by T. A. White
“Just a small hiccup.” Christopher went back to staring at the circle. “That should have dropped us into the Guardian’s world.”
Tate watched Christopher as he puttered around the circle, talking to himself.
“One thing I can’t figure out,” Tate said.
“What’s that, my dear?”
“Why poison me if you needed me?” She still didn’t understand that.
“Ah that.” Christopher bent closer to one of the lines and added another symbol. “I saw an opportunity and took it. That was before I knew just how valuable you were.”
Ilith stirred, her voice weak. Why haven’t you gotten us out of this yet?
I’m working on it, Tate thought back silently.
Ilith grumbled and settled down.
“And Ithor and Ronald, were they a chance opportunity too?”
Christopher looked up, his face puzzled. “Who?”
“Ithor and Ronald, the Kairi and human you had killed during the first mediation talks.”
“No idea who you’re talking about.”
Elijah stepped forward as Christopher went back to adjusting the circle. “My lord had nothing to do with their deaths. Ronald was working with us. He had just found an artifact that would have made your participation unnecessary. If not for his death, we could have used the artifact he discovered to capture the guardian.” He gave Tate a smug look. “It was capable of yanking a dragon out of its bonded. We’d planned to have it tested out on you before we attempted to capture the guardian.”
Christopher paused in what he was doing and lifted his head, peering at Tate with a quizzical expression. “You wouldn’t happen to know where that artifact got to, would you?”
Tate glared at him. “How would I know?”
“Since a dragon killed them, I figured you would know what happened to the artifact. There’s no shame in it. They were planning to do the same to you.”
“A dragon didn’t kill them,” Tate said.
He arched an eyebrow. “Of course one did. How many people do you know with the strength to pin a full grown man to the side of a wall? Not to mention the claw marks on the Kairi man’s body.”
“The Silva could have done it,” the Duke said from his spot on the side.
Christopher shook his head. “The Kairi, yes. I doubt one of the Silva would have been able to kill the other man. He was alive when he went on that pole. Even their strongest couldn’t have hauled him out of that room while he was alive and kicking.” He gave Tate a distracted grin. “If you did happen to have that device, it would make things a lot easier on me. It might even spare you some unnecessary pain.”
Tate stared at Christopher with a remote expression, refusing to respond.
If he was right and that artifact was capable of yanking Ilith out of Tate, she owed whoever had killed those men a debt. She never would have seen Ithor coming and she could very well be dead right now if someone hadn’t killed him first.
“Ah, there it is.” Christopher balanced on one foot, careful not to smear any of the lines as he reached a foot inside the area and made an adjustment, adding a line to one of the runes so that it vaguely resembled an unclosed o. “I think that should do it.”
He went back to his position at the head of the circle and crouched down. “Oh, I almost forgot.”
He stood and flung something at Tate. She dodged but not quickly enough. It thumped her shoulder, the feeling very like that of being punched.
She looked down. A knife was embedded in her flesh, blood dripped onto the ground at her feet. She pressed against the wound but didn’t take the knife out. If it had hit an artery and she removed it, she’d bleed out in seconds. The knife needed to stay where it was until she could find someone skilled in battlefield medicine to remove it.
If she hadn’t moved when she did, the knife would have embedded itself in her heart. So much for Brown Eyes needing her alive.
He made a moue of disgust. “You were supposed to let that kill you.”
“So sorry to disappoint,” Tate said in a faint voice. She was getting dizzy. She sank to the ground before she could fall.
The lines around her glowed as her blood touched them. His eyes followed the path of the light as it ate into more and more of his lines, setting them to glowing.
“No matter, this works well enough.”
He knelt, saying that word that made Tate’s teeth ache and set her head to pounding again. She’d just gotten rid of the last headache, she lamented.
We’re being forced through a gate, Ilith hissed.
Tate cared, but only so much, more worried about the pain in her shoulder and the feeling of lethargy spilling up her limbs.
There was a woman’s scream as light flashed and pressure built in the room. It popped and they were suddenly somewhere else and yet in the same spot all at once. It felt like taking a half step sideways through the universe. Everything was the same and yet nothing was. They’d landed in the room Gabriella, Dewdrop and Tate had discovered when Tate had triggered the trap.
You bring the enemy of my enemy before me. A boy, younger than Dewdrop, stood beside Tate. His skin was mottled and bruised. His eyes set back in his head, bags under them. He was bony and his hair covered most of his face.
Tate tilted her head back to stare at him. “Yeah, sorry about that. I didn’t have much choice.”
“Saviors protect us,” the Duke whispered, staring at the boy with something greater than awe. “It worked.”
You are not welcome here. The boy’s lips did not move.
Roslyn touched her head. “I could hear him, but not with my ears. I don’t understand. How is this possible?”
“It is proof of the Guardian’s power,” Elijah said, his face alight with worship.
Tate had forgotten, or perhaps she never knew, how odd mindspeak would seem to the normal person. She’d gotten so used to it with Night and Ilith that it no longer impressed her.
You will pay for bringing them here, the boy told Tate.
