Provoked (Space Mage Book 1)

by Izzy Shows

  If only it had given her more, so that she could have taken down that bastard instead of…

  No.

  I gritted my teeth and redirected my thoughts. I couldn't think about that right now. It was too dangerous; I might lose control. Instead, I focused on the walk through the desert, headed toward the oasis we'd made camp at not that long ago. When everything had been so different.

  I looked down at her, at her muted skin, her closed eyes…

  Wake up, Xiva. I need you to wake up. Please.

  I knew it wouldn't do any good, but still, I prayed.

  I don't know who you are, and I don't know if you care, but… Vivoth, save her.

  The wind roared around me.

  Xiva

  I refuse to accept pain.

  It had returned for me with a vengeance, as if it was angry with me for circumventing it when I rose from the ground, but I would not let it claim me this time. I refused to acknowledge the deep aches in my bones, the brokenness of my body, or the way it felt like my mind had shattered.

  I refused to accept any of it because it was simply unacceptable. I had more important things to do.

  Zvarr.

  He had bested me again, and I swore it was for the last time. I could not afford to be lenient with him ever again, though in truth it had been the shock of seeing inside him that had stayed my hand this time, not a ridiculous need to save him.

  You still felt that way. You still wanted to bring him back to the light. Don’t deny it.

  The voice spoke the truth, and I forced myself to listen to it, to let that little bit of emotional pain in. I deserved it.

  But I would not allow the rest of the pain to destroy me. I fought it, struggling through the muck inside my mind so I could surface.

  And then I felt a blinding white light filling me, surging through my body, burning a path through all of my nerves and leaving me singed—but not broken. Instead, it left a feeling of euphoria all along its path, the best feeling in the world.

  My eyes snapped open.

  Kaidan was leaning over me, his body aglow with a prism of light, his eyes burning brightly.

  I reached out to cup his cheek. "Vivoth."

  "DID I NOT PROMISE YOU AID, MY CHILD? DO NOT DOUBT MY WORD AGAIN."

  The words came from Kaidan's mouth, but they did not belong to him, just as the blinding light filling him did not belong to him. Tears pricked at my eyes.

  Vivoth was using him as a vessel. Vivoth found him worthy. And all this time, I had doubted the abilities of this man, doubted him.

  "I apologize, Father," I said, my voice a whisper. "Never again."

  "ALL IS WELL. YOU MUST FINISH WHAT WAS STARTED MILLENIA AGO."

  With a violent shudder of Kaidan's body, the light left his eyes and dimmed about his body until it was no more, and he sagged onto his heels. I feared he would fall over, but he steadied himself with one hand on the sand.

  I sat up, lifting a hand to touch him again, but thought better of it. I had no doubt that after an experience like the one he'd just had, anything could trigger a sensory overload.

  "Kaidan?"

  He rubbed at his forehead with his free hand, groaning loudly, and then looked up at me with a lazy smirk on his face.

  "Not bad for a child, huh?"

  I grinned, relieved to see he was well. "Not bad."

  "You should rest."

  "No," I said. "I will not rest. I am well-healed by Vivoth's light, for which I should thank you. There is no time for rest."

  And at that, I started to stand up, but my legs gave out under me and I crashed back to the ground—or I would have, if Kaidan hadn't caught me. I allowed myself to relax into his arms, allowed him to hold me.

  "I think that's a sign that you need a little more rest."

  I shook my head. "There is no time."

  "You can't even stand up."

  "My blood must spread. It will take a second. Then we will go."

  "Do I get a vote?" Walter's voice surprised me, and I felt a great relief rush through me.

  "Walter!" I cried, struggling to get out of Kaidan's arms, but I fell again. "You're all right."

  "Of course I'm all right," he said, coming over to kneel beside Kaidan and me. "You were the one we were worried about."

  "But…Zvarr…" I whispered.

  A cloud seemed to fill his eyes, and he wouldn't meet mine. "Yes, well…Zvarr did a lot."

