
Alexandra didn’t attempt to save herself. She only stared at her children, and a look almost like relief came over her face.
“Go,” she said. “It’s my time.”
She sank to her knees, Iolus grinning behind her. He yanked the sword out of her and let it float up over his head. Alexandra’s eyes closed and she landed face-first into the snow.
Almost immediately, her body began to glow with white light. Snow rushed away from her in flurries as her body diminished in size. Emma watched, stunned by the transformation, as her mother’s body burst into a loose tornado of white light particles that soon disappeared in the wind.
Something long and thin stood in her place. It was a glowing red bud atop a green stalk. The bud blossomed into a rose as big as a Berserker’s fist. All aglow, it made a ring of green and red light against the snow.
Clutching his wounded belly, Iolus walked over to the rose. Emma knew what would happen before she saw it.
He yanked the rose up by its glowing head, his long face awash in its light. He studied its petals with a hungry smile before stuffing it into his cloak. Then, drawing his cloak tight around his wounds, he turned and limped toward the flames, his floating sword trailing after him.
The last thing Emma saw before passing out was her mother’s blood still red on the blade.
Chapter 73
“Soldiers coming,” Oscar was shouting. “Up the hill!”
“Mom?” Emma said, feeling warm despite the freezing wind. She could hear the crunching of snow all around her, people talking in high tones, the crackling of scattered fires. One side of her face burned from the flames shivering nearby. When she finally made sense of what was happening, she realized she was lying flat on her back, and that her wings hurt terribly beneath her.
“She’s gone,” Sevarin said, picking Emma up and slinging her over his shoulder. Her breath spilled out of her. “I’m sorry, Emma.”
“Let me go,” she said. “I can walk.”
There was smoke and snow everywhere. The entire world had been reduced to these two basic elements: smoke and snow, and when she fell coughing from the smoke, she would find herself suffocating in the snow. Sevarin was always there to pick her up.
At one point, Owen and Gunner slowed ahead of her and waved them in another direction.
“It’s this way,” Owen said. “Follow us!”
The smoke burned her lungs, but with Sevarin holding her up, she was able to slog forward. Oscar took her other arm and the three of them half-ran, half-stumbled through the snow.
They came to a place where the air was clean, the sounds of battle far away. They were in a forest, and Emma saw light, frozen white light, coming from the skins of all the trees around her. She couldn’t believe it; trees like glowing ice pillars in a forest palace of the gods.
“Are the trees—glowing?”
Barrel appeared at her side. His hood had fallen back and the light washed over his pale, sweating face, making it shine.
“They’re Caemyri trees,” he said, his breath steaming in the air. “They glow whenever spells are being cast. In this state, they are completely immune to magic.”
Milo ran toward his sister, crunching snow underfoot and panting. There were dark smudges on his white suit.
“We have to keep going. The vault is this way.”
Sevarin jogged up to them. “What vault?”
“Emmanuel’s vault. It’s underground. We’ll be safe there.”
Emma touched her brother’s arm. “Who is he?”
“You don’t know,” Milo said. “I didn’t tell you.”
“Know what?”
“He’s our uncle. Dad’s older brother.”
Emma’s mouth hung open in disbelief.
Sevarin patted them both on the shoulders. “No time, you two. The others are waiting.”
“The Berserker’s coming,” Milo said as he led them through the glowing forest.
“The guy with the hammer?” Sevarin said.
“Yeah. We need Lily. There’s no way we can outrun him.”
They found the other orphans in a grove of trees flooded with pale light. When Lily saw Milo, she ran to him and threw her arms around his shoulders.
“I’m so scared,” she said.
“We all are,” Milo said, gently peeling her off. “Lily, I need you to do something.”
“What is it?”
Her eyes shone a radiant green in the Caemyri light. She was holding the staff Milo had given her against her right shoulder.
“I need you to summon your rock golem. A Berserker’s on his way.”
“But your mother,” Lily said, glittering tears forming in her eyes. “She’s—she’s…”
Milo’s looked away. “Later. Not now. I need you to use your staff and summon Rocky.”
