Betrayed by Magic: A New Adult Fantasy novel (The Baine Chronicles Book 5)

by Jasmine Walt

  “Sunaya? Are you inside?”

  “Yes, I’m in the staff quarters with Elnos.”

  “There’s an elevator right outside the labs, in the north hall,” Rylan told me. “Get down here, fast.”

  Elnos and I sprinted in the direction Rylan had indicated. We passed more dead guards on our way, and ran into two live ones that I dispatched with my chakrams. I didn’t want to use my magic unless it was absolutely necessary—it was a drain on my energy, which I needed to preserve if we were going to get out of this bunker alive.

  “Here it is,” Elnos said, sounding a little out of breath as we approached the elevator door. He scowled as he noticed the keyhole in the panel, where a call button would normally be. “I’m guessing your cousin didn’t think about the fact that we don’t have a key?”

  “Nope.” I strode over to the elevator doors, then wedged my fingers into the crack and pulled. The doors screeched a little in protest as I pulled them apart, revealing the elevator shaft that dropped sharply into utter darkness.

  “Looks like we’ll have to float down there,” Elnos said. He muttered the Words to the same levitation spell Fenris had taught me when we were in Mexia, and his feet began to lift off the ground. I did the same, and followed Elnos down the shaft, slowly descending to the next floor.

  “Hey, wise guy,” I said to Rylan as I lit a flame—even my eyes couldn’t make out anything in this blackness. “We’re headed down the elevator shaft. Is this floor I’m coming up on the one you’re at?”

  “Yes! Hurry. We’re under attack.”

  “Fuck,” I hissed aloud, wishing I could go faster. Unfortunately, this spell wasn’t meant for that sort of thing, so I gritted my teeth and waited the extra twenty seconds until I touched down atop the elevator box. Using one of my crescent knives, I pried open the hatch and cut an opening through the ceiling tile, then dropped down. Elnos floated in behind me as I forced open the doors, just in time to see one of the guards grab Noria from behind, and press a gun to the side of her head.

  “Don’t move!” he cried, eyes darting between Rylan and me. There were four guards still standing, and two more lying dead on the floor, blood seeping from the gunshot wounds in their head. Rylan had his gun pressed to the head of the guard he held, but his eyes were glued to the guard who had Noria. Noria was still in her nightgown, which was now torn and stained with blood, and Rylan looked a little worse for wear too. A knife lay on the grey tile a few feet from Noria, and I guessed that was her weapon. Rylan wouldn’t be so foolish as to take her down here without giving her any way to defend herself, but of course she was no match for trained guards, knife or no.

  “Or what?” I taunted, calling on my magic through instinct rather than Words. I focused on the gun in the guard’s hand, and the metal went white hot, warping the barrel. He yelped, instinctively letting go, and Noria burst from his grasp, lunging for the knife on the ground. I flung a chakram at the guard who’d threatened her life, then rushed to intercept the two who were closing in on Noria, swords drawn. Rylan shot the guard in his grasp point-blank, and Elnos magically thrust another guard back against the wall with enough force to crush his skull.

  I caught the remaining guard’s downswing with one of my knives, then grabbed his sword arm and twisted until the elbow joint snapped. He screamed, sword clattering to the ground, and I drove him face-first into the wall.

  “Where is Annia Melcott?” I snarled in his ear, pressing his arm into his back as I leaned against him.

  “Sh-she’s in the cell at the end of the hall,” the guard babbled. I could smell the tears and snot running down his face, and urine too—the bastard had wet himself.

  “And the shifter children?”

  “I-i-in the other rooms, sp-split up,” he sobbed.

  “They’ll each have their own cell,” Noria said, her voice remarkably subdued. I turned to see her standing next to Rylan, with Elnos’s arms wrapped around her from behind. The knife was still clutched firmly in her right hand. “The scientists won’t have wanted to risk skewing their data by cross-contamination.”

  “Shit.” I glanced toward the rows of doors lining the long, grey hallway. They were made of thick, reinforced steel. No windows, though there was a slat to stick food through. “Do we get them out now?”

