by N. M. Howell
“You still don’t understand, do you?” he asked, unbuttoning his shirt. “I don’t need them to be awake. And as for the ones inside, I may not be able to see them, but the connection is already there. Look again.”
Andie turned and saw that all the bodies they had put to sleep were already dead. The dark blue veins. The loose skin. It was a massacre. Chancellor Mharú’s evil laughter made Andie turn around again. he had fully undressed and now she could see that he had been wearing the new armor under his suit.
“Now you should begin to understand,” he said. “There is nothing you can do to stop this spell. I may not have the power to kill your precious dragonborn, but I can send them to a place that will do the killing for me. Which reminds me... my spell needs more power.”
With those words the chancellor ran for the train, which Andie hadn’t noticed was already beginning to move. A handful of the battalion followed him, including Ashur. Andie turned to ask for help, but with the insane number of battalion members, the space-time tear beginning to pull on all the dragonborn, and the dragons fighting for their lives against the Sentinels, she knew she couldn’t take anyone with her. Even Saeryn was busy providing the energy of the sun. But the chancellor couldn’t be allowed to get away—there was no telling how many lives he would take if he reached the bottom.
She turned and ran for the train. It was almost out of reach and she had to push herself to run faster than she ever had before. As the train slipped over the precipice and began its vertical descent, Andie leapt off the mountain after it.
Chapter Nineteen
She was falling without anything to hold on to. She was directly behind the train, but it was quickly picking up speed and was pulling away from her. She struggled and kicked, trying to maintain her focus, her orientation, but she was freefalling and the train was quickly escaping.
She stretched her hands out in front of her and with her magic she pulled at the back of the train. The entire back ten feet of the final car ripped off and splintered into a thousand pieces. The largest parts of the debris missed her, but some of the smaller pieces cut her badly. But she was still trailing the train. She used her magic to give her a violent forward push, and she shot right down into the car.
But the gravity component was damaged because of the loss of the back part of the car. She caught herself on a sconce and began crawling down using whatever she could grab. All around her objects in the train were being ripped out of the car by speed and suction. She had to duck more than once to avoid being hit. When she finally reached the door, she grabbed the handle and settled her feet on the sides of the door.
When she turned the handle and opened it, half of the objects in the next room came rushing up. She evaded them and then flipped herself around to the other side of the door, closing it with a desperate slam. She was quick getting back to her feet: she’d gotten a good view of the room and knew there were at least two soldiers in it. As soon as the door closed, the gravity corrected and Andie leapt up. With a deft wave of her hand, she blew two of the soldiers out of the windows. But there were still six more, Ashur, and the chancellor.
“You know the best part of the spell, Andie?” Chancellor Mharú said. “As long as you can avoid being attacked yourself, you don’t even have to stay with it for it to keep going. That spell will keep building and when I reach the city at the bottom of this mountain I’m going to find all the fuel I need. All I need to do is put myself around life and the spell will do the rest.”
Andie glared at the man before her. “You talk too much.”
She cast right at his face but it was blocked by the battalion. The chancellor and Ashur raced into the next car. They were followed by all except two soldiers. Andie didn’t have time for anymore pleasantries.
“Saeryn, forgive me.”
Andie channeled her power into a ball of black fire so hot and so powerful that it melted one of the soldier’s armor. Her magic always amazed her, and even still, she hardly believed she was capable of the things she had managed these past few months. She stared after the black fire with wide eyes, a strange mix of sorcerer’s and dragonborn magic. Her own strange brand of whatever it was. She wasn’t exactly sure what to call it, apart from terrifying.
She tried to ignore the screams as the suit melted onto his skin and he collapsed. Not dead, but certainly wishing he was. She swallowed back the bile that crept up her throat at the smell of burning flesh as she pressed forward. She couldn’t allow herself to be affected by such thing. Not when the survival of her entire race and the entire city of Arvall relied on her succeeding at her task.
The other soldier began a panicked attack that betrayed his fear and Andie easily avoided his incompetent display. She began to swirl her hand around and around, focusing her energy on the soldier. Soon a vortex began to gather behind him and in a matter of moments he had been lifted and was spinning and tumbling out of control.
Andie spun her hand faster and faster until the vortex was a miniscule tornado, whipping everything in sight into a fury. She flung the soldier and the tornado over her shoulder and the man hit the back wall so hard Andie heard his spine crack. She’d never wanted violence, not really. But if trouble was what they wanted she was going to give them as much as they could handle.
As she burst into the next car, the group of villains was just moving through the door at the other end. She cast a bolt of lightning and hit one of the soldiers, but only succeeded in knocking him into the next room and closing the door. She rushed across the car and flung open the door. The man she’d hit was already up and running. She chased him down easily, as his wound was slowing him, and at the same instant her hand met his back she sent her magic into him, paralyzing him totally. He hit the floor and Andie never stopped moving.
