Black hat 8 gray seas, p.23
Black Hat 8 - Gray Seas, page 23
The tether went limp in my grip, and I reeled it in until I came up with a frayed end broken from strain.
Asa did the same, holding up his tether to inspect it as the spell broke at last and both vanished with the spark of spent magic. “What does it mean?”
Unable to stop myself from approaching the still violently ill god mouth, I watched as more and more stone crushed plants and knocked down small trees. The pile grew until it stood higher than two huts stacked atop each other. The entire opening was soon concealed, blocking Earl from sight.
“That’s Earl’s office.” I ventured closer when the violent momentum fell still. “That means…”
Either his particular space had been obliterated, or the entire building had been.
And I wasn’t stupid enough to believe the lowest floor could be blasted to rubble and the rest survive.
“There was an attack on the compound,” Asa finished the thought for me.
Thank the goddess we left Clay and Colby in the SUV, but there were always so many others inside.
“Breathe.” He set his hands on my shoulders. “We don’t know anything for certain.”
Until he mentioned it, I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath, that even the possibility of the catastrophic loss of life knocked the wind out of me.
“Rue.” He slid his hands up to cup my face. “Breathe.”
Finally, I shoved out an exhale and pulled myself together. “We need to go back.”
With Caro wailing behind us from her rooftop perch, I was torn, but the old woman saved me the choice when she scuffled around the corner and dismissed us with her trembling hand.
“Go.” Tears streaked her weathered cheeks. “I have said all I know.” Her shoulders stooped. “Leave us.”
“Come on.” Asa began leading me away from the village. “We should let them mourn.”
“I’ll send people.” I made it a promise. “We’ll dig Earl out again for them.”
The destruction wasn’t our fault, but there was no denying it had followed us here.
“You were right about Kenneth.”
Jerked out of my head, I cut Asa a frown. “I didn’t want to be.”
If not for my white witch mother, would I have beaten my addiction? No. Beaten was the wrong word. It was always there, the hunger. An ache behind my teeth, a parching of my throat. But I had clawed my way to control over my baser instincts. That had to count for something.
Asa squeezed my shoulder then scanned the lush forest. “Can you open a portal anywhere?”
“Yeah.” I shook out my hands. “Here is as good a place as any.”
Without Colby to help, I was going to struggle, but I didn’t want to burden Asa with those fears.
To cut through the ambient magic tickling my skin, I poured a large salt circle and brought Asa in before I activated it to give me a clear space to work my own spell. Using the same trick as I had to create portals to the arena, the temple, and Hael, I wove a path stretching back home that would erode within minutes of us leaving.
“We need to choose a location,” I told Asa when I was almost done. “The compound is too risky.”
“The front gate?”
Worry gnawed on me, fear that wasn’t far enough, but I wanted to get as close as possible. “Okay.”
Drawing magic up through my core, I funneled everything in me toward igniting the spell.
Nothing happened.
Sweat broke across my brow as I brought up every drop of power in me and thrust it outward.
Still nothing happened.
Except now a weighted heat pressed down on my breastbone where the Hunk offered its assistance.
One last time, scraping the dregs of my strength, I punched out where I wanted the portal to awaken.
And yet again, nothing happened.
The ambient magic in Faerie was too strong, corroding my barrier and attacking any power I gathered to me like the realm was experiencing an immune response to my presence. I couldn’t fight it. Not without help. And help was always there for the taking, wasn’t it? All it cost me was a little more of my soul.
“Rue?” Asa touched my arm. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah.” I shut my eyes. “Just peachy.”
Allowing the Hunk to thread its power with mine, I barely had to think it before the portal sprung to life.
With an image of the gate held at the forefront of my mind, I stepped in, and I swore I heard the book chuckle.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Quicker than a thought, faster than a breath, black wings exploded from my back, fanning a foul breeze. I dangled midair for a heartbeat before Asa tumbled out beside me, and I swooped to catch him before he dropped straight into the roaring ocean.
Mastery of flight hadn’t been a huge priority for me lately, so I still sucked at staying aloft.
“Hold on,” I yelled over the noise. “I’ve got you.”
Asa traded our awkward grips for solid forearm clasps then nodded he was ready.
Craning my neck, I searched for a safe place to land, but the view confused me.
“Over there,” Asa called up to me. “Take us to the road.”
The road.
The road that led nowhere.
The road that used to lead to the gate that should have been our exit.
Except the road had been snapped clean in two and the gate was gone.
Everything was gone.
All of it…just…gone.
Including the SUV with the golem and my little moth girl inside.
“Rue.” Asa tightened his grip. “We’re sinking.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled through numb lips, forcing my wings to carry us several yards from the edge.
The second we touched down, Asa wrapped me in his arms, molding my brittleness against him.
A text chime gripped my heart in its fist and squeezed until my hands shook too hard to pull out my cell.
Asa reached around me, read the message, then slumped against me, his heart a wild thing in his chest.
“They’re safe.” His embrace loosened as his fingers turned clumsy against me. “Clay heard an explosion within the mansion and drove Colby to safety. They’re waiting for us in town.”
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
For a long time, maybe hours or days or minutes, that was all I had room to think.
Thank you for saving her. Thank you for saving him. Thank you for protecting them.
But not everyone had been so lucky as to have a quick-thinking golem with a contingency plan.
“All those people.” I couldn’t stop staring at the relentless waves that crashed hungrily against the newly formed cliff face, ravenous for more. “Inga was in there.” Tears stung my eyes. “I didn’t hate her. Not really.”
“I know.” He cradled my head against his shoulder. “I know.”
