The Rise of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

  A moor tile shifted into place in front of us, and there was nothing for it but to sprint across. The open, smoky moors were the worst places to be caught, if one was relying on subterfuge.

  The fog lifted into shapes—forming into toothed clouds of smoke and lightning that were preparing to lunge at Dare.

  No.

  Dare’s paper dragon came out of the sky, reflected lightning glinting on its wings, and breathed fire in a long arc around us, blowing the shrieking fog into vapor. I pushed my very real shock down—I couldn't allow emotion to distract me as I sprinted and kept track of my surroundings as we burst through the flames and onto a forest tile, then the open desert. Root, branch, quicksand, scorpions.

  Dare, hard at my heels, did something, pulling the forest branches together behind us. They formed a thickening thicket of enchanted thorns. A quick look over my shoulder saw a number of shadows slipping through the forming holes, but the vast majority ran headlong into the poisonous barbs.

  Insane cursing and laughter echoed behind us.

  Okay. If Dare hadn't already been slated for an imperial dungeon, he was definitely on that list now.

  And then Kaine appeared.

  Kaine swiped left, black shadow glinting silver as it sliced across Dare. An arc of blood shot from Dare's midsection.

  His blood, we couldn't leave his—

  The vine burst from the ground and swallowed the red trail from the air before a single drop hit the ground, then dove back into the ground in one clean arc. The dragon dove down again and swallowed the shadow that had split Dare's skin—making Kaine swear foully—then the paper burst into flame.

  I stumbled, but regained my stride.

  It was excruciating when one of my creations died, but I had to push it down.

  The phoenix swooped in suddenly and sucked in all of the flames of the dragon, twirled around one of the shadows trying to grab it, then swooped into the trees. The pain immediately numbed, as if the dragon was no longer dead, but in some strange state of limbo.

  “Don't call them again.” Dare's mental voice was breathing heavily.

  I didn't... I hadn't called them, had I?

  Dare's voice came through my mind, projected via the bands encircling our arms. “They will get caught on a next pass. There is no way Kaine hasn't calculated the trajectories now. Only surprise let that work.”

  I nodded, sharply and mentally, ducking a shadowy form.

  The cloaks were doing some of the work at keeping us from being caught—and the garments were exquisite at it. They made it harder for us to be grabbed, as shadows tried to hitch onto shadows. I was pretty decent at duck, dodge, and evade, but hunting is what the mages following us had been trained for. On a level playing field...well, I would have been dead meat without Dare and the cloak.

  The forming castle tiles had slipped away in a mass slide, but there was another tile—one that connected to part of the moat, and we sprinted for it together without exchanging a word.

  Diving on at the last second, space tilted, then the ground jolted as our tile fastened onto two other moat tiles.

  Dare was already on his feet, lifting me back to standing, then we were running into the outer bailey. He ran specifically toward a small guard outpost on the upper level of the inner wall.

  He twirled me inside, slamming the door.

  The air was eerily silent. The praetorians' shadows made a whistling noise that was noticeably, hauntingly absent.

  Dare immediately pulled a black cloth from his cloak and pressed it against the wound in his midsection. I swallowed. I didn't know how he had kept running. It looked like he had almost been sliced in half.

  “Can I do anything?”

  “No.” He closed his eyes, then the black cloth melted into his wound, closing it in a black line. Another pass of his fingers knit the cloak back into shape. “Faults in the cloth lessen the illusion of the cloaks, but it should hold well enough for the next five minutes.”

  I checked the time. Five minutes was all we had to get back to the Magiaduct. I tuned back into the armband chatter that I had muted before leaving the Magiaduct, then muted again in Okai. Distractions meant death in the Midlands, even on a normal day.

  “Where are you, Princess?” Patrick's voice was tight and overly controlled.

  Holed up, with no way to make it back. I kept tight rein on the thought, not allowing it to slip through the armband.

  I closed my eyes and started to scroll through backup plans for how to keep everyone waiting for us safe and out of interrogation.

