The Rise of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

  Table of Contents

  The Rise of Ren Crown

  Chapter One: Aftermath

  Chapter Two: Tests That Lead to Ruin

  Chapter Three: The Status of Threats

  Chapter Four: Roommates Forever

  Chapter Five: Explanations and Confessions

  Chapter Six: Of Those Most Hated

  Chapter Seven: Choosing a Path

  Chapter Eight: Relationships with Thorns

  Chapter Nine: Counseling in a Sea of Grief

  Chapter Ten: Bellacia Bailey

  Chapter Eleven: Words We Dare

  Chapter Twelve: A Delinquency of Plans

  Chapter Thirteen: Reconnection

  Chapter Fourteen: In Memory of the Fallen

  Chapter Fifteen: Shadows in the Night

  Chapter Sixteen: The Midlands

  Chapter Seventeen: Negotiations with a Bad Hand

  Chapter Eighteen: Shadows on My Soul

  Chapter Nineteen: Connections of the Desired and Undesired Kind

  Chapter Twenty: Nightmares and Consequences

  Chapter Twenty-one: Kaine's Revenge

  Chapter Twenty-two: Waking in the Same World

  Chapter Twenty-three: Justice Squad

  Chapter Twenty-four: Dog Day Afternoon

  Chapter Twenty-five: Civilized Couch Warfare

  Chapter Twenty-six: Promises of Bloodshed

  Chapter Twenty-seven: Cafeteria Blunders

  Chapter Twenty-eight: Justice, the gift that keeps giving

  Chapter Twenty-nine: Deadlines

  Chapter Thirty: Rally to Assign

  Chapter Thirty-one: Deals of Discussion

  Chapter Thirty-two: Two Devils and a Bag of Popcorn

  Chapter Thirty-three: Planning for Fire

  Chapter Thirty-four: Daughter of the Enemy

  Chapter Thirty-five: Apologies

  Chapter Thirty-six: Spells and Plots

  Chapter Thirty-seven: In Between

  Chapter Thirty-eight: Fighting in Two Places

  Chapter Thirty-nine: Department of Justice

  Chapter Forty: Friday Night Lights

  Chapter Forty-one: Tattoos and Memories

  Chapter Forty-two: The Enemy of My Enemy

  Chapter Forty-three: The Third Layer

  Chapter Forty-four: Approaching Doom

  Chapter Forty-five: Golden Storm

  Chapter Forty-six: Chaos

  Chapter Forty-seven: Excelsine United

  Author Notes

  The Rise of Ren Crown

  Back Cover Copy:

  Reeling from what the students at Excelsine University are calling "Bloody Tuesday," Ren is determined to regather her magical family. But the events of the attack were not without multiple costs. Magically broken and exposed, Ren is ripe pickings for multiple factions that want to use and chain her, and the Department is the scariest of the pack.

  With only a limited amount of time to save her friend, and confined with the rest of the student body awaiting their fate, Ren stands a mere hairsbreadth from losing her freedom completely with each and every decision she makes.

  The Rise of Ren Crown is Book Three in the Ren Crown series.

  If you'd like information on The Awakening of Ren Crown (Book One), please click here.

  ~*~

  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright 2015 by Anne Zoelle

  v.1

  Chapter One: Aftermath

  Campus was in total disarray. Carnage was visible as far as the eye could see.

  All students—even those bruised and blood-splattered—were assembled at Top Circle, for a mandatory assembly directed by Administration Magic that had targeted every human life-form capable of movement on the top eighteen levels of the mountain. Only medical students with a Level Six clearance or above, and the severely injured, were exempt from the assemblage.

  Non-students had been quickly shuffled to a field on the Second Circle, and the professors had gone there to suss out any remaining assailants.

  Officials of all stripes argued fiercely behind a silencing field at the front edge of our shell-shocked student body.

  I touched my elbow and the connection threads that had gone hazy. Constantine was in a bed somewhere, half dead.

