by John Corwin
The scent of her anger filled my nose. That's it! Before I could control myself, my hand gripped her neck. I pressed her back down in the seat and put my face inches from hers. "But you know exactly what I'm capable of." I wanted to threaten her, to make her join our alliance, but that would make me no better than Daelissa. Somehow, I pushed back the rage and took a deep breath. I released her neck. "If your life is worth nothing, then go back to your pitiful existence and wait for Daelissa to hunt you down and kill you." I bared my teeth. "Or take control of your destiny and prove you're more than a waste of space."
The fire in her eyes died, and her small horns dropped to the ground. Yuuki touched her neck and stared at me for a long moment. Without another word, she stood and walked away, pulling her robe back over her shoulder as she did.
I heard the rustle of a bush and spun. Elyssa stood there, eyes large and damp. Before I could say a word she blurred toward me and pinned me against the ivy-covered wall. Her lips pressed hard to mine. Heat built in my stomach. I spun her around and pressed her to the wall. My mouth ran up her neck, across her cheek, and found her lips again. My hand ran down her leg and pulled it up against my side.
I broke from the kiss, panting. "How long have you been here?"
"Long enough." Elyssa smiled. "I wanted to make sure someone was watching your back in case it was a trap."
A laugh burst from my throat. "It was a trap, all right. Just not the kind you thought."
Her eyes turned serious. "Do you really think I'm ten times the woman she is?" Her fingers traced my jawline. "I'm just—"
I gripped her hand and pressed it to my lips. "You're all the woman I ever want and all I ever need, Elyssa." I pecked her nose. "You are my princess."
She giggled. "I love you."
"What are you doing to her, Justin?"
We whipped our heads to the side. Ivy stood a few feet away, her blue eyes huge and innocent.
I pulled away from Elyssa. "Combat training. She was showing me how I could've punched Aerianas in the face."
My sister's forehead wrinkled and her head tilted like a curious puppy. "That didn't look like combat training. It looked a lot like gross grownup stuff."
Elyssa and I burst into laughter. I walked over and gave Ivy a big hug. "Never grow up."
"Huh?" Ivy pulled away. "But I don't like being short."
I snorted and repressed another laugh. "Let's go back to the courtyard."
Dad spotted me the instant we stepped into the courtyard and walked over. "I take it things didn't go well with Yuuki."
Elyssa quirked her lips. "You might say that."
He put a hand on my shoulder and rotated me so I could see Yuuki talking to a group of house leaders. "If you want to convince more of them, you'll probably have to do some serious damage control."
Godric Salomon and Domitia Calidious glanced at me over Yuuki's shoulder, their expressions unreadable.
"How many more houses are there?" I asked.
"Two more." He pointed to a tall thin man with a narrow nose and thick black hair who was speaking with Kassallandra. "House Volkov—Ivan and Tatiana." His eyes searched the crowd. My father pointed to a man of middle height with ebony skin and a handsome, chiseled face. "That's Khamisi of House Taarkan."
Khamisi's abrupt hand gestures toward the group of people he was talking with gave the impression they were in a heated debate. His gaze swept past me and then doubled back. He gave me a good long look before returning to his conversation.
I felt my spirits sinking. I'd assumed that the support of two major houses would win me the rest. Instead, I'd alienated Yuuki and she was probably on her way to making sure none of the other houses backed me. I might have proven my worth as a fighter, but I'd screwed the pooch as a diplomat.
Unfortunately, I couldn't worry about it right now. Tonight, Elyssa and I had a battle to lead.
Chapter 4
Adam Nosti looked up from his arctablet. "Hack completed." He raised his arm and began the countdown.
"Three!"
The Obsidian Arch in the La Casona way station flickered on.
"Two!"
Behind Elyssa and me, a host of Templars and Blue Cloaks tensed and prepared for the onslaught.
"One!" Adam flicked the screen of his arctablet. A jagged bolt of energy ripped through the air between the columns, forcing a connection with an Obsidian Arch at the opposite end.