  “The good news is that our magic trails are being eaten as we speak,” I sent. “On me making it back...that's...not looking as good.”

  A flurry of voices responded, talking over each other. There was an enchantment that sorted voices out on multi-frequency or comm links, but I just let their voices wash over me in a wave.

  “Activate Plan B,” I said.

  Plan B meant that Neph would accompany the double to Medical and leave. Leaving me to be discovered as “missing” later—likely reported by Bellacia. It also meant that they would wipe all traces of memory of the plan from their brains. Leaving me on my own if we did make it back.

  “No.” Neph's voice.

  “Yes. It's the only way I can do this. Promise me.”

  “No.”

  They started arguing—at me—so I sent a back in four then shut them out. I closed my eyes, overwhelmingly exhausted with this whole day.

  “You said I called the creations and vine,” I said tiredly, looking at Dare, who was fiercely and unflaggingly scanning the perimeter through the arrow slits in the castle wall, one hand pressed against his gut splitting injury. “I still do some magic effortlessly, while normal magic twists inside of me.”

  Dare narrowed his eyes on a particular spot outside, then continued his sentry watch. “It's what people joke about as the retirement magic of a mage. Mages put a lot of things into place so they don't have to rely on dwindling magic or aptitude. A mage just needs to rely on the magic he already created.”

  He looked at me. “And you... You create very powerful things.”

  I leaned my head back against the stone. “I can connect to things I already have connections with. I did earlier with some of my paper. They didn't require active magic. Just the key of me.”

  “Yes. You might irreparably damage yourself if you keep trying to channel new enchantments. But you can rely on what you already have. You will need to rely on what you already have. While you are like this, you need to craft what you already possess into new strategies, not magic.”

  I nodded tiredly and looked at the hand pressed to his cloak, thinking about what else was beneath besides his nearly mortal injury.

  “Kinsky's papers. We could use them. Suck up the entire lot following us. Praetorian sketches.” I mimicked whooshing my fingers into a sucking vortex. They were papers made by Kinsky, but they had accepted my touch and modification. I was pretty sure they would still answer to me.

  “While there is some evidence that the suspended state inside the magic wipes a block of memory on either side of the entrance and exit to an Origin paper, you don't want Kaine inside something that contains a piece of your magic.” Dare's mouth pinched. “He lives in shadow. He thrives in otherworlds.”

  I wasn't quite sure what that meant.

  “The one thing I never anticipated was his presence on campus. We need to get rid of the papers,” he said shortly. “Hide them, especially from Kaine.”

  I stared at Dare. He hadn't shared the 'how' of that plan. “Um—” I waved my hands to our surroundings. The castle had started shifting around us.

  “We need something, in order to do that.” His expression was grim.

  I grabbed onto one of the arrow slits as another third of the castle shifted away. I had never been in here, so I didn't know how the tile would slide. This was a trapped position I would never have entered into without Alexander Dare at my side.

  “Hold on,
” he yelled as the tile crumbled. He closed his eyes and threw down a ball of magic. It splattered on the stone floor as we were ripped into space.

  When we reformed, we were staring into the smirking face of Kaine.

  Chapter Seventeen: Negotiations with a Bad Hand

  I let go of the arrow slit and scrambled backward. Kaine reached forward and gripped me by the neck, pushing me back against the reforming wall.

  I could feel magic rising off of him. Horrible magic that was all focused on me. He smiled. “By the power invoked—”

  Magic hit him. His voice cut off abruptly in a choke, but his fingers tightened. I scrabbled at the strangling grip of his fingers. Kaine shed a shadow, like a layer of skin, and the choking spell on him fell with it.

  Dare, fully hooded and standing a few paces behind Kaine, gripped the air and pulled backward with his fingers. Kaine's expression went tight and I could see another shadow start to detach from him.

