The League of Illusion: Prophecy

by Vivi Anna

  “Child, you need to do more if you want this man. Heaven knows why, when he’s just going to leave you, especially when he discovers your plan to take the map from him, but that’s here nor there. He’d built up a wall, but you can knock it down. You just have to show him you want him. Seducing men is easy, getting them to love you is the hard part.”

  She sighed again. “Fine.”

  She tugged down the collar of her dress over her shoulders and unpinned her hair. She shook it out and draped some thick waves over her shoulders. There, she looked properly sexy. Her mother had been right.

  “There? Better?”

  Taking a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders, opened the door and marched next door. She pushed up her breasts, reached up to knock on the metal door, but it opened before she could make contact. Rhys stood there wide-eyed.

  “Oh, I was just coming to check on you, to make sure everything was all right,” he said, licking his lips.

  “As you can see, I’m more than all right.” She put her hands on her hips to prompt him to really look at her. And look he did. From her face down to her boots, then back up again. His gaze lingered on the tops of her breasts spilling out from her dress.

  Her mother had been right about the hair. All men wanted something to bury their hands into. And she desperately wanted Rhys to bury his.

  “Corina, are you tipsy?”

  “Maybe a little, but I still know what I’m doing.”

  “And just what would that be?”

  She put her hand on his chest, pushed him back into the room and shut the door behind her. She might have pushed him too hard because he stumbled backward.

  “What’s gotten into you?” he asked.

  “Just shut up and listen to me.”

  His eyebrow went up at that, but he said, “All right. You have my attention.”

  She moved toward him, swaying her hips as much as she could without falling over. Her head did spin a little and she reached out for balance. Unfortunately she reached for the wrong thing and ended up hooking her fingers in Rhys’s trousers.

  He gaped at her, she gaped back at him. Mortified, she spun around, putting her head in her hands to hide her shame.

  “Oh Lord. Oh Lord, I’m so sorry.” Tears threatened to come. She was going too far.

  “It’s all right,” he said, his voice laced with humor. He touched her on the shoulder, which made her jump. Flinging out her arms, she spun back around and smacked him straight across the cheek with the back of her hand.

  “Oh Rhys, I’m so sorry. I’m such a fool.”

  She put her hand to her mouth to stop the sob that was bubbling up and ran. Back in her stateroom, she leaned against the door and let the tears fall. What an idiot she was. So foolish, so stupid, so clumsy. Whatever made her think she could entice a man like Rhys? He was used to wealthy ladies with good breeding, and exotic beauties trained in the sensual arts. What could an unlearned country girl ever offer him?

  A knock came at her door.

  She held her breath and waited. Maybe he’d go away if she didn’t move.

  The knock came again. “Corina, I know you’re in there. I can see your shadow under the door.”

  She released her breath. “Please go away,” she said between sniffles.

  “Let me in. Let’s talk about it.”

  “Why? So you can tell me I’m some problem to deal with, just a simple village psychic not worth your time?”

  There was silence from his side of the door.

  “I heard you speaking to Mrs. Chattoway in the shop.” She wiped at her eyes. “To think a man like you would want a girl like me. I’m such a fool. My mother was right.”

  “No.” He paused. “You’re not a fool. I am. About you. I can’t think straight when I’m near you. You make me completely senseless, Corina Stratton.”

  Heart thumping, Corina opened the door and stepped back to allow him entry. He shut the door but never once did his eyes leave her. She put a hand to her chest, certain her heart was going to explode. Her throat was dry and she swallowed.

  “I...I was going to seduce you.”

  He reached for her. “You’re not a very good psychic if you couldn’t see you already have.”

  He pulled her to him, then slowly, so slowly, he touched her face. He drew this thumb down the line of her cheek to her jaw. His gentle touch sent a rush of shivers down her body.

  Cupping her face, he leaned down toward her mouth, until he was a whisper away. His hot breath caressed her skin. Then his lips were on hers and she melted into his arms.

  His mouth was hot and greedy, nibbling at her bottom lip, urging her open, sweeping his tongue in. The kiss was slow and languid and wet and completely reduced her mind to mush. She dug her fingers into his shirt and held on as he took her to a place of unimaginable bliss.

  His hands found their way into the long sweep of her hair, and he pulled her head back so he could plant small kisses on her chin and down to her neck. He nipped at her collarbone and it shot delicious pangs of pleasure right down her body.

  Her legs liquefied and she could barely keep standing. She wondered if it was too soon, too much to beg him to carry her to the bed and lay her down. But she never got the chance to ask before the submersible violently rocked forward.

  They were both knocked sideways. If it wasn’t for Rhys’s quick hands, Corina would’ve slammed into the dressing table.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  There was another jolt and this time alarm bells rang throughout the ship.

