Trials

by Kady Cross

  A Blinding Flash sent spawn reeling. Then I sent a Madness conjure into them. Blind spawn howled and tore into the first thing they touched, until a great mass of them were ripping each other apart.

  I took advantage of the confusion and maneuvered myself back into the thin beam of reflected Moonlight coming from my mirrors. I pulled in as much power as I could, but I was like a drowning woman breaking the surface to gasp for air before being dragged under again.

  And they came at me. Panting, I waded into them. I didn’t know how long I’d been fighting, but my strength-boosting amulet was spent. I fought to stay in the path of the Moonbeam.

  Where was Anette? I glanced at the building and paid for it with a long gash down my arm. I growled and cut the spawn into three pieces.

  I lost more ground.

  I sensed the Moon as She made her way across the sky. She was close. Her power grew stronger as the spawn forced me back along the beam, closer to the platform. Suddenly, the trickle of power thinned and cut out altogether. I glanced at the mirrors and then upward as an enormous cloud skated across the Moon.

  “No,” I whispered.

  Claws raked across my middle. Desperate anger flowed through me and I sliced the filth’s arm off at the shoulder.

  I bled from hundreds of tiny slashes and dozens of larger ones. Exhaustion and spawn venom burned in my limbs, making them tremble. Even if they’d been fully charged, my Healing amulets wouldn’t have been able to keep up with this much damage. I was probably going to die here, but if I was going out, I’d make them remember me in legend.

  “They shall fear thee as long as the Moon endures!” I yelled as I stepped into the press of spawn, blades whirling. The quicker ones fell back, those that weren’t as fast simply fell. Changing direction, I sliced apart the thinning spawn to my sides. Retreating, I faced the horde.

  “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might!” I shouted into their faces even as they drove me back.

  A pinpoint of cool power struck me in the back and I drew it in. It widened into a steady flow, and then a flood. The cloud was passing. I laughed into a spawn’s face even as I drew back from a mouthful of finger-length teeth. I stuck my blades into that face and wrenched them free.

  I fed Her to my hungry amulets and the trembling in my limbs vanished. In an instant, my amulets were full and Her light kept pouring into me.

  I swept my gaze to the thickest concentration of spawn and sent a blast of concentrated Moonlight into the mass of spawn. Moonlight, bright as the sun at high noon, flooded the area. The spawn caught in the conjure shrieked, their skin smoldering, smoking, and burning away.

  Even as the ashes of the first began to fall, my energy was already being restored. It was glorious. Her light sang through me, filling me completely. We’d never been so close. Her presence was a gentle but irresistible pressure against my back, urging me onward.

  I raised my hand, triggering the conjure stored in a silver ring on my little finger. “And He created the Moon to rule the night!” A beam of Her cold power, as thick as my wrist, lanced into them. Where it touched, limbs, heads, entire bodies, froze solid, then shattered.

  Spawn clawed past each other to get away from me. I refilled my ring, ready to hurl Her light at them again.

  The Moon had been progressing across the sky, and now, at midnight, She aligned perfectly with the mirrors that up until now had been channeling only a fraction of Her light.

  Her full might drilled into me and my body bowed. I screamed as white light filled my vision, light so cold it burned. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t hear. She filled me completely, every sense, every pore. I was full—I could hold no more, and still She flowed into me.

  Searing cold light burst from my eyes, spearing into the night. It exploded from my mouth. I couldn’t release Her power fast enough. My ring exploded. Silver shrapnel ripped into me, white-hot pricks of agony in my hand and arm that quickly went cold and numb.

  A hideous impact in my chest took me off my feet. I flew, tumbling, until my body hit the center mirror and shattered it. The weakened mounting arms dug into my side before they gave and the whole thing snapped off the concrete post. I hit the platform and bounced, trailing glass and debris, until I rolled to a stop in the grass on the other side. A stone the size of my splayed fingers bounced to a stop nearby.

  Everything hurt. I blinked my eyes, trying to clear my vision, and stood, wincing at the pain.

  “Nice to meet you, Elise.”

