AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A sharp report echoed from the left and a red hole appeared in the mage’s forehead. Incandescent sparks cascaded around the Ridden, nullifying magic, A mage-killer round, rare and expensive. Brains and blood painted the wall of the sphere behind him as he dropped to the intact tile. My mind flashed back to Walker’s house, Robert unpacking a box of the rare, hard-to-get ammunition. I craned my head in the direction the shot had come from.
Kara crouched by the recliner, holding a huge gun in a two-handed grip. She was green. Still, she clicked the safety on before she set it down and threw up.
All those lessons from her father had paid off; if we lived, Robert would be unendurable.
“If you can’t cut the straps, can you break the floor this chair is attached to and we can leave that way?” At this point, I was grasping at straws.
The floor bounced and shook. Chance crouched to examine the floor. “It’s warded. Bastards thought of that. I’m going to work on it, though.”
“Alys…” said Walker.
I stared up at him. “I’m so angry with you.”
A line of sweat trickled down Joan’s face. Her shirt showed damp circles under her arms and over most of her back, and was clinging to her skin. Through the sphere, the gathering of mages hammered at the shield.
Even if she could only do it for moments, Joan was holding off nineteen battlemages. Something close to awe touched me. However she was doing it, it was damned impressive.
“If you have a rabbit, my friends, I suggest you pull it out soon,” she said, her tone as calm as when she’d asked if it was fine to give Dmitri another biscuit. “They’ve blocked the Road.”
More magic struck the sphere and the earth under us rang like a bell.
Chance and Walker closed their eyes and their power bled over hers, spreading like oil on water to reinforce the sphere in a hopeless maneuver. There were too many of the mage-Ridden, and at least a dozen of them were battlemages, powerful highly trained combat experts.
Smoke. Screams.
A flash of memory hit me, so strong I could see and feel it as if it were a VR holo. The scent of the storm, my mother’s screams, her helpless rage. The memories and the present tumbled together.
Just because I wanted to rip Walker limb from limb didn’t mean I’d stopped loving him. Those were my normal feelings for Chance. Dove had told me some of Walker’s names weighed heavy on him, an oblique warning.
The man who had healed me here was the same as the one I’d fallen in love with, though he needed a thorough ass-kicking for all the lies of omission and to deliver a groveling apology for the Tree. All of that wouldn’t happen if we all died here.
The spirits in the area wouldn’t help in a fight like this. I was useful to them, but not worth dying for, and the power here could snuff out all but the most powerful.
If that happened, most of Dmitri’s protectors would be gone, and the Guild could mold him as they wished. Robert might try to stand against it, but the needs of his position would eventually persuade him. Only Silver and Elise would remain to stand against my son being reared as a weapon, rather than a happy boy.
Deep in me, power roiled behind the inner door. An inappropriate laugh threatened to burst free. Uncle Ethan hadn’t set it to open to rage or pain; he knew me too well. Love could open it. I could destroy what made me Alys, but what I became would remember enough of what I’d been that Walker and Chance and Kara would be safe.
Joan’s protective shield spiderwebbed with hairline cracks, power sparkling. The attack outside intensified.
There was no time left now. The voices in the wind and rain above crystalline in a single word:Welcome.
My mind’s door shattered. What poured out shredded Silver’s geas. It swept away all restraint. Emotions rolled over me, buffeting me in their intensity.
Joan, clear and crisp, unworried, mildly curious at what the outcome might be. A strange mix of emotions, but definitely human. And she felt old, far older than her appearance indicated, a well of sorrow just under the detachment.
Kara, sickened and terrified.
Chance, affection, and worry, his attention divided between his magic and me. Of course, Uncle must have told him about me when Chance came back from his studies, before he left Kalderon to spy on the outside world. Just in case the worst came to pass and he had to deal with me after I changed. While Chance bore a significant amount of elf blood, he was in no danger of Changing.
Cohen, frightened and incoherent.
The mages outside, all bearing one mind within them that was afraid and in torment, their human parts. The other consciousnesses were cold and clinical or inhumanly focused on sensation. Annabelle was unconscious, but still in pain, and the other within fighting to revive her body. She’d die soon if no one tended to her bleeding.
Walker radiated cold rage, underlain with grief and strain. And love. Under it, love and loneliness. So much love, reaching for me, cherishing the thought of me. Bone-deep loneliness that echoed mine. We completed each other in so many ways, understanding each other’s underpinning flaws. He didn’t mind my violence, it echoed his own, and I appreciated his ruthlessness, even if it meant he deceived me.
His emotions twined with mine, echoing them, and I cherished it for the moment remaining to me. I didn’t want to leave him, but it was the only choice remaining to me, and I loved him enough that I’d give up being Alys, now that I knew Dmitri would be safe with him or Chance.
Joan’s shield cracked to its inner edge. Nineteen to three, pouring magic; they could only hold so long. For a last moment, I treasured the feel of Walker’s mind. If I remembered enough of my life, he was safe from me. They all were.