He was there one minute and gone the next. A sheet of light flared in front of Christopher and the boy stumbled back, his body flickering in and out of existence.
“It worked,” Elijah said. “He is caught.”
The boy tilted his head back and screamed. Tate fell to the ground, the pain in her shoulder falling away as she cowered beside him. It was like the sonic berserker. Only worse. So much worse.
Tate could feel wetness on her cheeks, around her ears and falling from her nose.
The sound died as suddenly as it came. Tate rolled onto her back, the world fuzzy around its edges.
“Ilith, can you change?” Tate didn’t have enough left in her to keep the question silent.
Ilith’s answer was a long time coming. Tate knew it before Ilith spoke. No, we’re too weak.
Shit, damn and fuck. Tate pushed herself upright, almost choking as she coughed, hacking. She touched her lips and her fingers came away red. The Guardian, or whatever he was, had damaged something on the inside.
The boy turned into a ball of light and shoved himself against the edge of the circle, flattening before being pushed back.
“Fascinating, isn’t it?” Elijah stepped closer to where the boy took form and lifted one hand. “I’ve dreamed all my life of meeting one and here he stands. Just out of reach.”
“Pull down the circle and you can touch him,” Tate said as Elijah hovered outside.
The boy’s focus turned on Tate. This is your fault.
“Hardly. I’m just the bait they used to draw you here. I’m a bug on a pin just like you.”
They would never have found me if not for you.
“Whoever told you to make blood the key by which all this works? All they needed was to draw my blood and our fates were sealed. If you really didn’t want visitors, you should have required intention as well as blood to open up this room.”
His lips parted in a feral snarl.
Tate retreated as far as she could, her back brushing the o
uter edge of the circle. He wasn’t like Ai. Ai had been cold intelligence. Almost inhuman in the way she processed things. He was the opposite, a raging inferno of anger. Not rational and certainly not easily influenced.
Tate needed to get through to him if they had any hope of getting out of here alive.
“Do you have any ideas?” Tate whispered to Ilith.
He’s mad.
Thanks, but she’d already known that.
Stay out of his reach.
Not very helpful.
Tate crab walked away as the boy advanced in fits and starts, appearing and reappearing a few inches from where he’d last stood.
In Tate’s peripheral vision she noticed Christopher raising his arms and chanting, his eyes lit by fire.
“What is he doing?”
The boy turned and looked, his face twisting with rage.
He’s trying to sever my connection to this place. He’s using one of the Creator’s nasty little toys to do it.
“Is there a way to stop it?” Tate needed to get him to work with her or they were both doomed.
His face became calm as he studied the people on the other side of the circle, a glimpse of the almost alien intelligence that Tate associated with Ai shining through.
“Break. The. Circle.” The words were disjointed and filled with the whispers of voices from beyond this world.
How was she supposed to do that? She only knew the basics of how this thing was constructed.
Summon the fire elemental, Ilith whispered in her mind.
That could work. If she broke the circle like she had in Daiske’s class, she would at least have room to run.
It was worth a try. Tate sank deep into her mind as the boy built power in the small space. It pressed on Tate’s lungs, trying to compress and squeeze her out of existence. It was difficult to find the links, her mind glancing and crashing off sparks in the dark. Everything slid from her grasp, if they were ever there to begin with. A sheet of glass stood between her and the elemental world. She could see it and touch its reflection but couldn’t yank it to her.
Her eyes opened and she panted. This wasn’t working. She could barely breathe. The boy and whatever he was doing would kill her long before Christopher and Elijah had the chance.
The duke was in her line of sight. He was doing something, his actions shadowed by the lightning that was beginning to spark inside the containment circle.
Tate cringed back when a bolt got too close. It was now or never.
She shut her eyes and forced herself back under. This time was different than before, the arc of energy more willing to come when called, but she still couldn’t form the bridge.
What had Ilith advised? Align herself with what she was summoning?
The air thrummed around her, alive with energy. She took pieces of it and ran it down to Ilith who plucked at the magic, sending the vibrations reverberating through Tate. That was it.
Tate snatched another piece from the atmosphere but instead of shooting it to Ilith, she sent it inside. Holding it until its movement mirrored that of the elemental on the other side of the veil. Even then, Tate didn’t release it, siphoning off another piece of the power that continued to build.
It was only when she couldn’t hold it any longer. When her mind strained from the pressure and threatened to split, that she sent it—along with desperation and an iron will to survive—down that link to the existence on the other side.
That mind took it and shot it back, so fast and hard that Tate threatened to crumple under the pressure. That was the missing piece. The elemental had to cooperate.
The exchange happened in seconds. There was a crack and then Tate’s world exploded. There was a shriek of victory. The boy disappeared, leaving Tate gasping in the center of a floor that had a spider web of cracks running through it. The circle was broken.
Tate gasped for breath, sweat stinging her eyes as if she’d just run several miles or gone a few rounds with her fight instructor.
Christopher stared at her with wide, shocked eyes, the surprise almost comical. Slowly that spilled away to be replaced by anger.
Elijah stepped forward. “What happened? Where did he go?”
