Dragon's Gift: The Protector 02 Trial by Magic

by Linsey Hall

  Trial by Magic

  Dragon’s Gift The Protector Book 2

  Linsey Hall

  To Alex, who is exceptional.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Thank You!

  Excerpt Of Hidden Magic

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Glossary

  About Linsey

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  “How much farther?” I wheezed as I raced alongside Cass, my deirfiúr. We were sisters by choice and partners in all things deadly. Today’s task was returning an ancient artifact to a tomb in northern England.

  “Almost there, Nix.” Cass pointed to the top of the steep hill we were climbing. “Just over the hill, I think.”

  “Hill?” My lungs burned. “Mini mountain, more like.”

  Cass laughed and picked up the pace, sprinting over the rocky moorland. Muted sunlight illuminated the mist covering the ground.

  I raced to catch up.

  We were in the Yorkshire Dales, which was really too benign a name for such a bleak and deadly place. The landscape was punctuated by peaks that fell off into cliffs and valleys. Chill wind whipped my hair back from my face. Black clouds rolled over the horizon, chasing us as we searched for the archaeological site where Cass had found the clay vase that sat safely in my backpack.

  Technically, it was called a beaker from the Bronze Age Bell Beaker Culture, but it was really just a vase. Ugly but very magical. Last week, some demons had tried to steal it from our shop. Fortunately, I’d gotten it back from the thieves.

  As if they’d stood a chance against me.

  “I seriously need to get out more.” I wheezed as I leapt over a boulder stuck into the scrubby ground. This run was killing me. Too much time behind the shop counter. I could kick ass if someone tried to rob us, but a run was not in my skillset.

  “Nearly there.” Cass’s breath was heaving, too.

  I grinned. Good.

  Normally, she’d be able to transport us to where we wanted to go, but the weird magic that haunted the dales made it difficult to end up in the right place. And because this area was known for sinkholes…

  Not a good idea to appear out of thin air.

  We crested the huge hill, and Cass halted abruptly. I followed suit, skidding on the ground.

  Ahead of us, one of the famous sinkholes plunged deep into the earth.

  “Whoa.” I surveyed the giant hole. “We’re really going in that?”

  “Yep.” Cass crept up to the edge.

  My heart thundered as I followed, sweat breaking out on my skin. The cool breeze chilled it. I shivered.

  “If we want to return that beaker, we’re going in,” Cass said. “Once we go down the sinkhole, there are tunnels leading to chambers. I found it in a tomb at the end of one.”

  “Of course you did.” Ancient artifacts containing valuable magic never hung out in safe, convenient places.

  Compared to us, Indiana Jones had it easy.

  Cass hunted the artifacts we sold in our shop, Ancient Magic. I ran the shop, and transferred the magic from the artifacts into replicas that I conjured. Since old magic decayed and went boom, we saved the artifact and the archaeological site in one go. And we made a tidy profit once we sold the replica.

  Once the transfer was done, Cass returned the real artifact to its original resting place. That way, we stayed on the right side of the law and our consciences stayed clean.

  Normally, I wouldn’t accompany her on a return mission. But I hadn’t been able to figure out the strange spell housed in the beaker and hoped that I’d understand it better if I saw the site. Though I’d gotten the magic out of the beaker, it was hard to sell it if we didn’t know what it did.

  Except that getting to the site was going to be scary as hell.

  For one, the sinkhole was massive and deep. On the other side, a thin waterfall fell into the hole, a delicate stream of sparkling liquid disappearing into the darkness below.

  Somehow, that only made it creepier. Like we were jumping into the mouth of hell while it was having a drink.

  “It’s about a hundred feet deep.” Cass dug a small headlamp out of her pocket and put it on.

  I sucked in a bracing breath. “Then let’s get this show on the road.”

  I called upon my magic, the conjuring gift that I’d worked so hard to perfect. It wasn’t my only magic—but it was the only magic I could use that wouldn’t get me killed. My FireSoul side was strictly verboten.