"Go, go, go!" Elyssa shouted.
Templars streamed through the arch in utter silence. Captain Takei raised his fist and jerked it down. The Blue Cloaks, three-hundred strong, rushed in, the susurrus of their cloaks the only sound they made.
Elyssa and I rode a flying carpet through the portal after our army. She piloted the rug up above the Obsidian Arch at Queens Gate for a better view.
Vampires clad in the crimson armor of the Red Cell met the Templar forces. From the air, the mass of fighting bodies looked like a sea of black pressing against a tide of blood. The Blue Cloaks broke into separate units. The group specializing in Magitsu flanked the Red Cell soldiers while those trained in spells of mass destruction unfolded platform towers and took aim at the battle mages supporting the vampires.
"I don't know why Daelissa committed her elite troops to the Queens Gate way station," Elyssa said. "She still has that Obsidian Arch in Colossus Stadium next to Arcane University."
"Well, we did kidnap her lead strategist," I said, referring to Elyssa's sister, Phoebe.
Elyssa slid the carpet to the side as a sizzling beam of light seared past us. "This is sloppy, even for Daelissa." She pointed to the empty area behind the enemy battle mages. "They don't even have an interdictor in place."
"I'm afraid it's a trap." Phoebe had certainly tricked us several times.
I spotted a group of flying carpets lift off the ground behind the vampires and head straight up for the roof of the cave. One of the carpets exploded in a ball of fire as a spell from a Blue Cloak consumed it. The other three carpets headed straight for us.
"Incoming," Elyssa said. She rotated the carpet sideways so I could get a clear view.
The battle mages on the flying carpets shot a volley of spells at us. I channeled a shield. The attacks slammed against the barrier, leaving chinks and cracks in the Murk, but it held. The attackers hurled another slew of attacks. I gritted my teeth and poured more energy into the barrier. A flaming meteor slammed the shield so forcefully it sent our carpet spinning through the air. The movement made it too difficult for me to maintain the barrier and our protection winked away.
Elyssa regained control of the carpet. I blasted another incoming fireball with Murk before it reached us. Redirected my aim, and thrust my arm toward the nearest attacker. A beam of Brilliance sliced the carpet in half. The other two carpets swooped to save their comrades before they hit the floor. This took them within range of the Blue Cloaks beneath us.
Needles of light made pincushions of our attackers. People screamed. Blood splashed and flesh turned to ash. The enemy carpets spiraled out of control and slammed to the stone floor below.
I heard a victorious roar and flicked my gaze toward the sound. The crimson forms of the Red Cell were falling back and retreating through the large doors leading into Queens Gate while their battle mages utilized portable aether generators to shield them. The Templars pressed forward, taking down fleeing enemies while the Blue Cloaks focused their energy on taking down the aether generators.
As the last enemy made it through the door, squad leaders below called a halt. It would be too dangerous to follow the enemy through the relatively narrow opening into the pocket dimension housing Queens Gate. Our people redirected the aether generators and shielded the opening into the way station to prevent the enemy from storming back through.
Elyssa landed the carpet inside the traversion zone of the Obsidian Arch and motioned Adam Nosti through. "Great job, Adam. Do you think you can hack the arch in Colossus Stadium too?"
He shook his head. "It's a new
arch and I don't have any way of looking up its magical energy signature without getting close to it." He consulted his arctablet. "I'll be in the control room. None of the other way stations know we've taken this one yet. I might be able to hack their moduli from here before they change them."
Elyssa nodded. "Let us know what you find."
"You got it." Adam headed for the control room, a skip in his step.
I chuckled. "I think that man lives for hacking."
Elyssa looked up from typing something on her arcphone. "That part of him hasn't changed since we met him."
Captain Takei and Elyssa's brother, Michael Borathen, converged on us.
Shelton walked over from a group of Blue Cloaks. "Man, we really kicked their asses, didn't we?"