The epiphany that burned through me on the steps to Earl’s office, that I was done being wishy-washy, I was ready to take charge, mocked me with the startling clarity of hindsight.
Too late. Too late. Too late.
I was heir to nothing, the rubble of my inheritance stacked like cairns across the cold ocean floor.
23
EPILOGUE
Aedan
Nothing remained of the once-familiar arena with its bone bleachers. The pocket realm adjacent to Hael, where so many daemons had lost their lives in challenges over the centuries, had been reduced to a cold field scored with the char marks of Rue’s power.
Fifty guards formed a rudimentary fight ring, and Stavros waited in the middle with a smile.
“Calixta Damaris.” He gestured for his men to let her pass. “What have I done to earn your scorn?”
“Nothing.” She left me standing outside the circle. “This is business, nothing personal.”
“I would argue to the contrary, but we are about to settle our differences either way.”
“I’m not here to soothe your feelings.” She stopped halfway to Stavros. “I’m here to kill you.”
The guards snarled a warning that she would dare threaten their king, but Stavros only chuckled softly.
“Twice this month, I have been challenged.” He made a twisting motion above his head, signaling to the one other man in attendance who remained apart from the action. “Twice I will prove to my people that I am the rightful high king of Hael.”
“We’re live,” the man shouted, confirming my suspicion that he was in charge of broadcasting the fight.
“A moment,” Stavros said politely to Calixta then projected his voice. “People of Hael, I, Orion Pollux Stavros, Master of Agonae and High King of Hael, welcome you to a battle never before seen.” He swept into a mocking bow. “Calixta Damaris, former High Queen of the Haelian Seas, has returned from the dead.” He bared his teeth. “And she’s come for my throne.” He gestured to the devastation around him, as if it were his doing. “I will show her what happens when you come for me, just as my son was shown.”
The battle with Asa was a draw, at best, because both Stavros and Rue cheated to end things quicker.
Perhaps that was the reason behind this broadcast and not hubris.
Stavros needed a clear win, a bloody victory. He needed for his people to view him as strong.
And he planned to use Calixta as his example to spook away any other challengers until he got his house in order and named another heir. He would make her death a spectacle, and I found my traitorous heart almost wishing he would win and gut her like a fish.
Almost.
“Orion, darling.” Calixta, her voice a blade, sliced through his boasting. “Are you almost done, or should I take a seat while you finish?”
A snarl curled his upper lip at the jab, and he gave up his soapbox to fall into a ready stance.
The same poor soul tasked with the broadcast stepped forward and raised one arm above his head.
“Let the battle for the throne of Hael,” he shouted, his voice clear and strong, “begin.”
Before his arm finished dropping to his side, Stavros lunged for Calixta.
She was willowy elegance, flowing like water around his strikes.
He was a wall of honed muscle, his temper crackling like fire at each evasion.
The fight should have been over with a single swing of his fist. One hit. That was all it would have taken.
In a battle of brute strength, Calixta had no hope of winning against him. But this wasn’t about strength. It was about cunning. Determination. Survival. And Calixta was nothing if not a survivor.
“Did you know,” Calixta asked him, “the body of a man your size is sixty-five percent water?”
Twirling and spinning, she danced out of his reach, as if the battlefield were her oceanic ballroom.
“That your body contains a half pound of salt?
Despite being landlocked, her feet nearly floated over the scorched earth as she made him chase her.
“Perhaps I ought to sit down until you finish spouting nonsense,” Stavros growled, “and decide to fight.”
“The people enjoy a good spectacle, but as you wish.” Calixta whirled around and thrust out her arms toward him. “I will fight, and you will die.”
Barking laughter exploded from Stavros as she faced him, her slender fingers and delicate wrists all that separated them. So breakable. I wanted more than almost anything to watch her shatter.
Almost.
Gauzy magic spun above her palms. Nearly colorless. Sparkling like sunlight on water.
Stavros froze in place, a tortured statue, the tremor of his spasming muscles easy to see.
What was he doing?
What was she doing?
Neither one moved. They hardly breathed. Their stares locked them together.
And the water above her palms grew and grew and grew.
As it did, Stavros withered, his skin wrinkling as she drew the moisture from his body.
Oh, goddess, she was desiccating him, drying him into a husk.
The fluid dance of Calixta’s hands as she spun his essence increased in tempo until he dropped to a knee before her. Impact shook faint white powder off his skin. Salt. As her arms began to tremble with strain, she flung the water. The splash as it hit splattered the guards, and several stumbled back.
“I’ll keep my victory speech short,” she told Stavros. “It’s a pity you’ll miss it.”
Twisting her wrist over his head, she summoned the salt particles and forged them into a blade she sank into his heart. The instant she released the handle, her weapon scattered into loose grains that spilled down his chest like sands through an hourglass.
Except Stavros, former High King of Hael, had run out of time.
Leaning forward, she kissed his forehead, and that light touch sent him tipping back.
He was dead before he hit the ground, his body stuck in a kneeling pose, his flesh too taut to bend.
A dull shock pulsed through me, not that she had won, but how she beat him.
There was no time to dwell. I knew my role. I had a part to play, and it was time to act.
“People of Hael.” I cast my voice across the barren field, shoved through the stunned guards, and joined Calixta in the heart of the circle. “Bow to your champion.” I dropped to one knee and slammed my fist over my heart in a pledge that turned it to stone. “Calixta Damaris, your new high queen.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
USA Today best-selling author Hailey Edwards writes about questionable applications of otherwise perfectly good magic, the transformative power of love, the family you choose for yourself, and blowing stuff up. Not necessarily all at once. That could get messy.
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Hailey Edwards, Black Hat 8 - Gray Seas