  My conjuring power swelled within my chest, a warmth that comforted as it created. Magic sparked along my fingertips, and I envisioned climbing gear. Ropes, harnesses, carabiners. I’d had to study up before we’d come out here so I’d conjure the right things.

  Fortunately, all answers could be found on the internet. As the pile of equipment appeared at my feet, queasiness roiled in my stomach. I sucked in a breath, trying to quell the illness.

  “You okay?” Cass asked.

  “Yeah.” I breathed through the nausea, wishing it would go away, and bent down to pick up the harness. I handed Cass the red nylon. While she put it on, I secured her line to a sturdy tree.

  “Am I good?” she asked.

  “Yep.”

  She saluted and dropped down into the hole. If she’d been near her boyfriend, Aidan, she could have mirrored his ability to shift into any animal and flown us down. But he was busy at work, so we were doing this the old-fashioned way. Since we’d made a career of doing it that way, it was no problem.

  I followed her lead, putting on my own headlamp and securing my equipment, then lowering myself down against the wall. The wind cut off abruptly as I entered the silent shaft. The stone was slick beneath my feet as we bounced our way down.

  “Getting dark down here,” Cass called.

  “That’s how—”

  My line snapped. Terror cut off my words as I plummeted through the air. I was still sixty feet above the ground!

  I scrabbled for the stone wall, my fingertips grazing the rock.

  From below, Cass shrieked. The fear in her voice was nothing compared to the terror racing through me. My skin was ice and my heartbeat thundered.

  Help!

  I didn’t know who I was asking. I clawed for the wall, my fingertips grazing a scraggly green vine. Somehow, I caught hold of it. I gripped it hard, but my weight was too much.

  The vine tore in half. I plummeted, my heart in my throat.

  I passed Cass, who reached out for me, face stark with fear. Her hand missed me by inches.

  The ground was getting so close! My body went numb. In that horrible way of car accidents and tragedy, time slowed as I plunged to my death.

  Desperately, I tried to conjure something to help. Anything. Before I could even try for a giant cushion below me, something grabbed my flailing wrist, jerking me to a stop. My vision spun as I grabbed onto it, holding on to it like a kid to a candy bar. It felt a bit like rope. Another one grabbed my leg. I dangled in the air, twenty feet above the ground.

  “Nix!” Cass cried from above. “Are you all right?

  “Yeah.” My voice was strangled. I panted as I looked up at my caught wrist.

  What the hell was going on?

  A vine, or a tree root maybe, had wrapped around my wrist. It
was hard to tell in the dark, with just my headlamp flashing as I twisted in the air. Another vine had wrapped around my thigh, holding me aloft like a broken puppet.

  Slowly, the vine lowered me to the ground. The blood rushing to my ears was a freight train as I struggled to catch my breath. When my feet touched the ground, I collapsed back against the stone wall of the sinkhole.

  “Holy fates.” I pressed a hand to my heaving chest, glancing up at Cass.

  The vines, or whatever they had been, now lay still against the wall. Cass was lowering herself down, making quick progress. She landed with a thud, then charged me, wrapping her arms around my neck.

  “Holy shit, you scared me!” Her words tumbled out. “What the hell was that?”

  I pushed her back, still struggling to catch my breath. “No idea. Vines, I think.”

  Cass looked up. “That’s freaking weird. I didn’t feel any magic here.”

  I pulled off my backpack and checked the bubble wrapped based within. Unbroken, thankfully. “It was definitely magic. Unless they were zombie vines.”

  She arched a brow. “Helpful zombie vines?”

  “You’re right. Unlikely.” But what they were, I had no freaking clue.

  “How’d you fall?” Cass asked.

  I pulled at the rope attached to my harness, finding it to be completely intact. “That’s weird. Maybe I tied it off wrong? Knots have never been my strong suit, and I’ve never done any rock climbing before.”