In the next car, the first thing she did was throw a wall of magic. All the furniture, fixtures, appliances, and other objects in the room were hurled forward ahead of the chancellor. The great field of debris collided with the door and totally blocked off the escape. But the chancellor was quick on his feet. He spied an emergency ladder leading to the roof and he and Ashur quickly went up and out, followed by three of the soldiers. That left two soldiers she hadn’t seen before, obviously already stationed on the train.
Her spell with the furniture had broken all the lights in the car and so, with the exception of the moonlight and other sources flashing by outside, the car was totally dark. In fact, all Andie could see were two glowing pairs of hand. They began casting immediately, terrible and deadly spells that only served to further remind Andie how ruthless the University was. Her advantages were the dark and her ability to stay calm when her opponents were clearly frantic.
She used her stealth to close the distance in the dark and then cast a low spell at one of the soldiers’ legs. He leapt to his left to avoid it and landed right where she wanted him. She got in close and took him with hand-to-hand. During their months in the tunnel, Marvo and Raesh had taught her much. The soldier was stronger and faster because of his armor, but Andie had the better training. She laid him out flat in less than two minutes. When she turned to the other soldier, he crouched down and threw up his hands in surrender.
She rushed past him and jumped on the ladder, but just as she was about to climb up to the roof, the soldier grabbed her. Unfortunately for him, she’d figured it was a trick. In one deft movement, she kicked him off and threw herself up on the roof. As soon as he stuck his head up through the hole, Andie caught him with a hook in the center of his face. He went crashing back down.
She was using her magic to hold herself upright, but with the incredible speed of the train it was a difficult job. Not to mention the train was traveling vertically at that point. She started walking forward and could already see the chancellor and his battalion ahead. As soon as she stepped onto the next car, she disconnected all the ones behind her and the train soon left them behind.
“You’re very good,” the chancellor called through the night. “If only yo
u weren’t dragonborn, and fought for me. Ah well. Disappointment abounds.”
“Why?” she screamed through the violent wind that lashed her hair across her face. The roar of the train flying through the cold air muffled her cries. “What possible good will come of all this bloodshed? They’ll never accept you now, never give you the power you want so badly. You’ve killed so many people, and for what? To keep spreading a lie?”
“I want what all men with power want, Andie. More power. You are part of the new generation that wants nothing, does nothing, is satisfied with sand when you could have diamonds. But not me. I’ll never stop, I’ll never have enough.”
“It’s power you don’t need! You’re the chancellor of western Noelle. Half of this entire continent is under your control. Why can’t you—”
“The world has lost its way! We’ve stopped trying, stopped striving! I want it all! Everything!”
He and Ashur continued on, leaving the final three battalion soldiers in Andie’s path. She looked around and saw that they were nearing the end of the line. Soon the chancellor would be in the city and if he made it that far there would be no stopping him. The three soldiers looked skittish as Andie approached, no doubt wary of her power now after seeing her plow through all their friends.
Andie stopped, eyed them fiercely. “This man is on his way to suck the life out of Arvall. That means that in a matter of minutes everything and everyone you know will be gone. They will be dead. Your friends, your family. All of them.”
They froze in place as they listened to her speak. She took it as a sign to continue.
“You don’t need to do this. You owe him nothing,” she pleaded. “Are you really going to stand between him and me? Your lives are worth more than this.”
The soldiers looked at each other and even with their faces covered, Andie could tell they were reconsidering. She took another step forward and they took one back. One of them removed his mask and relaxed his battle stance.
“We’re not from around here,” he yelled over the sound of the rushing wind. “None of the battalion is. We don’t know these people. They mean nothing to us.”
“I’m not from around here, either. I’m from Michaelson, a small farming village near Gordric’s Pain. But these people... they mean something to me. If the chancellor sees that he can only get his way by mass murder, how long do you think he’ll stay calm? How long before it’s your cities and your people that he’s massacring? I’m going to stop him and I’m going to do it now. The only question is, do I take you down with him?”
The larger soldier looked at Andie and then back at his peers. They each nodded to him and he put his helmet back on and charged his suit. Andie clenched her fists and prepared to attack, but just as she raised her hands the soldier nodded to her, and he and his friends jumped from the train, covering themselves in bubbles of protective magic to break their fall. Andie let out a long breath she had been holding, turned her attention forward again, and carried on.
Tarven and the chancellor had reached the front of the train and run out of places to run or hide. Andie finally caught up with them and nearly had her head taken off by a white bolt of lightning thrown back by Ashur. The bolt missed her by an inch and hit the car behind her. It split the entire roof apart. He had come a long way since she last knew him.
Everything about him was different. His expressions, his body, his energy. She sensed he had done terrible things since the last time they saw each other. A lot of terrible things. What shocked her most was his power. Before, he had merely been talented with hortological magic, but now his speed, power, and casting ability were off the charts. Even better than his comrades. He must’ve been good, because he was the last line of defense between the chancellor and Andie, and the chancellor didn’t look worried at all.