  "The base?" I asked.

  "Gone."

  Kaidan's arms tightened around me, as if he could protect me from the information. A broken cry escaped my lips, and I turned to hide my face against his chest, finding comfort there just as I had when I'd discovered my people in the High Temple.

  Dead. They're all dead. Sweet Anders, he will never give his daughter the paradise she deserved. All those people, with all their hopes and their dreams—they’re all gone. Gone, gone, gone. And it's my fault. My fault for not stopping Zvarr before they came here. No, no, no, it can't be. They can't be dead!

  My thoughts ran around and around in confusing circles, refusing to be silent, refusing to make any sort of sense, and I allowed the pain to come for me again.

  Get up, Xiva. Stop this. These were their people, not yours. They deserve to mourn them, not comfort you.

  That thought drew me up short, and I cut myself off mid-cry, stiffening in Kaidan's arms.

  "Hey, you OK?" he murmured softly.

  "No!" I cried, and this time I did stand up and out of his arms. "No, it is not…not OK. I should not be so selfish."

  "Selfish?" Walter shuddered, and I could see he was making an effort to remain calm. The shadows in his eyes betrayed him, though, as did the haggard lines in his face.

  "I should not… They were yours, yours to mourn," I said. "It is selfish to take from you like this."

  Kaidan's face was impossible to read as he spoke. "You're allowed to mourn them too, Xiva. You cared about them. I will mourn my men in my own way, in my own time—but not now. Not when that bastard is still out there."

  I nodded. "Yes, of course. He must be stopped."

  "What are we going to do?" Walter asked uneasily.

  I grimaced. What, indeed?

  We had to act quickly, though. Every second that ticked by was a second when the worst could happen: Zvarr could find their ship. I doubted that he knew how to pilot it, or that he would be able to figure it out very quickly, but if he somehow could, then he could get off the planet and bring his destruction to so many unsuspecting, innocent people.

  I couldn't allow that to happen. But what could I do? Twice now I had failed to do what needed to be done. I didn't know if I could handle that happening for a third time.

  Didn't know if I could stomach that.

  But what could I do?

  Trust him.

  I looked at Kaidan, thinking. He was quite capable. I needed his help, I decided. I needed help, period, if I was going to be able to finish Zvarr, regardless of what form that help took. But Kaidan could do much more than draw Zvarr's ire—he had proven himself an outstanding warrior already, and he was sharper than I thought he liked to believe.

  I had to trust this alien, as difficult as that was to accept. I had wanted to hold myself away from him, away from both of them, because I didn't want to be hurt when they eventually turned on me, as everyone always did.

  But I couldn't hold that distance and fight with him the way we needed to. I would have to trust him. I would have to close that distance.

  "We will fight him together," I said, lifting my chin.

  Kaidan looked thoughtful. "Actually, there was something I wanted to say about that."

  "Oh?"

  "When you were fighting your brother, I felt every blow you took. It felt like my mind was reaching for yours. It was really strange, and I couldn't figure out what it meant, but… I don't know. Does that make any sense to you?"

  My eyes widened, and I let out a small sound of surprise.

  Of course.


  "Vivoth said he would send me aid. And even now, he repeated himself, and I did not see. Oh, stupid girl," I said, shaking my head. "Stupid, stupid girl."

  "What? What are you going on about?"

  I walked to him and knelt before him. "Vivoth said he would send me aid, and that is what you are—that is why you are different. You were created in his love, in his desire to help his children. That is why you have the magic inside you, and that is why you can help me. Our minds reached for one another because that is what we need to fight—to trust one another, to let the other fully inside, so there is no beginning and end. There is only the warrior inside."

  What I spoke of was an ancient practice, so ancient that there were no records of it in the great library. The only reason I knew about it was because of my cisi—my mother's mother. She had told me about it after she realized that Zvarr and I were capable of telepathy. Telepathy, although it was unheard of in our society, had not always been such a rare thing.