  “Possibly,” Cass said.

  “Probably.” As much as I loved research, it couldn’t replace practice. Especially when dangling one hundred feet above the bottom of a stone pit.

  Shit. Good thing I hadn’t gotten Cass’s knots wrong.

  “Could someone have untied it?” Cass asked.

  I looked up. The opening to the sinkhole seemed to be miles away. “I don’t see anyone.”

  “Let’s get a move on, then. I don’t like this place. As soon as we return the artifact, I can transport us out of here.”

  “Good plan, Batman.” I turned from the wall and faced the pit.

  We were inside a cavern that ballooned out. The light was dim but revealed walls coated in a slick sheen of water. The waterfall fell into a small pool that drained on the far end in a river. There were at least four tunnels that I could see. The river flowed through one.

  “Not the river one, right?” I asked.

  “Nope, thank fates. Though there will be water later. Come on. We need to get to the other side.”

  I followed Cass around the edge of the pool. We passed behind the waterfall. I pressed myself against the wall, trying to avoid the spray that splashed coldly against my face. Nausea roiled in my stomach.

  Ugh.

  I ignored it—it was the only thing I could do. We hurried across the cavern toward one of the smaller tunnels.

  “Ah, crap,” I muttered. It got a whole lot narrower inside, the roof lowering until we’d clearly have to crawl. We’d barely fit.

  “Yeah, it’s a tight squeeze,” Cass said.

  “You’re telling me.”

  “You’ll want to take the pack off.” Cass tugged her own off.

  Sweat dampened my palms. “That tight?”

  “A little farther down, yeah.”

  I pulled my pack off and followed Cass into the tunnel. It was damp and chilly. When I got to my knees and started to crawl, water quickly soaked through my jeans.

  Within twenty yards, we were on our bellies. The ceiling was only a few inches over my back. Six at most. I pushed my pack ahead of me on the ground, careful to protect the clay beaker inside.

  “I kinda hate this.” My heart thundered in my ears as the rock closed in around me.

  “Same.” Cass shimmied through a particularly tight bit.

  I followed, my stomach turning.

  By the time the tunnel was big enough to kneel, my skin was crawling. I scrambled after Cass, standing as soon as there was room.

  I stumbled almost immediately, my queasy stomach turning my legs to jelly.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Cass said.

  “Great.” Lurch. “Okay, not great.” I leaned against the stone wall.

  “It’s your new magic, isn’t it?” Cass asked.

  I sucked in a ragged breath. “Yeah. That Destroyer magic feels like it’s destroying my insides.”

  “You’ve got to learn to control it.”

  “I know. I just…need time.” I’d used my FireSoul power to steal this magic from an evil mage only two days ago. I hadn’t wanted to take it—I’d only wanted to take his Informa gift and know what secrets he’d stolen. But I’d gotten both. And now the Destroyer magic was making me sick as a frat boy on a Sunday morning. I’d tried practicing to control it, but hadn’t had any luck. “Let’s get a move on.”

  “Fine. But soon as we get home, you’re practicing your new magic.”

  “Yeah, yeah, Mom.” I followed her down the corridor, my ears perking up at the sound of voices. It was faint, but… “Do you hear that?”

  Cass turned her head, cocking it. “Maybe? It’s so faint.”

  The sound had disappeared. “Let’s keep going. But keep your guard up.”

  “Always.”

  We hurried through the winding corridor, which opened onto a chamber the size of a small theatre. The ceiling soared fifty feet above. Another tunnel exited the chamber on the far wall. Magic prickled on the air.

  “Feel that?” I muttered.

  “Yeah, but I don’t think—”

  The ground rumbled beneath our feet. The sound of stone cracking chilled my skin. Rocks tumbled from the wall as it split and cracked. The sound was deafening. A large boulder thudded in front of the tunnel exit—right where we needed to go.

  Shit!

  Cass pointed to the ceiling. “Spiders!”