  “Dear baby Dare,” he spit. “Do you really thi—”

  A silver sheen unfurled over Kaine's face and was sucked backward with the shedding shadow, pulled into Dare's closing right palm. A blade protruded outward from Kaine's chest at the same time, an inch from impaling me with him. Kaine's grip on me loosened as he stared down at it. I shoved him backward. The ground shook beneath us, and Dare grabbed Kaine by his neck and thrust him out of the open window and into the next tile slide.

  “Oh my God.” It was a litany from my lips as Dare kept his right hand in a tight grip, his other arm still pressed against his midsection. It looked like it had opened again.

  Not only were we past our time limit—our five minutes completely gone, with no way to return to the Magiaduct—but we had been halfway caught by Kaine, Dare was mortally wounded again, and Dare had used magic on Kaine. Had skewered him on a blade.

  “Come.” Dare lurched forward.

  “He. You.” I clutched my throat, trying to ease the pain there, as I choked out words.

  Dare reached out for me and I could see the healing magic on his fingers. I instinctively grabbed his hand and swept it back to press against his midsection, my other hand wrapped around the portion of his chest where the ultramarine tie was linked between us, fisting it and sending everything I could through the link.

  Dare shut his eyes and I could see them pinch in pain as he grabbed the magic. He disentangled me gently with one hand and knelt down.

  My throat felt epically better—like I was now just suffering a massive cold.

  “He'll survive,” Dare said grimly, eyes pinching again as he grabbed something from the forest floor and pressed it against his stomach. “He's already hunting us again, but now with actual wrath involved.”

  “He knew who—”

  “No, he was fishing.” He flashed his free hand at me and the last pains in my throat lessened.

  “But your magic—”

  “Later. Give me your hand.”

  I held it out. He opened his closed fist just far enough to envelop my palm within it. The magic he had taken from Kaine swiveled between our palms, making me shudder.

  With his other hand, he withdrew a small piece of metal from his pocket. He worked it between our palms. Then his magic was pulling on me.

  His eyes were intensely blue. “Think about how you would release the men from the papers. Concentrate and visualize, but do it quickly,” he said, words crisp and brooking no questions.

  I wanted us to get the hell out of here now, but I closed my eyes and did as he said. Because...

  My thoughts reordered, scattered puzzle pieces locking together. Because he had let Kaine catch us. Whatever magic Dare had done during the tile slide, had pulled Kaine to us, or us to Kaine.

  And we were already well past the time we could return to the dorms without consequence.

  I shoved those worries aside and concentrated.

  Dare's magic pulled the vision from me—similar to what Constantine had done when he'd leeched my magic in the First Layer. But this felt far more natural. This magic was a part of Dare already—he was a Bridge Mage—and was using the connection between us, and my trust, to absorb and direct my mental image stream.

  He'd manipulated my magic and actions during extreme circumstances twice already. This third time was slightly different—with him having to swallow my thought process too—but I could feel him adjusting to it already, settling it into a procedure he could repeat in the future.

  He'd probably be able to puppet me on a string from afar soon, without any aid. And wasn't that a comforting thought.

  A moment later he pulled away. The blue light was gone, as was the feeling of Kaine's magic. A silver dragon glinted normally on Dare's palm.

  From his cloak, Dare withdrew the portfolio containing Kinsky's papers and placed the silver dragon on top. Small strings wrapped around the two items, binding them temporarily together.

  It had morphed from Origin-proof gloves into a portfolio, and was now becoming...something else.

  “Where did you get that?” I asked, a little breathless from the image transfer and being enveloped in Dare's magic. Hopefully, no embarrassing thoughts had transferred with it.

  “It's on loan.”

  “From wh...” I trailed off as Julian Dare stepped out and into our space.

  Unlike the two of us, Julian Dare’s cloak didn't hide his face.

  His gaze was entirely focused on me, even as he took the portfolio from his nephew.

  I tugged my hood forward, making sure it was still fully in place. I trusted Dare with my life. But I wasn't sure I trusted my freedom to anyone he knew.