  It used to be given to many of the Stryx, and such blessed beings were always the best fighters because of their yeva. A yeva was the one they fought with, the one who formed their other side. To fight in such a way, with minds melded like that, was to possess more power than any one warrior could ever hope for. In addition to that, it allowed the two fighters to move off one another with a fluidity that could not be taught—each move one fighter made seemed to build off the previous move of the other.

  It should have been obvious to me when I fought with Kaidan against the pirates on the way to the High Temple, but how could I have known to think of such a fairy tale in connection with an alien I thought possessed no magic?

  He was my yeva, created by Vivoth for me. When my cisi had first told me the story, I had thought that Zvarr would be my yeva. After all, we were twins with the same abilities; it only made sense. But Zvarr had never wanted to try such a thing with me, and we were much better at fighting one another than with each other.

  That should have been a sign of a problem, even then, but I had been willfully blind to all that was wrong with Zvarr.

  "I'm sure whatever you said was really important, but you didn't say it in Common," Kaidan said, grimacing.

  "Oh." I frowned. "Of course. Too easy." How could I find the words in his language? "We fight together well, yes?"

  "Well, yeah. I thought so, anyway, but you didn't seem to want to acknowledge it at the time."

  "Yes, yes, enough for later," I said, shaking my head. "Not important. What is important is that we fight better together than apart. Yes?"

  "Yeah."

  "It is because you are my yeva—the one I am meant to fight beside. Our minds must touch, must give one another power, so we can fight at our best."

  His eyes were wide, and his mouth opened and shut. Then he said, "You know, a month ago, I would have called you crazy."

  "You did," I said flatly.

  "Oh, yeah." He grinned sheepishly. "I guess I did do that, huh? Well, this honestly isn't the craziest thing you've said, I guess. What the hell. I can try."

  My eyes gleamed.

  He thought he would have to try, but he did not understand what it was like with your yeva.

  He would learn.

  Xiva

  The wind whipped about me fiercely, howling madly as it tore through the desert. It was Zvarr at work; I knew it. He was trying to intimidate me, to send me flying across the sands to get away from him. He thought I feared him, that somehow I thought I could not triumph over him.

  And perhaps he had been right a rotation ago. Perhaps I had thought that, but no longer.

  I had my yeva, and all would be well now. There was no standing against the two of us.

  I looked to my right, where Kaidan was standing. He had one of his huge guns in his hand, which he had salvaged from the destroyed base, and many more strapped to his thighs. He was almost intimidating to me right now, and if I had not learned his heart, I knew I would have feared him. It was the look in his eyes, his fierce determination, the way he was looking forward to the fight, along with his sheer massive size, that would strike fear into the hearts of most men.

  A good thing, then, that I was not most men. I was not any man.

  "Are you sure about this?" Kaidan called loudly. The wind was so intense that we had to shout to one another even though we were standing side by side.

  "Still, you do not believe?" I said, laughing. "You have felt my mind, the touch of my god, and still you do not believe?"

  He turned to look at me fully, locking eyes with mine, and the laughter died in my throat.

  I had never seen him look more serious.

  "I believe you," he said. "I believe in all of it."

  My heart leapt into my throat. I could not have asked for a better yeva.

  "Together," I said. "We fight together."

  He nodded, and we turned back to the scene before us. We had walked as far into the desert as we could, away from both the base and the oasis, where we had left Walter. There was nothing to be seen for miles in either direction, no reason to fear fallout from the battle that was about to begin.

  As soon as I brought Zvarr to me.

  I raised my hands and called my magic to my hands, then let it shoot out into the sky.

  At once, the wind calmed, dropping away so rapidly that it was a little disorienting. Into its place I brought the storm, a wild beast that snarled overhead and opened upon us with rain that could barely be imagined. Lightning struck the desert floor rapidly, over and over again, with the ferocity I felt in my heart.