  I looked up, dread opening a pit in my stomach.

  Massive arachnids crawled out of a hole in the ceiling. They were three feet in diameter if they were an inch—so big that I could see they had fur—and their fangs were the size of daggers.

  My heart dropped to my feet and my skin chilled. Forcing myself to focus—or get eaten by giant spiders—I conjured my bow and arrow, the weapons so familiar they felt like an extension of my arm.

  “Take care of the rocks!” I called. We had to get out of here. “I’ve got the spiders.”

  One of them descended from the ceiling on its web, multifaceted eyes glinting in the light of my headlamp. This was a horror movie come to life.

  I drew an arrow from the ether and fired, piercing the beast between the eyes. I hated killing it, but everyone knew giant spiders only wanted one thing. To wrap you up in their webs and feed off you for days.

  And that was a big fat nope for me.

  My other deirfiúr, Del, always said it was bad luck to kill spiders. But she hadn’t been talking about these bad boys.

  As Cass raced to the massive boulder, water began to fill the cavern, flowing from the side walls.

  “That’s not even possible!” Cass shouted. “The river doesn’t flow this way.”

  Magic.

  “Were these enchantments here when you came before?” I fired at a spider that scuttled along the wall, taking him out as he neared Cass. He plummeted to the ground, splashing into the water.

  “No!” Cass’s magic swelled on the air. The scent of ozone crackled. She hurled a lightning bolt at the boulder. Thunder boomed in the cavern, making my head ring.

  “Don’t hit the water!” I cried.

  Fortunately, the bolt had hit high on the stone. A small fissure appeared.

  “I know that!” Cass yelled. She hurled another lightning bolt, bigger than the last.

  I left her to it, aiming for the spiders that were climbing down the walls, their eyes greedy and riveted to us. The idea of being bound in their web made me shudder.

  Water rose to my knees, then my thighs. My heartbeat roared in my ears. Lightning and thunder cracked as Cas
s tried to blow apart the boulder blocking our exit.

  Please don’t hit the water.

  Between the lightning, water, and spiders, this was getting dire.

  Or getting to be a good time. It all depended on the outcome, really.

  I fired as fast as I could. My arrows flew through the air, whistling bullets of death. But there were too many spiders!

  One of them caught sight of another that I’d pierced with an arrow. It diverted its path—which had been headed straight for me—and leapt upon the fallen arachnid. It scuttled around the body, splashing in the water as it bound the spider in its web.

  Yep—not for me.

  I fired at other spiders, barely holding them off as they climbed out of the hole in the ceiling. We were being overwhelmed as Cass’s lightning cracked in the air. Our only salvation was the fact that some of the spiders were going for their dead buddies.

  Except they probably weren’t buddies if they were eating each other.

  “Hurry, Cass!” The water was to my waist.

  “Almost…there.” Cass hurled a bolt of lightning that blinded me with brightness.

  Panic over oncoming spiders that I couldn’t see chilled my skin. Then the water started to rush away from around me.

  “Watch out!” There was a great splash.

  Through hazy vision, I saw that Cass had blown through the rock, clearing the tunnel that was our exit. Cass splashed as she was carried out by the rush of water. The body of a spider bobbed by her. Had it knocked her over?

  They were rushed out of the room on the torrent of water surging out toward the now-open tunnel.

  Something heavy hit me in the side. My feet flew out from under me, and I crashed into the water. My bow was torn from my hands as the current carried me toward the tunnel. I splashed and sputtered, gasping. Beside me, a hairy spider floated.

  Ugh. My stomach turned.

  “Nix!” Cass’s voice echoed. “You…okay?”

  The water surged around me, and I sucked in air. “Yeah!”

  My headlamp flashed off of the tunnel walls as the river hurtled us through the passage. Finally it began to slow, the level lowering as it dissipated. I slid to a stop on the tunnel floor, the spider’s hairy body pressed right up against me. His creepy eyes stared eerily at nothing.