Maltus did his best to repress a wince. If one of their teams had already penetrated the building, then that meant Janel and Karyn might already be dead.
But he had to know for certain. They all did.
“Report back to the rendezvous point,” Maltus told them. “I’ll take it from here.”
The man blinked. “Sir, we have our orders…”
“I know, and I’m changing them,” he replied with as much false bravado as he could muster. “The Council wants to make certain this is done right.”
It was immediately clear that none of them were buying it. Perhaps he should have simply blasted them the moment he arrived and not given their minds a chance to catch up, or perhaps he should have tried something more subtle than bluntly asking them to leave. But ultimately, it didn’t matter. Despite his best efforts, he was going to have to cross that dark threshold after all.
“Magister Wilhelm gave us the order himself,” the mage said. “And I don’t recognize you.”
“I really wish you did,” Maltus breathed. “And may the Goddess forgive me.”
Before they could respond, he extended his palm and unleashed a rippling shockwave of concussive force directly into the statue next to them. The invisible blast slammed into the stone with enough power to split it in half, and the soldiers hurled away from it like ragdolls cast aside by an angry child.
One mage managed to bounce off a nearby column and right himself quickly, the energy from his kinetic barrier flickering as it absorbed the worst of the impact. He immediately hurled a simple but powerful barrage of crackling electricity straight at Maltus. The magister let his own barrier absorb the worst of the blast, but a single spark slipped through and singed his left arm. His bicep spasmed uncontrollably, and he lost precious seconds as he staggered from the pain…
Maltus grit his teeth and lashed out again, this time by shifting the gravity at his opponent’s feet. The mage responded instinctually, just as his training had no doubt ingrained in him—he countered the gravity spell with one of his own, pushing down to keep his feet on the ground. Unfortunately for him, Maltus had no intention of hurling him upwards. Instead he pushed out, and the man abruptly launched straight backwards, skittering across the ground until he smashed into another building some fifty feet away. After a macabre crack, the man slid to the ground and stopped moving.
Maltus winced at the sight of the corpse, and the hesitation nearly cost him his life. A low rumble shook the ground, and he turned just in time to catch a glimpse of another soldier weaving his own spell. Fane energy writhed about the man like a serpent, and he created a gout of roaring flame that hosed down the entire hotel entryway. Maltus crouched and did his best to reinforce his barrier against the assault. The flash of heat on his skin was nearly unbearable, and for a moment his shield flickered dangerously as it struggled to hold—
And then the attacker cried out sharply, and the plume of flame vanished. Maltus blinked through the heat and saw the man twitching in place, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. Jean was standing behind him, her hand pressed against his neck. A moment later the soldier collapsed to the ground, his muscles still spasming.
“If you’re done trying to show off, we need to get up there,” she said, striding forward up the stairs to meet him. Gregori lumbered along right behind her.
Maltus nodded as he swept his eyes across the other Enclave magi. They weren’t moving, and he held out hope they were merely unconscious rather than dead. Regardless, he didn’t have time to worry about it.
Jean grabbed his still-quivering left arm, and the moment her skin touched his it was like a bucket of cool water had suddenly been poured across the wound. Within seconds the pain was gone, and when she released her grip it was like he’d never been injured at all. He smiled and nodded at her appreciatively.
“This time we all go together,” Gregori said, throwing open the hotel door. “Come on.”
***
“Blessed Kirshal,” Zach breathed as he gazed out at the Hall of Innovation from a corner alleyway. “It’s...unbelievable.”
Shaedra squinted as she tried to peer through the seemingly endless clouds of smoke and eruptions of fire on the steps in front of the building. It was an impressive skirmish, to be sure, with Chaval’s soldiers and his mercenary magi defending the building against a deluge of magic from the Enclave forces. Guns and spells joined together in the dissonant symphony of modern warfare, and it seemed impossible for anything to survive such a destructive tempest.