  My head snapped up. Anette stood between the fence and the platform, surrounded by spawn. She wore a black coat that hung down to her knees. Faded jeans were tucked into heavy boots. Her hair was long and black and streaked with crimson. What skin I could see was flawless. Her eyes were hazel, maybe a little sunken, like she was tired.

  She looked . . . pretty, like a lost piece of something beautiful there in the filth, her hands in the pockets of her coat.

  A ridiculous flash of self-consciousness washed over me, and I was acutely aware of my dirty, mouse-brown hair and sweaty, bloody clothes.

  “That was a nice trick with the mirrors.” She said. “Can’t have you doing that again.”

  Mage quick, she flung her arms out wide.

  “No!” I shouted. Tiny stones flew from her outstretched hands and hit my mirrors. The sound of breaking glass filled the night. Moonlight glittered off the pieces as they tumbled to the wooden planks.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider my offer?” Anette asked.

  I faced her, panting. “Well, you know how it is. If I spend all my time with you, the other lunatics in my life get jealous.”

  She chuckled. “Nice.”

  I’d dropped my kukris on the platform when Anette’s stone knocked me off. I flung power to them and drew them to me. One settled into my right hand, but the other hit my left and fell to the ground. I stared at my left hand in disbelief.

  I was missing two fingers.

  “Ooo,” Anette said, her voice low and mocking. “I’ll bet that hurt.”

  I flexed my remaining fingers. My Healing amulets were keeping me moving, were blocking the pain. I bent down and grabbed the knife. My grip was all wrong—I could barely hold onto it. I activated the recharged Strength amulet, so I’d at least be able to hold the kukri firmly.

  Anette glanced over her shoulder at the remaining spawn. “Take her.” She looked back at me and smiled. “Alive.”

  As one, the spawn let out a hissing roar and swarmed forward, attacking with a renewed ferocity now that their master had arrived.

  Nails scrabbled on the wooden planks and I fought through a kaleidoscope of teeth and claws. I couldn’t avoid them all. Spawn venom burned me, but I drove them back, blades whirling around me like a silver shield.

  I caught a precognitive flash out of the corner of my eye as a rock streaked toward me. I twisted partway out of its path, using the force of the impact to spin around, into a defensive stance.

  “You’ve been keeping secrets, Elise.” Anette bent and picked up a rock the size of my head. She bounced it in her palm as if it weighed no more than a pebble. “Javi hasn’t seen half of the wonderful little tricks you’re showing me today. He’ll be so jealous.” She smiled. “Personally, I’d thought that your kind was too touchy-feely for a real fight. This is a pleasant surprise.”

  I was already in motion when Anette thrust the rock in my direction. It exploded, sending hundreds of deadly shards at me. They ripped into the spawn I used as a shield, even as I dove to the side, rolling to keep my momentum going.

  I came to my feet and kicked out. My boot sent a spawn tumbling as I drove my kukri into the throat of another.

  Stinging black blood splashed over my hand. I swept into a whirlwind, forcing the closest darkuns away. Battle sense clamored another warning and I ducked as a rock shot past me.

  Desperation fueled my movements. I couldn’t fight both Anette and her army.

  I flashed a look at her. She stood watchin
g, her eyes wild. She’d backed away from the combat. If I could finish her, the spawn would be leaderless. They might scatter.

  I threw everything into a series of sweeping, almost wild, attacks, driving the spawn back. The approach cleared, I ran to the edge of the platform and leaped with every ounce of strength I had.

  Anette smiled and my heart sank.

  She’d seen it coming. As I reached her, she stepped backward and opened a hole in the rock.

  I flicked my left hand out, hurling a kukri at her and dropped into the hole.

  Darkness surrounded me as I hit bottom. I bounced off a wall and jumped just as the hole began to close.

  The rock solidified around the toe of my boot and caught me just as I emerged from the hole. My leg was wrenched painfully and I crashed to the ground.

  Anette slipped twin axes from under her coat and ran forward. Standing, I ripped my boot free of the rock and parried her first attack. She drove me back, our blades ringing.