Coral came running over, her entire body heaving as she crunched through the snow.
“What’s happening?” she said. “Please, tell me what to do!”
Milo motioned with his chin at Emmanuel. “Ask him. He’s my uncle, Emmanuel. One of the Champions.”
Coral looked back at the man, who was in the process of casting a spell that involved shaping a foggy purple ball around a small blue crystal suspended in the center. The ball grew spikes and began to swirl. His glasses reflected the light from the spell, and Emma could see his face set tight in concentration.
Milo put his hand on Lily’s arm. “The golem. Now.”
BRRSHHT!
The sound of a tree exploding not far away, followed by a terrible pounding, like an elephant being chased through the forest, coming toward them.
Coral screamed and pushed the orphans back into the grove.
Another bursting sound as a tree was shattered. Then another, and another.
BRRSHHT! BRRSHHT!
Lily closed her eyes and began charging her staff. Emma gave her brother a questioning look.
Milo answered her, even though she hadn’t spoken. “He’s immune to my elemental spells. And Sevarin isn’t strong enough for a Berserker as old as Basher.”
Sevarin, who had been listening with his arms crossed, glared at Milo. “And how do you know that?”
Milo gave Sevarin a cross look. Emma was surprised to see that her brother was almost as tall as Sevarin now, and it was obvious he was no longer afraid of the Sargonaut.
“You’re not my enemy,” Milo said. He pointed in the direction of the Berserker’s approach. “They are.”
BRRSHHT! BRRSHHT! More trees exploded as Basher’s warhammer shattered them. His footsteps pounded toward them.
Emmanuel, still weaving the spell, shouted, “Hurry it up!”
Lily stepped forward, looking bulky in her winter clothes but still as majestic as the day Emma had first met her. The girl began her strange summoning dance, raising the glowing staff Milo had given her. In the blue-white radiance of the Caemyri trees, she looked like a pop singer in the middle of a dance number. Mist rose up from the snow, encircled her as she began to chant.
“Gods of old and spirits of new, essence of all good and true—come forth and help me subdue, this golem of orange and blue!”
A shimmering ball of light leaped out of the tip of her staff and flew toward
her other hand, where it spun against her palm, its color alternating between a fiery orange and a crystalline blue. The colors blinked all over her body.
BRRSHHT! BRRSHHT!
More shattered trees, the clomping of heavy steps. The Berserker shouted, enraged now. Emma could feel the ground trembling as he ran pounding toward them.
Lily raised her arms, facing the part of the forest where the Berserker would be appearing any moment now. The flickering orange-and-blue sphere was like a star above her head.
“Golem, protect me!”
She slammed the flickering sphere into the snow, where it shattered, tossing orange and blue marbles in every direction. A vibrant humming sound accompanied the spell, loud despite the clomping of the Berserker and the bursting of trees.
Emmanuel’s voice:
“Are you ready, Milo?”
“Ready,” Milo said.
Emma looked back at her brother. He was studying the blue and orange orbs now zipping back toward the center, the elements that would form Lily’s pet golem, Rocky.
But wait a minute…
“It won’t work,” Emma said. “Rocky’s too small!”
Lily had come out of her trance. She turned to face Milo.
“She’s right,” Lily said. “He’s only a pup.”
“Not for long,” Milo said. “He’s about to have a growth spurt he’ll never forget. Step aside, please.”
The girls stepped back. Milo looked over at his uncle, who had finished shaping the spiked energy ball. Strands of electricity crackled over its surface like jagged white wires.
Emmanuel tossed it over to Milo, who caught it easily and held it up with one hand.
BRRSHHT! BRRSHHT!
The Berserker was getting closer, bringing with him the darkness of shattered Caemyri trees. The orange and blue lights from Lily’s summoning spell had come together in a brilliant clash. The light died down, leaving in its place a small muscular golem who rose from his crouch and stared at them.
“Rocky,” Lily said. “Good boy. Look at me.”
The golem, as big as an infant, looked up at its mother.
“Rar rar rar,” it said, lifting its stocky arms.
Savant (The Luminether Series) Page 39