But she knew the young man wasn’t talking about that. He was staring down at the streets and the sea of bodies covering them. Whereas most of the city was a sprawling mass of screaming civilians trying to escape the chaos, this intersection was a graveyard. The bodies weren’t all soldiers—in fact, perhaps only one in ten had any type of uniform. The others were ordinary citizens—men, women, and even children—cut down by gunfire or magic. Many of the corpses were so badly burned as to barely be recognizable as human; others had slowly bled to death from smaller wounds or were still writhing about for help even now. Half a dozen carriages had been similarly shredded or burned along with the horses that pulled them. One hunk of wreckage in particular was little more than a flaming pile of bones.
Shaedra wanted to feel pity for the dead, and perhaps even more for those who still barely clung to life. But she couldn’t feel it past the hunger gripping at her mind. Hundreds of small, fragile lives rippled through the Fane and teased her pallet. They were out there, so close to death, their lives flickering like dying candles….and it was all she could do not to run over to them and snuff them out. She could feed on them; she could draw strength from what remained of their feeble lives. It would almost be a merciful end compared to what they would face here…
A loud snap caught her attention, and she glanced down to her hand. The barrel she’d been clutching had splintered around her fingers. Blood trickled off her skin, but she could barely even feel it. The hunger throbbed in her ears and burned in her eyes. She should have known better than to come here. She should have known better than to trust herself to keep control in a place like this.
“You’re getting off on this, aren’t you?” Zach hissed, his lip curled in disgust. “You sick bitch.”
Shaedra bit down on her tongue hard enough to taste even more blood. “I have to get inside. You should find a place to hide.”
“I didn’t come here to hide,” he told her. For a moment his eyes seemed to soften, as if his revulsion might have suddenly been overwhelmed by pity.
“I can’t keep you safe,” she murmured. “Not from so many.”
“I never expected you to. Now come on.”
Shaedra smiled. If nothing else, she could at least understand why the girl loved him. He was like a faithful hound, loyal to the bitter end. She just hoped she could stay strong enough to keep him from meeting that fate here.
“Stay close and don’t fire if you don’t have to,” she whispered. She wrapped him in a quick kinetic barrier, enough to hopefully shield him from a stray piece of debris or maybe even a distant gunshot, and then she leapt forward into the fray. As she moved she wove a simple illusion to thicken the smoke and provide them additional cover as they dashed through the scattered debris and corpses lining the street. She did her best to ignore the urge to feed as they passed by wounded bodies, just as he no doubt had to suppress his desire to try and help them. Not that he could do anything for them at this point.
Soon they were crouched behind chunks of rubble next to the Hall itself. It was different than her last visit: the circular stone wall still surrounded the entire building except for the front steps, but the attacking magi had blasted a hole in the southern side. The defenders had somehow managed to hold the breach, though, and she glanced down to see the corpses of two Enclave magi next to them. They probably hadn’t expected Chaval to have some magi of his own, and their arrogance had cost them their lives.
“Looks like the Enclave forces
are focusing their attention on the front entrance,” Zach observed.
Shaedra nodded. “There are only four defenders behind this wall; I should be able to take them out, and then we can slip inside.”
Zach frowned. “You sure you can sense them all?”
“Unless one is a mage strong enough to hide his presence from me, and I doubt that very much. Now stay here and keep down—I’ll let you know when it’s clear.”
“And what if they have cellium bullets?” he asked sharply, grabbing her arm. “What if they just gun you down?”
Shaedra eyed him sharply. “Then run.”
With that she was gone, lunging across piles of rubble towards the opening in the wall. When she approached within ten meters a pair of soldiers leaned around either corner of the hole and fired. The impact from the bullets nearly flattened her to the ground as they tore through her flesh, but she braced herself against a chunk of rubble and growled defiantly before continuing forward.
She reached the wall before they could fire again and grabbed onto the first man’s gun.