  I remembered Will saying that the Dare family—and we'd been looking at Julian specifically at the time—would have collected Will while in my Awakening sketch. Left him in there, and put him in the Dare family library of treasures.

  “The key?” Julian asked.

  Dare pointed at the silver dragon. Julian lifted the wrapped bundle and examined the dragon in the shifting light. “Exquisite.”

  So the papers would be taken by Julian Dare to who knew where. Back to their island where they would release the men for questioning? Back to the Department?

  A significant amount communication passed between them that I was not privy to. But even frequency users had facial expressions, and Julian Dare was very pleased about something.

  There was a strong physical resemblance between the two. The positive kind, as they were both very good looking. And the two of them were obviously close. Julian Dare was the youngest of the older generation, nearly fifteen years younger than Alexander's father, Maximilian, and only ten or twelve years older than Alexander himself.

  Dare's uncle wasn't part of the Legion, but he was part of the Department, and therefore he answered to Stavros. He was a Hunter—part of a special operations task force designed to find and stop disturbances, and to apprehend magical criminals in the First Layer—which, for mages used to being surrounded by magic, was a magicless place fraught with peril.

  The first and second times I had encountered Julian Dare had been in the First Layer. The second time he had been casing my neighborhood, trying to find me after my Awakening.

  Hunters tended...not to be well loved. They were like the marshals of the Old West. Marshals who did their own thing and weren't well policed.

  I would never feel bad about the hunter I had trapped in my gopher sketch the night after my Awakening.

  Julian Dare stared at me. His gaze seemed to penetrate my hood. “If we had only taken you that day in the First Layer...” His gaze was dissecting, even though he shouldn't be able to fully see me beneath the enchanted cloak.

  Taken me from the street, where I had laid, dying on the ground, with my brother dead beside me.

  Alexander Dare had saved my life that day. And he had given me one last moment with my brother, using the limited container magic the Dares had been carrying.

  Julian Dare had been in favor of leaving me to die.

  I said nothin
g.

  “You should let me take her now,” Julian said, gaze never leaving me.

  Tensing, I looked at Alexander. Take me where? He didn't respond, his unchanging gaze focused on his uncle.

  “When she goes down, she will take everyone with her,” Julian said, gaze narrowing on me as I turned sharply back in his direction.

  “What does he—”

  “Ignore him,” Alexander responded mentally.

  But it was hard to ignore someone who was staring at me like he wanted to put a slice of me on a dissection slide. Again, Will's words about the Dares reminded me of my potential danger.

  “You should let me do it now,” Julian said. “We could stage it to look like Kaine did it and cease waiting for a better opportunity.”

  “Do what now?” My mental voice was sounding increasingly uneasy.

  “Enough,” Alexander said, looking directly at Julian.

  Julian smiled. There was something very wicked in his expression. “Don't you want to—”

  “Julian.” There was a warning in Alexander's voice.

  Julian opened his mouth to reply, but both Dares suddenly tipped their heads to the side, and Julian smoothly tucked the bundle of Origin and Shadow Magic into his own cloak, then straightened his sleeves.

  Marsgrove emerged from the trees a moment later, expression pinched and irritated. “Is this where we all convene before being blessed with eternal damnation?” he asked in a clipped voice.

  He looked at the three of us, hoods still covering two of us from view. His gaze rested on me longer, expression deeply unpleasant.

  “What are you doing, Axer?” he said finally, turning Dare's way. “There is no way you didn't raise that alert on purpose.”

  Dare bounced a ball of magic in his palm, the sleeve of the cloak revealing only a sliver of his wrist. He didn't respond audibly. He was standing as if he was in perfect health, but our connection was as open as it had ever been, and I could feel the agony of his half-healed wound.

  Marsgrove looked between us and made a distinct noise of displeasure.

  He pulled out a device and activated it. Immediately, a crocgoose and five birdsnakes that had been creeping closer to our area zoomed off in the opposing directions, as if a force field was pushing them away.