  And others...? I gripped the discarded scarf tightly in my hand, and clutched at the dwindling magic within it—a dwindling tie to its owner.

  Others were lost.

  A cold gust of wind swept over the grass on which we stood, followed by a warmer breeze. The weather enchantments were finally re-engaging, hiding the bitter cold reality of six thousand feet and the tragedy that we had all just experienced. The terrorists had turned off the regulatory enchantments along with the rest of the Administration Magic before they attacked.

  Like the last time I had been thrust into the middle of the entire campus population on Top Circle, there were no dragons chirping and blowing fire on the breeze, and there were no mages performing silly or extraordinary enchantments. Only the weather enchantments steadily restarting provided any sense of normalcy.

  Sobs could be heard—wild moor-like calls in the otherwise stifling verbal silence. Several students were frantically wielding cleansing enchantments and clothing spells with their diminished magic reserves, frenetically flipping from one outfit to another, trying to stave off panic attacks or grief by stripping it physically from their skin.

  But most students stood silently, fiercely at the ready—wearing their injuries and grime like badges, grieving their losses, wearing the garments of battle with steely determination in their gazes.

  Hard gazes focused on our group, and on me. Questioning. Demanding answers.

  Olivia's scarf burned in my hand. The link to Olivia was slipping further away the longer I was held here, inactive.

  We had only been standing on Top Campus for five minutes, waiting for whatever decision was being made by those engaged in the vehement, silent arguments occurring on the steps, but for me it was four and a half too many. Community Magic recharges would kick in soon, but the residual magic in my dorm room would give me a faster return. Impatiently, I stepped forward, but something grabbed my ankle, jerking me to an abrupt, stilted stop, my foot pulled harshly back to the ground.

  Panicked, I jerked my foot upward. A vine, reaching upward from the dirt, wrapped my ankle.

  The vine squeezed warningly and I froze in the act of yanking. The vine relaxed and slid upward to form another coil.

  It took me a moment to identify the magic in the vine as Alexander Dare's. It took me a moment more to relax. The vine wound around my skin further, pulling free of the ground with a snap, and settling beneath my jeans.

  I looked up to see Dare, the peak of physical perfection, leaning with forced casualness against a pillar on the steps of the cafeteria. He was staring at me, and when my gaze met his, he shook his head slowly. The vine mirrored the movement with a slow squeeze.

  Beside me, Will jerked in shock, touching just below his ear as mages sometimes did when they were talking via frequency.

  “He... He said you will stay put and wait for the coming spectacle to end,” Will whispered to me. “Or you will end up in a cell.” Will shook his head. “It was far more cryptic and terse than that, but that was the meaning. How did he get my frequency?”

  No need for Will to specify who ‘he’ was. Dare, speaking lowly to his cousin and uncle near him on the steps, was no longer looking in our direction, but his forced, casual stance hadn't changed.

  “Don't reply and don't access a
ny other communication,” Mike said, lips barely moving. “Nothing is truly secure right now.”

  Neph and Will tightened their positions around me, along with Mike, Delia, Patrick, Asafa, and the other members of Plan Fifty-two. Neph's fingers touched my right wrist. Relaxing magic pulsed through the connection, but my internal system couldn't absorb it in the usual way—my magic was sluggish and broken.

  “They can't do anything to you while you are enrolled at Excelsine,” Will whispered. “It's a safe haven still. They would have to get you kicked out first.”

  Enrolled at Excelsine? I gripped the bag on my shoulder—Justice Toad was toasted somewhere inside after croaking his throat out when the Administration Magic had reactivated on campus. There was every chance that I had been summarily expelled through the sheer overload of offenses committed by, and through, me.

  The officials, who had been silently arguing had finally agreed on something. A signal was given and a unit of Department stooges frog-marched the remaining members of the Peacekeepers' Troop toward the Administration Building. Dare exchanged a look with his uncle, then Julian Dare strode in after them. The remaining officials followed in their wake.