With a guttural roar she wrenched it from his grip and then smashed him hard enough with the rifle butt to crush his skull. His partner fired a last desperate shot that struck her in the shoulder, but it barely even slowed her down. She lunged towards him and used the rifle like a club again, first smacking his weapon aside and then pounding him into the ground like a stake.
Only two defenders remained, and one was too terrified to move. He had dropped his gun and fallen to his knees, his pants already soaked through at the crotch. The last man, however, was far more disciplined, and Fane energy danced at his fingertips as he wove a spell. The smoky air hanging over the battlefield took on a green twinge and abruptly puffed towards her.
On instinct she raised her hands protectively in front of her but it was so much wasted effort; he’d transformed the air to an acidic vapor, and it was already eating away at her jacket and skin.
Normally the spell would be little more than a nuisance for a Vakari, a slight extension of the man’s life as it slowed her down. But as she squinted through the stinging mist, she caught a glimpse of the mage leaping backwards and drawing a revolver. No mage would resort to a firearm unless he had a damn good reason, and she knew exactly what that reason was.
Shaedra rushed forward, but he was already raising the weapon. She was four steps away, then three, and then the hammer was cocking back—
The mage lurched over as a bullet tore through his chest. Shaedra continued her pounce anyway, flattening him to the ground and clutching him about the throat. Before his life ebbed away completely, she sucked the last few strands out of him, draining his body into a shriveled husk and regenerating her most recent wounds.
She dropped the empty corpse and turned towards her savior. Zach was crouched by the wall, his gun now pointed at the urine-soaked soldier. Both men gaped at her in horror, and she couldn’t really blame them. By now her eyes had surely gone pure white, and fresh blood still dripped from her face. She wondered distantly if Zach was considering picking up the mage’s cellium-filled pistol and finishing her off himself.
“Next time you better listen,” Shaedra admonished. “There will be a lot more of them inside.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied dryly.
“I don’t matter, Zach, but you do,” she told him firmly, glancing to the acidic cloud still hanging in the air and quickly dispersing it with her own spell. “No one would shed a tear if I died here.”
“Maybe not, but I can’t reach Eve without you,” he reminded her stiffly. “So yeah, you do matter. Now shut up and let’s get inside.”
She watched as he knelt down and grabbed the pistol filled with cellium bullets. He was calm and collected, a professional despite his age.
Yes, she did understand why Eve loved him. And now more than ever, she was determined to keep him alive.
Shaedra brought herself to her feet. “Then follow me.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Simon Chaval was insane.
Outside the Hall of Innovation, Cadotheia, the “City of the Future,” was being reduced to rubble. The Steamworks factories burned, and all the grand inventions of the last decade would soon be little more than ash. Hundreds or maybe even thousands of his own loyal followers were dying, and Chaval didn’t care about them in the slightest. Perhaps he never had.
Bolts of electricity arced outwards from Chaval’s hand and scorched the tile floor in his arboretum. Eve dropped to a crouch and wove a barrier to shield herself from the blast, but she didn’t think Chaval had any intention of harming her. Yet
He lowered his hands, and the thunderstorm vanished as quickly as it had appeared. He stood stiffly inside his shimmering sphere of energy, his laughter still echoing off the glass dome and iron walls.
Eve slowly stood and forced herself to relax. A minute ago, she’d felt more confident, more in control, than she ever had in her life. She’d stood face-to-face with the most dangerous man in the country and driven him into a blind rage.
But this had completely blind-sided her. In hindsight, she probably should have known better. Chaval had been a krata once, just like all of the Valmeri Seven. He had never taken the Oath Rituals, which meant that no sanctioned mage should have taught him anything—but then, he wasn’t the type of man who ever played by the rules. He’d been a rebel then, and he was still a rebel now.
The problem, however, wasn’t the magic in and of itself. Many wealthy people who hadn’t gone to the university still had the resources—and often the time—to dabble with weaving. But Chaval’s power was not that of a first or second year apprentice, and it wasn’t the rag-tag magic of a university exile that had picked up a few tricks over the years. This was the masterful manipulation of a full-blown magister.