  “We should wait for Lord Iannis,” Elnos advised. “He’ll be able to heal them. We can’t risk exposing ourselves, especially since they’re shifters. You and Rylan could catch whatever they’ve been infected with.”

  “Fine.” I grabbed the guard and snapped his neck—there was no use in letting him live only to have him try to kill us again the moment our backs were turned. “Let’s go get Annia then.”

  I dropped the guard’s body and let it fall as I marched down the hall. The others hurried after me, Noria breaking free from Elnos’s grip to rush to my side. She didn’t look at me, her eyes firmly fixed up ahead, hope and fear etched into her pale, gaunt features. My heart pounded in my chest as we approached the final door, dreading what I might find. Would Annia be all right? Or had the Resistance broken their word to Noria and tortured her anyway? If so, I would hunt down every last person in this compound and kill them. Slowly. And with relish.

  “Annia?” I shouted, pounding on the metal door. “Are you in there?”

  “Sunaya?” Annia called back, relief evident in her hoarse voice. “Is that really you?”

  “Yes,” I cried, tears springing to my eyes. “We’ve got a whole welcoming committee here. Stand back from the door so we can get you out.”

  “Those are the best fucking words I’ve heard all day.”

  A faint shuffle in the room told me Annia was moving backward. Rylan, Noria, and I moved to the side as Elnos stepped forward, raising his hands toward the door. He spoke a few Words, and intense heat began radiating from his hands.

  “By Magorah!” Rylan took another few steps back as the heat waves rippled over us. Noria and I followed suit—my skin was close to burning. “Is he summoning the very sun itself?”

  “Thankfully, even mages can’t do that,” Noria muttered. I glanced down at her, surprised to see the bitterness in her dark eyes as she watched Elnos literally melt the door. Was she seriously projecting her hatred onto Elnos, after all he’d gone through to rescue her? She should be kissing his feet right now, especially since he was rescuing her sister. I wanted to shake some sense into her and scold her for being so unfair, but this wasn’t the time, so I bit my tongue and waited for Elnos to finish. Paint was melting off the walls as the steel door liquefied. Before the red-hot metal could spread across the floor, Elnos spoke another Word and began shaping it into a pile out in the hall. The heat in his hands turned to bitter cold as he worked, cooling the metal down so that it would maintain its shape.

  “Holy shit, did winter come early?” Annia asked as she stepped out into the hall. She wore white cotton pants and a creased shirt, and her left arm was in a cast and sling. Her dark eyes were rimmed with shadows, but they warmed with relief and gratitude as they took us all in.

  “Annia!” Noria flung her arms around her sister, careful not to jostle her injured arm. “I’m so glad you’re safe.”

  “And I’m glad you’re safe,” Annia said, squeezing her as tight as she could manage with her single arm. Her eyes met mine over Noria’s mop of red curls. “Thank you for coming after me. I thought I was done for.”

  “I couldn’t very well leave my best friend behind,” I said with a grin, fighting tears. I wanted to hug the breath out of Annia, but Noria was still clinging to her, and I was loath to break them apart.

  “So this is the famous Annia, eh?” Rylan asked, looking her up and down. There was masculine appreciation in his eyes, and I raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes.” Annia’s eyes narrowed on Rylan, and her upper lip curled in a sneer as she took in his guard uniform and moustache. “Though I don’t know who the hell you are.”

  “It’s my cousin Rylan.” Rolling my eyes, I undid the illusi
on that still cloaked him. Annia’s eyes widened as Rylan’s true form was revealed. “Iannis had him flown in from Prison Isle. I guess he decided a family reunion was in order.”

  “Sunaya?” Iannis’s voice sounded in my head, tense with concern. “Where are you? Did you make it inside the bunker?”

  “Yes,” I said, turning to look at the other doors lining the hall as apprehension settled in my gut. “We found Annia, and the location of the captured shifter children. We need you down here if we’re going to get everybody out.”

  19

  “This is the last one,” Iannis said as he gently laid the shifter child down on a makeshift blanket on the ground. The little girl, with her blonde hair, long lashes, and tanned skin, could have been from my own clan. Laid out next to her in the camp were nine other children—two of them mages, the rest shifters like her.