  “To the Truth Stone,” Will murmured, shuddering.

  Marsgrove held the door for a group of Department officials, including the truly scary one from the projection at the battlefield. Marsgrove then turned to face the crowd.

  “No one moves,” he said, painful consequences promised in every steely word. The words were addressed to the student body, but he looked right at me as he said them.

  I touched the new cuff on my wrist—control cuff number four. Marsgrove had brushed roughly past me and clamped it on when I'd entered Top Circle. His expression had been tight-lipped and fierce, but the action had been smooth and surreptitious.

  My magic was so twisted, cuff number four probably wasn't even necessary to keep my unconscious impulses contained.

  As Marsgrove entered the building, magic flipped up between the buildings surrounding Top Circle, creating a clearly defined pen of students. Like gladiators—or farm animals—awaiting slaughter.

  Panicked voices rose from the crowd, students too, freshly traumatized by containment.

  The combat mages were encompassed as well, arrayed around the path edges and on the steps of various buildings. If we all had to fight our way free, at least we had firepower.

  A number of soothing, well-spoken voices rang over the crowd, speaking in deliberately steady tones, directing everyone to remain calm and safe, and to tune into frequency 8136, or 25192, or 69036—I quickly lost count and interest in the numbers. But they continued the broadcast for any mage needing a distraction, discussion, or soothing tones.

  “Steady everyone,” Mike's voice echoed in my head, coming through the scarves around our throats—a communication system we set up days ago in order to be able to speak outside the frequency system.

  It had been an excellent decision—concocted because frequencies were easily hackable, and because I didn't have one. It had allowed us to stay in contact when everything else had gone to hell.

  The bodies immediately surrounding me—all allies—steadied, on edge. Their mental presence was a simple buzzing through the scarves, most of them far too used to rule breaking to risk saying anything incriminating, even in a private communication.

  The student peacemakers stopped speaking aloud, finally, jobs accomplished.

  The unnatural quiet of a crowd of thousands of traumatized and panicking students made my skin itch, but frequencies were going wild around the field. It was obvious by the way gazes were tracking: touching on me, touching on others, and returning. No lips were moving, but information was being exchanged at a rapid rate and the facial expressions were mixed—anger, fear, resignation, hardness.

  Gazes I could see, kept switching from Bellacia Bailey back to us—some discussion occurring over magic that I had not yet harnessed in my head. But anything involving Bellacia Bailey was not good for me.

  Mike swore harshly through the scarves, his mental series of curses startling both Will and me.

  Son of a...community opinion is not our most pressing concern, Mike said in a rush, his thoughts barely coherent. His gaze was completely frozen on something to our right. Everyone—

  “The girl from the dome,” said a deceptively compelling voice, easily heard in the unnatural silence of the crowd. “I want her in front of me now.”

  The crowd around me tensed, and I followed their gazes to the long steps of the cafeteria. A man from the Department—so identified by the buckled throat collar he wore—emerged from the shadows of a pillar—out of the shadow. His jet-black hair, smirking features, and long, flaring coat perfectly fit an anime villain. Power coiled tightly around him. Five other Department stooges, also dressed chin-to-toe in military black, emerged from other shadows to stand at his side.

  Directly from the shadows. As if they had been the shadows seconds before.

  The stooges stood at military attention, narrowed gazes searching faces and auras, while the man at their head stood casually, far better dressed and supercilious than his counterparts. His gaze was cruel as it slowly and methodically dissected the enormous crowd, moving from group to group, person to person.

  The vine that had wrapped around my ankle shot up the leg of my jeans, flattening itself to my skin as it shot all the way up my body and into my sleeve. It swallowed whole the stamp Constantine had given me and the tube of paint my golem had left behind, then dove back down the same path to wrap around my ankle again, vibrating in agitation.