I looked at the still-smoking remains of the battle mages lying scattered on the ground around us. "It was almost too easy."
"Probably because Jeremiah blew up half their army with a malaether crucible back at Kobol Prison." Shelton shrugged. "I don't think they've recovered yet."
"If they're really still so disorganized without Phoebe, we need to seize the opportunity." I looked at the shielded entrance to Queens Gate. "This way station doesn't mean squat if we can't get into the pocket dimension. We'll constantly have to worry about being flanked."
"Agreed," Elyssa said. "But the only way inside is the Obsidian Arch in the stadium."
"I wish we still had our omniarch." A wistful look came over Shelton's face. "Man, it's only been about a week and I miss the mansion already."
I felt his pain. The mansion had been our home. An omniarch in the cellar had allowed us to go anywhere we wanted so long as we could visualize it. "Maybe we can use an omniarch in the control room here."
"If we're going to act, it should be now," Captain Takei said. "It will take them time to move their forces up the mountain and to Arcane University."
"Agreed," Michael said. "We should be able to get a sizable contingent through an omniarch."
"One problem," I said. "We haven't tested any of the omniarches in this way station. They're extremely dangerous to use without extensive testing."
"Darkwater already did the work for us," Shelton said, referring to a now defunct Arcane company once owned by the late Jeremiah Conroy. "Maulin Kassus gave me a list of control rooms with working omniarches, and Queens Gate was one of them."
I felt my spirits lift. "If that's the case, we only need to decide where to stage our troops."
Captain Takei traced his wand in the air and projected a three-dimensional image of the stadium. He highlighted a thick forest bordering a large field near the stadium. "We can use the Dark Forest to shield our arrival and swing around the perimeter." He traced a line.
"How many omniarches are operational?" I asked Shelton.
He squinted as if that would help him remember. "Two, I think."
"I can have my forces through one omniarch in twenty minutes," Michael said.
Captain Takei gave him a confident smile. "I can have the Blue Cloaks through in fifteen."
"This isn't a contest," Elyssa said.
Michael flashed a rare and very small smile. "We'll see about that."
"Ten bucks says the Templars win," Shelton said.
"Oh, my." Takei shook his head. "Where's your sense of Arcane pride, Harry?"
Elyssa took a page out of my book and face-palmed.
"Let's prime the arches," I said, and headed for the control room without further ado.
The control room door led to a raised platform with a large map of the world spread along the wall. The continents only roughly matched those found on the globe today. The stars indicating the locations of Obsidian Arches didn't always line up with cities or civilization of any kind since the arches had been built long before the rise of man.
I turned left from the platform and walked down a long, wide aisle. Smaller arches, each one about the size of an elephant lined the large room. The ones to my left each bore a Cyrinthian number inscribed on the floor in front of them. The numbers correlated to a series of buttons on the side of the map. To the right was an alcove with the omniarches. Unlike their numbered counterparts, these could be used to travel anywhere a person could visualize.
"The second one and the last one," Shelton said, pointing to green markings on the floor in front of two arches.
I stepped inside the silver circle around the first working omniarch, fixed an image of one part of the Dark Forest I remembered well in my mind, and willed a portal to open there. The air between the black columns flickered and a portal split the space. Dense trees and foliage appeared across a short grassy span. One large tree in particular stood out, thanks to a giant bite missing from its trunk.
"Is that the tree the tragon bit?" Elyssa asked.
I nodded. "That monster almost took off my butt."
"Ah, the tragon," Takei said with a fond note in his voice. "We used to steal sheep from Queens Gate and throw them into the forest just so we could get a look at the fabled beast."
"Poor sheep," Elyssa said.
"I'll be right back." I stepped through the portal and paced off a good thirty feet from it, snapped a picture of the woods at that point, and returned through the portal. I walked to the last omniarch and used the picture I'd taken to open a portal. I turned to Michael and Captain Takei. "Prepare your troops for infiltration."
Takei turned to Michael. "No cheating, now."