  The stateroom door opened and Raja poked his head in. “We’re under attack.”

  “By who?” Rhys asked.

  “By fanatical elves in a dirigible.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Amused, Darin watched the elves scramble about the deck of the airship preparing to attack the submersible below. Once the lookout had located the vessel with the sonar machine, he’d sounded the alarm, and everyone had jumped into action. Everyone but him. He was just along for the ride, hoping the militant religious zealots would do the work for him.

  After discovering the elf following Rhys around London, Darin had thought maybe they should join forces. The elves had ways of tracking that eluded him, such as this sonar contraption, a long rope with a strange metal device at the end of it. It would drag behind the ship and send sounds through the water every ten seconds, and if that sound bounced back, it meant there was something solid and metal in the water. Which turned out to be the submersible.

  Darin had consulted with his father about his plan to contact the elves and he’d done one better and put Darin in touch with the elven councilman Amathon himself. The elf who just happened to be barking orders at his crew.

  “Ready the next attack.”

  Three of the elves picked up cannonballs and positioned themselves forward and aft.

  “Ready,” Amathon yelled. “And release!”

  They dropped the steel into the water. A minute later, Darin could hear the heavy metal ping of impact.

  “Do you have any weapons with a more permanent outcome?” Darin asked Amathon.

  The elf frowned, his thin dark eyebrows lifting. “We’re not trying to ki
ll them.”

  “We’re not?”

  “Of course not. We’re just trying to stop them.”

  Disappointed, Darin looked at the elves readying another wave of cannonball fire. They were all fierce looking and noble with a reputation for being stalwart and focused on their goals—obsessive, some would say. But he didn’t see that here. He saw cowards and lesser creatures. He’d once respected their way of life, but no longer. He’d obviously picked the wrong team to join.

  He supposed it was up to him to do the job right. As usual.

  As the elf who was aft readied his cannonball, Darin stood near him. Clenching his fist, he mumbled a spell under his breath. Within seconds a ball of red light formed between his fingers. It wasn’t fire this time he was building, but force. Pure visible force. A strength he could affix to anything he liked. Even a cannonball.

  “Ready,” Amathon yelled. “Release!”

  Darin tossed the magic. Before the steel orb hit the water, it was glowing red.

  Chapter Nineteen

  In the control room, Raja beckoned Rhys to look into the periscope. “See for yourself.”

  Rhys looked into the eyepiece, which was connected to a metal pipe that ran through the submersible, out the top and poked out of the water. At first all he could see was the expanse of the English Channel, but then something came into view. A large airship hovered above the water, right above their ship. An elf, his pointy ears and shimmering skin visible, leaned over the bow and dropped what looked to be an eighty-pound cannonball into the water. Seconds later there was a loud bang, louder than anything before, and the ship jolted hard to the side again.

  “Will they damage the ship?” Rhys asked.

  “Eventually,” Raja said. “The force of the impact seems to be increasing, but right now it just makes me very angry.”

  “What can we do?” Corina asked from her perch on the captain’s chair, which she was gripping tightly.

  “If it was another submersible I could fire a torpedo at it, but it’s above us, out of range of any of my weapons.”

  Another cannonball hit the hull with more force, and jostled them about. Rhys smacked his head on the periscope.

  “Where is Mrs. Chattoway?” Rhys asked, concerned about his friend.

  “In the engine room,” Raja said. “She insists she can make this tub go faster.”

  “Do they mean to kill us?” Corina asked.

  Rhys stroked a hand over her head to comfort her. “I don’t think so. They aren’t usually violent. Something or someone is spurring them on. I’m sure they just want to stop us from opening the portal.”

  “I can dive down a little more, but it won’t be enough to stop the impacts. Eventually the hull will be breached and we will have to come up or drown down here.”

  “No one’s going to be drowning.”

  “Do you have a plan?” Raja asked.

  Rhys rubbed his hands together. “I’m going to need someone to guide me using the periscope.”

  Raja stepped up to the pipe. “I will, my friend.”

  Rhys nodded his thanks. Corina grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “Whatever it is you’re planning to do, know that I believe in you.”

  He kissed the top of her head and stepped into a corner of the control room. He needed room for his magic to build.

  While he rubbed his hands back and forth, back and forth, he thought about the sea and the fishing trip he’d taken with his father and his brothers along the coast when they were boys. Jovan had found a dead baby squid along the beach. He’d picked it up and tossed it at Rhys as payback for all the times Rhys had frightened him with his giant spider illusions. Rhys remembered how that squid had looked and how it had felt on his skin.

  Squeezing his eyes shut, he concentrated on those sensations and used his magic to form them physically. He pushed and urged and forced it into a shape. Then he started to mold it, like a piece of clay, but with the fingers of his mind.

  “I see something,” Raja said. “Something’s forming in the water.”