  “You should rest a little.” I placed a hand on Iannis’s shoulder as he crouched next to the child. “You just spent all this time and energy healing these children.” They’d all been infected with various diseases, though apparently in muted form, so as not to kill them off too quickly. Even so, they still could have spread epidemics without Iannis’s intervention. He and Fenris had joined us down in the corridor where the test subjects had been kept. One by one, Iannis had broken into each occupied cell and healed the terrified children. It had been excruciating to wait out in the hall while he attended them, but he wouldn’t let any of us near, fearing we might contract the diseases.

  “I would like to rest, but I cannot.” Iannis briefly squeezed my hand, then stood and turned to face me. His alabaster skin was paler than usual in the moonlight, and faint lines of strain were beginning to show on his face. It seemed that Dr. Mitas’s claim about these diseases being resistant to magical healing was true. “There is still so much to do.”

  “It’s nearly midnight, Iannis,” Fenris said. He sat near the mage children, his back up against a tree. “Lord Logar and his men aren’t going to get here until morning. The ward you put around the garage will keep the prisoners safely confined there, even if you sleep for a few hours. I will stay up, to make sure of that.” Unlike our raiding party, Iannis and Fenris had taken prisoners, mostly by using short-term immobilization spells. The majority of the scientists were currently huddled in terror in the garage, some of them still frozen as they waited for the spell to wear off.

  “It’s cruel, keeping them there,” Noria said in a brittle voice. We turned toward her as one, apprehension sparking in my gut. She sat on one of the logs by the fire pit, staring into the crackling flame—now that we were no longer hiding, there was no reason not to have the fire for warmth. Fenris had found a blanket for her to wrap around her shoulders. Her magically shackled hands rested on her legs, glowing faintly in the darkness. Fenris had brought the shackles with him on the airship, and they would immobilize her if she moved too far away from him.

  I felt a little bad that she’d been forced to wear them so soon after tasting freedom, but the truth was, she wasn’t free. She’d just exchanged one prison for another.

  “You said you were going to destroy the compound.” She lifted her gaze to meet Iannis’s. The amount of loathing in those dark brown eyes made me clench my teeth—was she still going to treat Iannis like the enemy, after all this? “By imprisoning those men and women in there, you’re condemning them all to death. Don’t they deserve a hearing, at the very least?”

  “Of course they do,” Iannis said, a hint of irritation in his voice. “I do not intend to leave them in the compound—it is simply the safest place to hold them until Lord Logar arrives with transport. They will be given a hearing, as will you,” he added sternly.

  Noria jerked her gaze away, staring back into the fire. Annia, who sat on the log next to her, looked stricken, and Rylan, who sat across from Noria, wore an uncomfortable expression on his face. But Iannis had only spoken the truth.

  “Please remember, Lord Iannis, my sister is still not yet eighteen,” Annia said quietly, clenching her hands into her lap. She looked up at Iannis, a quiet desperation in her dark eyes. “She might be a genius, but she’s still a child.”

  “Don’t, Annia,” Noria protested, looking both angry and guilty all at once. “I know you mean well, but don’t belittle my actions by calling me a child. I’m not one. Aside from what happened here at the bunker, if I had to do this all over again, I’d still join the Resistance.” Her eyes flashed as she met Iannis’s gaze, tilting her stubborn chin at him. “I’m fighting for equal rights for all, and I am willing to pay any price for that.”

  “If I could try her as a child, I would,” Iannis said calmly. Sympathy flickered in his gaze for a moment as he looked at Annia and Noria. “But since Noria is enrolled in college, however early, she is legally considered an adult.” A weariness settled across his expression, and he looked down into the fire. All that healing had probably worn him out.

  “At least we managed to get these children to safety,” Elnos said awkwardly, getting to his feet. He’d been putting a sleep spell on the children, to ensure they did not wake during the night—we didn’t need them running off after we’d just rescued them. “You found the two mage children in one of the vehicles, Lord Iannis?”