  Stunned by that, more than the emergence of shadow dwellers, I stared down at my bloodstained and torn clothing, to where the vine was hugging my skin beneath. That was an action as close to panic as I'd ever witnessed from Alexander Dare.

  I tore my gaze away to look in his direction and saw the combat mages from Dare's team step minutely closer to him.

  Panicked murmurs flew around the field.

  “That's Praetorian Kaine.”

  “He'll wipe us all!”

  “Shadow Mage. Right hand of Stavros.”

  Someone near me whispered in a panicked voice, “Why is he out here? I saw him go in with the others! Someone get Marsgrove!”

  I tried to catch Dare's gaze, but the crowd in front of me shifted, and Mike slid slowly, but very deliberately, in front of me. Familiar, taller bodies pressed around me on all sides, blocking me from view.

  “You have no authority here, Praetorian,” Dare said coldly, addressing him only by title. “And you are supposed to be with the other Department heads, sealed in with our officials while the Administration uses the Truth Stone.”

  “I think you'll find that I soon will have far more authority than you can imagine, Mr. Dare,” he responded with a cold relish that bespoke an ongoing acrimonious relationship. “As for this moment, they need me not, so I swapped seals. This sealed area works just as well under the terms I agreed to.” He shrugged, lips wickedly lifting. “And while the Administration Magic is still coming online, I have every right to conduct a preliminary investigation.”

  Magic glittered above the crowd, and a number of students around me panicked. I could only see the edges of the magic, though—and I could see Praetorian Kaine through small gaps as he walked almost restlessly, weaving casually between bodies and groups along the cafeteria stairs, turning in small circles as he gazed harder at some mages than others.

  “Of course, my acceptance of this seal is slightly different from yours, which was forced upon you by Administration Magic. Unless you have...special talents, Mr. Dare, then all of you have been commanded to remain in place—a five-foot length, was it not?—a command that can only be broken if you are in danger of dying. It would be bittersweet were it to come to that.”

  My ragged magic reacted painfully to the threat I couldn't see, trying to compensate for my lack of visual stimulus. Marsgrove's cuff activated in order to control my subconscious impulse, but barely
any magic was even stuttering upward for it to control.

  Something hard shoved me in the side. I looked down to see a small handhold device with a viewer in the palm of Will's hand. The view was connected to Will's sight, and the praetorian's hawkish features were displayed prominently on the screen, along with those of the mages standing around him. Will's gaze was focused forward, but he held the viewer steady—hand only shaking a little—allowing me to see through his eyes what was happening without revealing myself.

  It also displayed a number of facts around the edges of the image—most importantly that the praetorians answered only to the head of the Department. And were basically black ops with nearly limitless reach in the Second Layer—untouchable in the courts.

  But they were not allowed in educational institutions for underage mages.

  And yet, here one was. Scary enough, without seeing everyone's reaction to the man, shrinking as far from his presence as they could get, with their heads down to avoid notice.

  In the viewer, Dare's arms were crossed, lips pressed tightly together, as he looked at the magic dissipating in the air in front of him. It looked as if a scroll had been momentarily displayed there.

  “We have but little time before the Truth Stone seal lifts and the more traitorous of you contact your mommies and daddies. I will be watching and listening to see who does that, of course.” His smile went wide. “Perhaps pay a few visits afterward.”

  Panic grew.

  “You are taking too long.” Kaine addressed an underling at his left, with a voice edged in steel.

  The underling was looking at a device in his hand and swallowed heavily. “She's here, sir. On this field. Something was interfering, but it's narrowing in now.”

  Panic spiked. They were tracking me, and I was penned in like a farm animal.

  Kaine coldly surveyed us, a crowd of nearly fifteen thousand students. “It will go better for everyone if you show yourself, girl.” His modulated voice wasn't overly loud, but it was easily heard in the stifling silence.

  There was a distinct pause when no one moved, as I watched familiar faces whirl through the display as Will scanned the crowd.