  Another object hit the vessel. The impact was louder and harder. It pitched everyone in the control room forward. Rhys dropped to his knees, his magic dissipating. Corina was thrown from the captain’s chair.

  An angry siren wailed and yellow lights along one wall under a diagram of the submersible started to blink on and off.

  Rhys helped Corina to her feet. “Everyone all right?”

  A voice crackled from the funnel communication device. “Captain.”

  Raja flipped a switch. “Report, Sanjay? What is our status?”

  “We’re taking on water in the engine room.”

  Raja looked at the diagram and flashing lights. “Get everyone out and seal compartments six and seven.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Mrs. Chattoway.” Rhys’s gut clenched.

  Raja frowned. “She’ll get out. Sanjay will make sure.”

  Rhys made for the hatch. “I’m going to make sure.”

  “I’m coming.” Corina grabbed his hand.

  Hand in hand, they raced through the corridors, passing compartments and cabins. Crewmen were racing around them and toward them as they neared the engine room. When they reached the metal stairs to go down a level, Sanjay was coming up.

  “You can’t go down. It’s not safe.” He put his hands out to block them.

  “Where’s Mrs. Chattoway? Did she get out?”

  Sanjay’s gaze dropped. He wouldn’t look at them. “She won’t go until she’s patched the hole. She insists she can fix it.”

  “Didn’t you insist she leave?”

  “She’s not a woman you can insist to.”

  Rhys pushed past the crewman. Sanjay grabbed his arm. “You have five minutes, no more, and then I must seal the compartment.”

  Rhys continued down the steps, Corina right behind him. He thought of telling her to stay up top but didn’t have time for an argument—which it certainly would be, since she was going to do what she wanted anyway. He stepped into water on the second to last stair. When he took the last step, the water level reached his knees. He looked through the open hatch and spotted Mrs. Chattoway waist-deep in water and hammering at something on the hull.

  “Mrs. Chattoway!” He sloshed through the water toward the opening. “Marie!”

  Finally she turned to look at him. She waved him away. “Get out of here, you foolish man!”

  “Not without you!”

  She shook her head. “Stubborn. Just like your mother.” With a last look at the hull, she dropped the hammer and started wading through the cold rising water to the hatch.

  Another cannonball struck the hull of the submersible. The vessel lurched to the left, hard and fast. Rhys barely kept his footing. Corina grabbed onto to him to keep her balance. Metal pipes tore off the ceiling and fell. One struck Mrs. Chattoway on the head, knocking her into the water.

  “No!” Rhys pushed against the rushing water. Blood pooled to the surface of the rapidly churning waves. A red light above the hatch began to flash. The siren got louder as the hatch started to slide closed.

  Rhys reached the hatch, bracing himself against it to keep it open. But he wasn’t strong enough. It kept moving. He swiveled around in a circle, water sloshing around his waist, looking for something to brace against the door. He spied one of the ceiling pipes sticking out of the water.

  While still pushing against the door with his foot, he reached for the pipe. He wrapped a hand a
round the metal and pulled hard. It didn’t budge. He tried again, straining with all he had, but the pipe just wasn’t coming. There was nothing else he could use to stop the hatch from closing.

  Corina grabbed his arm from behind and pulled him away. “Come on. Get out of the way. You’ll be crushed.”

  “No, I have to get to her.”

  Corina gripped his chin in her fingers. “She’s gone. You can’t help her now.”

  Rhys watched the crimson water, looking for any sign of the seamstress. Looking for any sign that Corina was wrong. He couldn’t see her beneath the waves, but he watched until the water came up to his chest.

  The metal door finally clunked shut, and the locks engaged. Corina pulled him away from the hatch again. He didn’t struggle but let her lead him back up the stairs to the control room. He was shaking from the cold water but inside he was numb. Raja’s crew wrapped them in towels, but Rhys couldn’t get warm. He wasn’t sure if he ever would. It was like losing his mother all over again.

  There was another impact. Then another. Each time it rang like a thousand church bells in his ears.

  “Any more hits and we’re going to go down,” Raja said.

  Rhys looked up at him, and anger so pure and sharp pierced his chest. He couldn’t let Mrs. Chattoway die in vain. He threw off his towel and slapped his hands together. Corina was at his side.

  “What are you doing? You’re still shaking.”

  “I’m not going to let anyone else die.” He rubbed his hands back and forth, gathering power, building it inside him. Igniting it. Using his anger to fuel it into something big and powerful and dangerous.

  Rhys pushed even harder, forcing the particles of his creation together. The pressure of it shoved back on him. The muscles in his arms started to quiver. Digging deeper into his psyche, he pulled out as much of his magic as he could spare without depleting his energy. He’d never created something this big before. He needed every ounce of power he could manipulate without exploding his brain into a million pieces.