"No need," the hulking Templar said.
Elyssa, Shelton, and I returned to the front of the room while Michael and Captain Takei rounded up their soldiers. Within a few minutes, two neat double-file lines of troops sprinted through the control room door. The black-clad Templars took the first portal while the Blue Cloaks entered the second. Shelton waved his wand and a holographic timer hovering in the air started for each contingent.
At first, the Templars moved nearly twice as fast as the Blue Cloaks since they were gifted with supernatural physical attributes, but the Arcanes must have cast a fleetness spell because they began to outpace them. Eleven minutes and thirty-two seconds later, both forces were through the portals.
"Yes." Shelton pumped his arm. "Templars barely edged them out by two seconds."
"Well, what did you expect?" Elyssa said in a curt voice.
"Hah, you were rooting for them, weren't you?" he said.
She shrugged. "I couldn't help it."
I would have chimed in with a smartass remark, but anxiety gnawed at my stomach. I went through the portal. The troops remained in a quad-file formation, two columns of Templars next to two columns of Blue Cloaks, hugging the curving forest fringe. Once we left the cover of the trees, a wide grassy field offered no cover between here and our objective.
The Dark Forest was a foreboding place anyone with common sense would avoid. Naturally, I'd been in there a couple of times, once to save Shelton, and once after I'd thrown Aunt Vallaena into a tree. Many of the trees had trunks as thick as a bus standing on one end and towered several stories high. Smaller trees and thick underbrush took up every other square inch of space. I'd only seen a few of the creatures lurking inside that dark place, and they were enough to keep me from going back in unless I had no choice.
The forest spanned a mountain peak behind Arcane University, a massive Romanesque castle with huge round towers at all four corners. Its many soaring spires met the sky to our right. To its left, the library, a long oval building with a glittering diamond dome, stretched along a landscape usually covered with lush gardens. Many of those gardens looked trampled and burnt. Almost directly in front of us loomed Colossus Stadium. Roman columns and arches supported the circular structure. It was easily five times the size of the largest football stadium I'd seen. It had to be large to support the Grand Melee, an annual event where giant golems battled equally huge robots from Science Academy across the valley.
"They really did a number on the gardens," Shelton said.
My eyes followed the swath of destruction across the
grassy field and toward Greek Row where the mansion had stood only a few days ago. Daelissa's army had marched straight from the stadium to destroy my home.
Shelton, Elyssa, and I marched to the front of the formation. Michael and Captain Takei talked in low tones, their eyes on the stadium. They turned to us when we reached them.
"Waiting on intel," Michael said.
I looked at the stadium surroundings and couldn't help but reminisce about my first days here. It had been quite a shock and a pleasure all at the same time.
"I don't see many guards," Elyssa said. "They must have committed the bulk of their forces to protecting the way station."
A distant boom sounded and the ground beneath us tremored ever so slightly. A few seconds later the sound repeated itself. A silver marble zipped through the air and hovered in front of Michael. He snatched the ASE—all-seeing eye—from the air and gave it a twist. It spun in mid-air and projected a holographic image recorded inside the stadium.
Michael panned the view.
"Holy farting fairies." Shelton took off his wide-brimmed hat and ran a hand through his hair. "What in the hell are they planning?"
I couldn't tear my eyes from the video. Stone golems three stories high marched through the Obsidian Arch in the center of the stadium, vanishing to an unknown destination. Each one bristled with crystal shards capable of firing destructive spells in all directions.
Arcane university was being used to manufacture unconventional magical weapons.
Chapter 5
The color of the giant golems varied wildly. Some looked jade, others onyx, while the majority appeared to be constructed of gray granite.
The ASE dipped lower for a view through the arch. I recognized the destination almost immediately.
"They're going to Thunder Rock," I said.
Elyssa blew out a breath. "I count at least ten."
As the last monstrosity thudded through, a group of stout golems maybe a third the size of the leviathans returned through the arch, each one bearing blocks of gray granite.