  “Yes.” Iannis’s violet eyes flashed as he looked down at their sleeping faces. Like all the other children, and Annia, they were dressed in simple white cotton pants and shirts. Seeing the mage children sleeping side by side with the shifter children, their eyes closed, made me realize just how similar we all were in the end. They all looked… human.

  “A spell to puncture the tires and freeze the soldiers was enough to bring them all to a stop,” Iannis continued. “We found the children in the back of one of the vehicles, bound and gagged, and completely isolated from the escapees.” His eyes flickered toward the hill. “I must check on those wards—”

  “I’ll go,” Elnos said, stepping forward. “I’ll take Rylan with me as backup.”

  Rylan arched a brow. “I’ll be useless if it has anything to do with the wards.”

  “Yes, but you’re handy with a blade,” Elnos said, glancing to the short sword Rylan had strapped to his hips.

  “True.” Rylan got to his feet, then stretched his arms overhead. “Try not to miss me when I’m gone,” he said to us, winking at Annia with a roguish grin. Noria gave him a murderous glare as he turned away, and I held in a sigh.

  Fenris got up too. “I’ll patrol the area around our camp to make sure there are no surprises.” He slipped away, no doubt to change into wolf form in the forest.

  “I’m going to bed,” Noria said, standing up. She stalked away toward the sleeping area, though the effect was somewhat diminished by the fact that her hands were restrained, and disappeared inside Annia’s tent.

  “I suppose I will go and rest as well,” Iannis said, though it was clear he still didn’t feel comfortable taking any downtime right now. “But someone needs to watch the children.”

  “I will,” Annia said quietly. The firelight flickered in her sad eyes, and my heart clenched in sympathy. This was supposed to be a happy reunion, a triumphant moment, but it was anything but.

  “I’ll join you in a few,” I told Iannis, laying a hand on his forearm.

  Understanding lit behind his violet eyes, and he nodded quietly before striding off to his own tent. Iannis and Fenris had brought several more, so there were enough for everyone even if the clearing was rather cramped now. Rylan and Elnos were headed to the compound, so there was no one but Annia and me as I sat down next to her by the fire.

  “I’m sorry things have turned out this way.” I put an arm around her shoulder and hugged her, careful not to hurt her injured arm.

  “It’s not your fault.” Annia let out a heavy sigh as she leaned into me. “I always knew Noria might spurn me when Elnos and I arrived to rescue her. She came here willingly, even if she didn’t know exactly what she was getting into.”

  “And she left willingly too.”
I glanced over at Annia’s tent, where Noria slept now. I doubt she could hear us from so far away, over the crackle of the fire, but I lowered my voice anyway. “Though I imagine she’s wondering how she can escape her restraints and run off.”

  “I won’t let that happen,” Annia said, her eyes narrowing on the tent as well. “I’ll be by her side the entire time. There’s no way I’m going to let her run off again, not when it resulted in this fiasco.” She swept her hand out, indicating the sleeping children. Her expression softened as she gazed at their peaceful little faces, and the anger sparking in her eyes gave way to sadness again. “I can’t imagine the fear and pain they’ve been through these past weeks. Or has it been months? Do you have any idea how long these children have been down here?”

  “I don’t know.” My eyes were drawn to the blonde girl who looked like she could belong to the Baine Clan. I didn’t think we had any small cubs missing, but I would have to ask when we got back. “Their parents must sick to death with worry.”

  “I know I would be.” Annia shook her head, returning her gaze to mine. “What kind of monsters could do such a thing, Sunaya? Steal innocent children from their beds and inject them with fatal diseases?”

  “The kind that believes in the ‘greater good’,” I sneered, remembering Dr. Mitas’s hateful, impassioned words back in Dara. He was supposed to be a doctor, a healer, yet he had no qualms about participating in such horrific activities. I didn’t believe in any greater good myself, mostly because that phrase was so open to interpretation. The rulers’ ideas of what the greater good meant rarely matched the ideas of the common man, after all. The Mages Guild was proof of that.

  “I shouldn’t really be surprised,” Annia admitted. “As enforcers, you and I know better than most the lengths criminals will go to justify their actions.”