  Zvarr would know my power.

  And so he did.

  He appeared before me with a loud cracking sound—I would have to learn that trick—and his eyes were dark and angry.

  "I see you have been practicing, sister dearest," he said, and there was no kindness in his voice.

  I thought of answering him, of trading words with the brother I had once loved, but decided against it. Back in the days before our fight, when I had been High Priestess, I had developed a reputation as a warrior—a warrior unmatched in skill, but also an infuriating warrior, for I would never speak to my opponents. I did not believe in wasting the air I breathed trading insults while I did battle, and it drove the others mad.

  I had made an exception for Zvarr once upon a time, but I would do that no longer.

  He was nothing more to me now than an opponent. He was no longer my brother, and he would die for his crimes.

  He seemed to understand that, for when he looked into my eyes, he reared back as if I had struck him.

  "Sister…"

  I did not allow him to say another word. I brought my hand up sharply, carrying with it a beam of golden energy, at the same time that I called the lightning from the sky to strike his heart.

  His body jerked, and he fell to his knees, gasping for air, but he quickly recovered. He launched himself into the sky—to get away from me, of course, but it was a mistake.

  I ruled the sky now.

  I lifted both hands and directed the storm, battering at his body so he could not achieve the flight he wanted.

  You want me to step in?

  Kaidan's voice was warm in my mind. So fused were we with one another that I did not even feel his mental touch; I only heard his words.

  Wait for him to go to ground, then engage.

  His silence was affirmation. I could feel his unformed thoughts as if they were my own. He waited as I played with Zvarr, until at last the man who had once been my brother landed on the ground, one leg kicked out to the side and his fist slamming the desert floor.

  The look in his eyes promised death, but I knew it was empty.

  I was not the one who would die today.

  With a roar, he launched himself at us, and Kaidan raced toward him as well.

  I saw the surprise in Zvarr's eyes, the way it twisted his features, and I couldn't help but laugh. He was too wrapped up in his own importance to imagine that someone other than I would attack him.


  And so we fought. Kaidan drew Zvarr’s ire, leading him on a merry chase through the desert as I battered his body with the elements and my magic. I did not fear for Kaidan's life, for I knew that as long as we were joined, I could not fail to know his movements, could not fail to keep him safe from my brother.

  As I watched, my brother lunged for my yeva, intent on striking him down—and Kaidan jumped back just as I lifted the wind under him, transporting his body over and behind my brother’s.

  I grinned. He had known that was what I was going to do, for he had positioned his body perfectly for it.

  Of course I knew. We are one.

  His approval surged through me, and I tilted my head back to laugh even as I continued to orchestrate the skies above. It was too perfect.

  And then a fist slammed into my face, sending me to the ground, too fast for me to let out a scream of surprise.

  I heard Kaidan's roar of anger in the distance. Zvarr had grown tired of playing with him and had come to take me out.

  Of course.

  It did not surprise me, but I had hoped that Kaidan would be able to hold his attention long enough for me to finish the job without having to actually touch my brother.

  Of course I was wrong.

  I rolled to the side, lurched to my feet, and brought one hand up to send out a bolt of energy—firing blindly to distract Zvarr.

  As soon as I had him in my line of sight, I took to the sky, parting the wind and rain to give myself the freedom of movement I needed. Zvarr joined me, though he surely knew it would be to his disadvantage. I saw the determination in his eyes, the desire to kill, and I knew he would stop at nothing until he had gotten what he came for.

  He wanted to kill me.

  But I needed to kill him.

  Our fight in the sky was the stuff of legend: the lightning flashing in the background as we exchanged blows, the rain tearing at my skin when I didn't have the presence of mind to send it away. And from below came the energy blasts from Kaidan's weapon—timed exactly right so I was not in the way.

  I will always have your back, I heard him say, and I felt a rush of gratitude.

  His actions gave me the opening I needed, the distraction that was necessary.