“You truly are a marvelous thing, Andie Rogers,” Chancellor Mharú called. “I’ve never seen anything like you. Well, almost never,” he said, patting Ashur’s shoulder.
Andie couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “You’ll have to do better than that to impress me, I’m afraid, Chancellor.”
He ignored her. “I’m feeling rather ecstatic, and so I’ll offer you your life this one time. Join me. Come over to my side and see what real power feels like. Touch it, possess it, relish it. If you were ever to put on this armor there would be nothing on this earth that could stop you.”
“Are you out of your mind? You’re trying to eradicate my people! You killed my friends, tried to kill my father, and have proven yourself to be nothing but pure evil.”
“Those are just people, Andie, and the world is full of them. Find a new home, adopt a new culture, reinvent yourself. Take the things you want. Don’t let anything stand in your way.”
“Take,” she repeated, beginning to almost glow with rage. “Take. Like you took my mother?”
“Fine, Andie. You want to be a martyr, then let us help you die.”
Ashur began moving forward toward her. The train began to gradually level out as they neared the bottom of the mountain. This time, Andie cast first and although her aim was perfect, it only caused Ashur to stumble a little.
He retaliated with a spell that wrapped her in super-cold air, and she had to catch her breath quickly in order to defend against his next attack. He cast again, but she caught it and flung it back at him, bringing him to his knees. As he stood again, he conjured a long chain in his hands, but instead of steel, each link was made of freezing energy. He lashed out and missed her twice, but the third time the chain wrapped around her arm and caught her, and the pain was so intense she wanted to scream.
Ashur pulled on the chain and the armor gave him such strength that Andie was pulled off her feet. As soon as her feet left the train, Andie flew up and away. The train was still traveling at an incredible speed. The only thing that kept her from flying away was the chain wrapped around her arm. Using her magic, she cut the chain and brought herself back to the roof. But before she could stand, Ashur lashed out with the chain again and this time it wrapped around her body, pinning down one of her arms. She steadied herself, but the freezing cold was draining the energy right out of her. Ashur was strong, so much more powerful than she’d imagined.
But she couldn’t fail. She accessed a deeper part of her magic and released it, engulfing herself in flames and melting the chain right off. Ashur lashed out again, but Andie burned so hot the chain evaporated before it reached her. She almost melted through the roof. When Ashur discarded the chain, Andie returned to her normal state and cast a flurry of spells at Ashur that even his armor couldn’t block or absorb. When they hit, she heard his arm and his ribs break.
She had assumed the fight was over and began walking past him to get to the chancellor. The train levelled out completely as it began to slow and pull into the station. Andie was only a few steps from the chancellor when a hand grabbed her and flung her back twenty feet. She very nearly slid off the train entirely. Ashur was back on his feet and moving his arm as if nothing had happened. Andie couldn’t believe it.
“That’s impossible,” she said. “I heard the bones break.”
“Did you really think the University wouldn’t figure it out?” he asked. “They’ve been experimenting on people with dragon’s blood for years. They finally figured out how to mimic your healing abilities. This suit will never work as well as an actual dragonborn body, it’s a lot slower and can’t heal completely, but it does the trick. You can’t win, Andie.”
“I have to.”
“Then you’ll die trying.”
“This isn’t you, Tarven.”
Tarven glared at her, a fiery light illuminating his piercing gaze. “Tarven is dead. My name is Ashur.”
Chapter Twenty
Andie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She cried out and shook her head, her eyes clouded with angry tears that threatened to spill from her lids. Tear of rage. “No, you’re wrong. Your name is Tarven and this isn’t you! I know you wanted to impress them, to be
accepted by them, but I can’t honestly believe you’re this evil. Think about what’s happening around you. He’s about to go into your city and take innocent lives. Are you honestly okay with that?”
“I am completely loyal to him. I swore my allegiance and I will do nothing, nothing, to jeopardize the work that he is doing. He is building an empire greater than anything you can imagine. A continental kingdom governed by a single, infallible power. And he chose me to lead his battalion, and, one day, all of his legions. The future is now, Andie. The future is Myamar Mharú.”
“What happened to that boy who tested me my first day at the University? That cocky, but sweet boy who spent all those afternoons teaching me, helping me, showing me magic I’d never even dreamed of? Where is he? All he wanted was to show the world how special his plants were. What happened to him?”
Ashur was silent then. He seemed to be trying to think of a suitable response, but couldn’t. Something about his expression then made Andie pause; she couldn’t quite tell what was happening inside of him, but the expression on his face was almost one of regret. She thought then, seriously, that he might not truly be loyal to the chancellor, or the University, or any of it. He might be just as trapped and threatened as Lilja was. He might just be another pawn in the chancellor’s vast and ever adapting game.
But Ashur clenched his fists and the suit began to glow, and Andie knew that either he was too brainwashed to stop himself or he truly had gone over the edge of reason. He flung another bolt of lightning at her, this time grazing her side. Behind him, Chancellor Mharú was jumping onto the platform, as the train had almost completely stopped moving. They’d arrived at the station.