  Grace and fury, she was fast, and she had two blades to my one. I couldn’t keep up. And she was a better fighter; her kick caught me in the middle. I tumbled into the waiting arms of spawn.

  Claws scrabbled at me, drawing more blood. I twisted, slicing through the spawn. It only bought me a second. I lashed out with a beam of cold, freezing the creatures nearest to me. I screamed my defiance at the rest, as they shattered their fellows and came at me.

  The door to the building next to us flew off its hinges, slamming into a group of spawn. Gary’s voice rang through the night like an angry rockslide. “Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war!”

  He charged into the spawn, his claymore flashing in the moonlight, carving a path in front of him. Sandra came behind him, her shotgun blasting to either side, preventing the spawn from closing behind him and swallowing him up.

  Mack followed, his knives making short work of any spawn that Gary and Sandra missed. Behind him came Javier, a machete in his hand and my amulet around his neck. He focused on Anette and howled, cutting his way toward her.

  Anette looked at me and our eyes locked. Frustration boiled under the hazel surface of her eyes.

  “As long as the Moon endures!” I shouted.

  She scowled and raised her hand, but I was already rushing her.

  The ground exploded behind me, throwing dirt and deadly sharp spikes of rock into the pursuing spawn.

  I called my blade to me and began a spinning attack.

  Anette met my blades with her axes and the impact rang out. The shock sent a wave of agony up from my maimed hand, but I kept hold of my knife. We glared at each other, our eyes only inches apart.

  “This ends tonight,” I said.

  A wicked smile flowed across her features. “Sister, we’re just getting started.”

  She shoved me. I knew it was coming, but she was as implacable as a boulder rolling downhill and I stumbled back several steps.

  Anette stalked forward, then threw herself back to avoid a blast from Sandra’s shotgun.

  “Damn you!” Anette raced forward, plucked the weapon from Sandra’s hands, and turned the gun on her.

  Before Anette could pull the trigger, Javi rose up behind her and slashed down with his machete. The blade struck her coat in the shoulder and threw the mage forward. The shotgun clattered to the ground and Anette rolled to her feet. Her coat wasn’t even scuffed.

  “Oh, it’s dear Javier!” Anette exclaimed. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t see you before.”

  Javi didn’t speak. He closed the distance between them and swung again.

  Anette caught the machete on her axe. As she twisted it aside, she stepped forward and drove her knee into Javier’s groin, lifting him off the ground. Javi groaned and crumpled in front of her.

  “We had so much fun, Javi. I’m going to miss you.” Anette raised her axe and then swung it down.

  Clanging into my blade.

  Anette looked in surprise at me crouched below her as the kukri held in my weaker hand slipped underneath her spelled coat. She twisted away, but not before the blade caught and tore … something. She screamed.

  Anette’s blood sizzled on my blade, mingling with spawn blood. She backed away, looking at the dwindling number of spawn that fought against my friends. Something like frustrated hurt crossed her face, then she ran, mage-quick, into the forest. I turned to help my friends.

  “Go!” Gary sliced the arm off a spawn. He spun and took another in the head. “End this!”

  I turned and raced after Anette.

  Drawing on the Moon to boost my speed, I chased Anette. We raced past the airport and into the university campus. She flowed over the broken concrete and shattered stone like it was flat ground. She pulled away from me. I switched to mage sight to track her by her energies and came to a staggering halt.

  Invisible to normal sight, in mage sight the area was covered in a dirty, gray fog. It billowed and rolled over me, blown by an unfelt wind, and now that I was sensitized to it, it left a bitter, metallic taste in my mouth. As I watched, patches of the fog turned a sick yellowish color, while others turned to that of blood and bruises. Some blackened as if burning.

  All of it spiraled toward a darkness at the center of campus, making me think of a slow-motion tornado, or filthy water spiraling down a slaughterhouse drain. It was obvious where Anette was headed.

  I found her at the bottom of a crater in the middle of a cluster of residence halls. Broken windows stared at us like blind eyes and the buildings listed precariously.