And Avenshal or not, she couldn’t defeat someone with that kind of power—not without sundering the Fane. He knew that; he was counting on it. But she refused to indulge him. She had come here to kill Chaval before he could harm anyone else she cared about…and before that pain, that loss, could drive her to Defile. If she couldn’t do that, then she would die. Perhaps that was simply for the best.
“I am here, Evelyn,” Chaval goaded, raising his hands to his side. “You said you came here to kill me. You said you wanted to bring justice to your mother’s killer. Well, now is your chance.”
“I won’t Defile,” she said flatly, swallowing to steel herself and calm her quivering muscles. “If that means you kill me, then so be it.”
He chuckled. “Your mother believed that once, too. I can still remember her face as she sat there in front of me, so proud, so righteous. She was taking a stand, and she’d spent days convincing herself it was the right decision.”
Chaval stepped closer, his eyes narrowing. “Pain eventually showed her the way. Now it will do the same to you.”
His hand flashed to the side, and a whip comprised of solid flame materialized out of thin air. It sizzled as he dragged it across the floor, and he let it twirl idly in his hand for a few seconds just to let her take a good, long look at it.
Chaval twitched, and the whip lashed out towards her. Eve held her ground, and the energy barrier she’d woven about herself flickered as it absorbed the blow. The whip cracked again as he dragged it back towards him, and he smiled.
“The subtle but limited defenses of a first-year student,” he sneered. “Certainly you can do better than that. Have you ever been burned, I wonder? Do you understand what it feels like to endure a pain so suffocating you can’t think of anything else? Even the Exarch herself would have trouble removing the scar I could draw across your skin. Would your man still want you after that, I wonder?”
He struck again without waiting for a response. Eve bolstered her defenses as best she could, but this time the flaming whip encircled her like a constrictor snake and assaulted the entire barrier at once. The shield dissolved with a hiss, and the whip lashed again and wrapped around her left hand
before he finally retracted it.
Eve screamed and fell to her knees. She tried to weave a healing spell into the wound, but her mind refused to cooperate. Her flesh bubbled and blistered, and it felt like her entire body was trembling. Her face streaked with a flood of uncontrollable tears.
“You see what I mean,” he taunted. “Pain is such a bitter mistress. Now I wonder, will the Dark Messiah pass out before she draws upon her power? Perhaps Abalor enjoys submissive thralls.”
Eve tried to blink away the tears and stand. Through the watery haze she saw Chaval’s smug grin and all she could think about was tearing it from his face. Behind him, his Talami servant remained motionless, but her expression betrayed her horror. Had any of his inner circle even known he was a mage? Had Polard? Perhaps he’d been the one to teach Chaval his tricks in the first place…
A barrage of gunfire thundered from the bottom floor of the building, and the shrieks of dying soldiers carried all the way up through the door. Eve found herself hoping the Enclave had finally broken through. At least they would take Chaval down with her.
“The mages have broken through,” the Talami woman said as she leapt towards the door.
“Doubtful,” Chaval replied calmly. “It’s more likely that Gregori and the others have come to try and save her. Either way, it’s of no consequence.”
The woman blinked as she crouched to the side of the arboretum, pistol leveled at the door. “Sir, they—”
“They don’t matter,” Chaval interrupted, his eyes darting back to Eve. “But you, my dear, should probably get out of their way.”
He lifted a hand, and suddenly Eve was falling towards him. She tumbled as if she were sliding down a cliff, but a meter before she reached him she lurched to the side in a stomach-wrenching change of direction. She skittered towards the railing on the western side of the room and smacked into it.
She clutched at her head and felt a trickle of blood working its way down her face. The fall was far enough that she should have been dead, but he’d obviously slowed her momentum just enough to prevent any serious injury. She’d seen gravity manipulation before, but never with that degree of control.
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