“There has been a slight hiccup.”
“A hiccup. This isn’t a hiccup. This is a disaster,” Elijah shouted. “The floor is destroyed. We have no way to contain him, and we’re trapped in his space. A space, may I remind you, that he has complete control over. He can kill us at any time.”
“I think he’ll play with you for a little bit first,” Tate said. Her smile was tired and full of triumph. If she had to die, which was still a possibility given the level of anger the little guy seemed to have for her, at least she wasn’t going to die alone.
“This is your fault.” Elijah pointed at Tate, anger turning his face ugly. “You did this.”
“Yup, and I’d do it again.” Tate gave him the biggest grin she could summon.
The circle was gone—as was the force holding her inside it. That didn’t mean she was saved. She still had a knife in her shoulder, an enemy with the ability to incapacitate her, and she was stuck in a room that she was pretty sure answered to the boy’s will.
Elijah hauled Tate to her feet. He was strong for someone she had written off as a soft academic, one more used to exercising his mind rather than his muscles.
“Bring him back.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that, buddy. I have a feeling the boy will be making his presence known any minute.” Tate leaned closer. “I don’t think you’re going to like how he does that.”
A dull roar washed through the room, the hairs on Tate’s arms standing on end as a charge followed. This time, high pitched screams crackled through the air.
Yup. The boy was definitely making his feelings known in a tantrum that was going to result in the death of everyone here if he had his way.
Tate’s feet lifted from the ground for a moment, as if whatever kept her ground locked had just disappeared. She thumped back down.
“What was that?” Roslyn cried, looking around her. Tate wasn’t the only one who had come briefly untethered.
They looked around as if seeing the boy would make whatever was happening stop. Light arced above them, like a self-contained lightning storm.
Elijah was ripped away from Tate and thrown across the room, landing with a thud against the wall. He collapsed in a boneless heap on the ground.
The duke was tossed into the air and then hurled to the ground in the same second. Roslyn tried to run and whipped backwards, her arms and legs still pointed in the direction she’d been going. Tate darted behind her, taking the brunt of her weight as they crashed to the ground.
“What is this?” Roslyn said.
“I imagine there’s a reason the guardians are left to their own devices,” Tate said, shoving the other woman off her. She left Roslyn sprawled in a heap on the ground, her skirts twisted around her. “We’re just finding that out the hard way.”
“How do we stop it?”
“I don’t know that we can.” Tate eyed the room with a grim expression. That lightning was getting closer and closer. Judging by the static that she could already feel lifting her hair from her head, she doubted they’d survive if it reached the ground.
“There must be something. How did you escape last time?”
The first time Ai had let her go, or rather, she’d thrown Tate out of her room. As for the time with the boy, she still didn’t know how she was able to do what she did. It was worth a try.
“I need to get to the table.” It was across the room behind Christopher, who had raised his arms to the ceiling, thrown his head back and was chanting in a language that sounded a lot like gibberish to Tate. It was having an effect on the lightning which was moving closer to him. The boy appeared in the intermittent flashes, floating by the ceiling.
“Come on.” Tate grabbed Roslyn’s arm and dragged her after her, skirting Christopher and the duke as armor slowly incased him.
He held a whip of blue light.
“What is that?” Tate asked, pointing at the duke.
“It’s his artifact, Arkan Blue. The armor protects him from any manmade weapon. The whip can cut through any substance.”
That was convenient, but ultimately unhelpful since the Guardian didn’t have a form that could be cut through.
“Where are we going?” Roslyn asked as she and Tate worked their way around the room.
“We need to get to the table.”
“Why?”
So many questions. Really. In this situation?
“Just follow.”
They darted around the other two men, passing Elijah where he was still slumped on the floor. Tate hoped he wasn’t dead. She planned to make him pay for what he’d put her through.
Christopher’s guards backed against the walls, horror on their faces. The black sand Tate had encountered in her first visit to this place pulled away from the walls, giving the impression for a moment that the walls were alive. The sand curled out, wrapping around the first guard. Its inky darkness stabbing into his skin and consuming the flesh until he was covered in the black stuff, like locusts on a tasty meal.
The other guard tried to run, but the black sand was too fast, snapping out to envelop him. Both were pulled into the wall, their screams echoing in the chamber.
Tate kept running, dragging Roslyn along with her when she would have stopped and tried to help the guards.
She slapped her hand on the opaque, white glass and thought of the freedom of that other chamber.
The table beeped. The sound an ugly blare. Words flashed in red on the table. Access Denied.
“No, no, no.” Tate lifted her hand and slammed it against the table again. It beeped and the words flashed again.
“I don’t understand. What are you doing? It’s impossible to read the ancient’s language.”
“This worked last time,” Tate said, trying again. She kicked the table when it beeped again.
“You didn’t think I’d leave such a gap in my security again, Savior scum,” the boy said, appearing in front of her.
Roslyn screamed, jumping back, her hands covering her mouth in horror. Tate flinched but held firm. The boy stood in the middle of the table. To be more accurate, the table bisected his middle. He walked forward, moving seamlessly until he stood in front of the table.