  She stood on top of an enormous crystal. It was six feet high and twice that around. At the center of the crystal was a roiling blackness. A wave of nauseating power dropped me to my knees.

  Three skeletons were locked within the crystal, the long bones broken as if they had been shoved inside and made to fit a space too small for them. Some of the bones were from misshapen wings.

  “Those are—” I staggered to my feet, unable to continue. I swallowed. “What is—”

  “This,” Anette said, “is my first step to freedom.”

  I stepped back, horrified. “You can’t use that!”

  She hopped to the ground. “It’s easier than you think.” She caressed the stone. “All you have to do is touch it.”

  My skin crawled. “Anette, get away from that.” I shuddered. “Bright Moon above, please just get away.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do. Get away.” She leaned her back against the crystal and I was sure that the blackness reacted to her presence. “Get away from all the damned struggle.”

  “That won’t take you away from anything.” I said. “Look at it. It’s drawing things in.”

  “For now.”

  “Anette—”

  She scowled at me. “When I control it, the stone will do as I command!”

  My stomach churned. How could she bear to be so close to that thing?

  “Anette, you can’t control it.” I stepped closer, my boots sending loose dirt into the crater. “It’s not your freedom, it’s a prison.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew that they were true. I heard pleading voices in my head. Demanding voices. The skeletons weren’t dead things. They were Fallen. And they wanted out.

  “You’re being used,” I said. “They’re not going to let you go.”

  “They will!” Anette took several steps toward me and I tensed, attempting to draw in Her power. It felt like breathing through a filthy sock. I coughed, nearly retching. The unnatural fog cut me off from the Moon.

  “I will have the power to make them!” Anette pointed at me. “And you are going to help me.”

  An oily vice closed around my head and squeezed. I fell to my knees and clutched at my head, a cry ripping from my throat. I raised mental walls, and Anette swarmed around them, looking for a way in. Stars and feathers, the rancid taint of the Fallen clung to her.

  I closed my eyes, panting through clenched teeth, a sour taste at the back of my throat. I couldn’t keep her out. The Fallen w
ere helping her ooze through, and once she was inside, she’d have me just as she’d had Javi.

  Cold fingers pressed into my temples. Blood trickled from my nose. My eyes shot open.

  Anette smiled down at me.

  “I wanted this to be easy, sister.” She caressed my face. “Remember that.”

  Trembling, I gritted my teeth. “I am not your sister.”

  With a single word I cast a simple conjure and Moonlight exploded in Anette’s face. Reflexively her hands went to her eyes, and I staggered to my feet. Unsteady, I grabbed her and heaved her at the crystal with the last of my strength.

  Blackness seethed within the crystal as Anette crashed into it. She tumbled to the dirt and lay still. Her blood smeared one of the facets. As I watched, the blood vanished.

  Anette moaned and slowly pushed herself away from the crystal.

  “It’s over, Anette.” I threaded my words with a trickle of persuasive power, hoping to nudge her thoughts away from a fight I couldn’t win. “Your spawn are gone and I will see to it that the seraphs find out about this place.”

  “No!” Anette looked around wildly, then focused on me. “No. No. No!” I felt her draw power from the stone. “I won’t let you.”

  The ground trembled. Loose stones tumbled into the crater. Anette stood with her head bowed and her fists clenched.

  The trembling increased. Somewhere nearby, glass shattered. I backed away from the lip of the crater and nearly fell. I heard a tired groan from one of the nearby buildings.

  Anette lifted her head and I flinched at the insane light in her eyes. She trembled with power.

  The building behind her collapsed in a roar of concrete and glass. Dust billowed in a wave, engulfing Anette, the crystal, me. I coughed and spat as buildings crumbled on all sides, caught in the grip of Anette’s earthquake.

  I fled, stumbling away from the destruction. I don’t know how long I ran, but I stopped when the dust and blackness thinned and I could feel moonlight on my skin.

  I was spent. I had nothing left. I couldn’t even send my mind out to see if Anette was still alive in the middle of the shattered campus.