There might be more than one, and they’ll be big. Of course, the towers! Her eyes shot across the skyline of the estate, picking out the other three towers silhouetted against the glow of multiple fires.
As her eyes darted back toward Tenryu, he released a mighty blast of blue fire. The flames cascaded off an invisible barrier floating above the tower. It was shielded—shielded so powerfully that Tenryu’s inferno magic couldn’t break through.
The booming shockwave battered painfully at her ears, as distracting as the racing urgency she felt.
Tenryu banked around to attack again, but a sudden volley of what looked like red cannon balls shot toward him from multiple directions. They exploded against him and he careened toward the ground.
“No!” she screamed.
Too late. He disappeared below the rooftops. Blue light and flames blazed toward the sky. He and Ash were alive and fighting, but for how much longer? How long could any of the draconians keep defending themselves with the sonic shockwaves causing them so much pain? Every second she wasted led to more draconians dying.
She couldn’t wait any longer.
With a trembling hand, she pulled the gem-encased Sahar from her belt pouch. Clenching her hand around it, she called on her magic to break the protective casing. If this wasn’t the worst of the worst-case scenarios, she didn’t know what was. It was time to find out if she was as strong as she hoped.
In the instant before she broke the amethyst casing, she imagined sealing her mind in a steel barrier of willpower. She would not succumb to Natania. She would not lose control.
The casing shattered in her hand.
The Sahar’s magic rushed through her in a swirling storm of lightning and rage. And right behind it came Natania.
This time she felt the strike against her mind. The force of the attack shook her inside and out, and she wobbled where she stood. Holding her imagined barrier in place with every ounce of will she had, she lifted her fist, Sahar clenched tight, and focused on the nearest tower. The power inside her built, searing her nerves, already agonizing. She brought her fist down in a violent gesture.
Power blasted down on the tower. Silver light flashed, almost blinding her.
The light faded and her heart jumped into her throat. The tower was still standing. It wasn’t even damaged.
No! Even the Sahar’s power wasn’t enough? That ley line machine had to be fueling the shield too. No barrier had ever withstood the Sahar.
She needed more. Clenching her teeth, she summoned more magic. It raged through her, lightning in her blood that fast turned to agony. Natania struck again, driving her mind into Piper’s with crushing force. She gasped, hunching as she fought both Natania and the torment of the building power.
“No!” she choked.
She raised her hand, ignoring the way it trembled. Burning agony. Madness and fury. She focused not on the tower in front of her, but on all four. She gathered them in her mind, laying mental targets across each one. The power in her swelled, intensifying more and more.
To destroy the ward over Asphodel, they’d had to attack multiple watchtowers on both sides at the same time. Since all four towers were fueled by the same source, the shields had to be connected. Maybe hitting all of them together would be enough. She had to try.
As she drew even more power into her, she could feel the ripping, tearing sensation of the magic breaking her. Then another battering-ram attack struck her mind, almost crushing her sanity in a single stroke. She cried out, fighting to hold herself and the Sahar’s power together as Natania struck again and again, not letting up.
Trembling head to toe, she raised her hand, pulling the raging maelstrom of power within her under control. She focused on the towers, solidifying her targets. The shockwaves boomed like a never-ending explosion, pulsing in her head.
She inhaled, preparing to unleash her attack.
Natania slammed into her mind one more time, tearing through her concentration and defenses like a torpedo. Piper’s mind ripped open and darkness sucked her down.
* * *
Agony. Twisting, pulling, falling. Fighting.
Inside her mind, in a strange, distant darkness, she and Natania battled for control. There was no thought, no strategy. Somehow, those things had dissolved when their minds had violently collided. Now, it was just a fierce, instinctive battle for control.
She was inside Natania’s mind but Natania was also within hers—both twisted together, tangled until their memories and emotions mixed.
Beneath the ferocity of their battle, she could feel flashes of Natania’s self rushing through her. Heartbeats of emotion—of pain honed over centuries, of loneliness and loss so profound they had taken on a life of their own, of desperation and vicious, poisonous bitterness. Five hundred years of hate had forged her mind into a lethal weapon.
In that detached inner world, Piper could feel her own self, flashes of what drove her onward: desperation, fear, need, urgency. Natania’s ferocious hatred cut through them all. But deep in the core of her self, of her soul, her heart held strong. Love was like a bright flame within her, her need to survive, to return to Ash, to Lyre, to her father, her uncle, her friends. She wouldn’t fail them. She couldn’t.
Their minds tangled as they cut and slashed at the other’s every weakness until all that was left was Natania’s bitter need to inflict pain and Piper’s frantic need to not fail her loved ones. They crashed together, agonizing fire and slicing pain as they tore apart on the blades of each other’s emotions.
Let me in! Natania screamed from somewhere inside her head. You can’t win!
Piper held against the onslaught of the woman’s hatred. Again she felt it—the pain and loneliness, the loss and desperation, endless years passing as madness lurked in her, growing stronger and stronger. Her soul bound to a lifeless stone. Her lovers’ betrayals, playing over and over in her prison, her only company, her only companionship. Twisting her. Torturing her. Alone. Alone for so, so long.
Sympathy welled in Piper, flowing through her mind.
Don’t you dare pity me, Natania shrieked furiously. Get out! This body is mine now!
Piper should have felt fear, fury, even hatred for the woman who was trying to destroy her. But with the threads of Natania’s soul mixing with hers, she couldn’t. All she could feel was a shared pain and compassion for her. All the terrible things Natania had done were still not as vile as what Maahes and Nyrtaroth had done to her.
No! Natania howled. Stop it!
Loneliness. A hundred years of loneliness while locked in her prison. Another hundred. And another. Nothing but isolation, but unbearable pain and growing madness that would never, could never end. Empathy rose through Piper, saturating her spinning, torn mind. Natania hurt so much. She hadn’t deserved what they’d done and she didn’t deserve Piper’s hate.
From deep in her core, love rose behind empathy: her love for Ash and her friends and family—emotion that Natania’s hate and rage couldn’t touch. With strength born from that love, she cut through the woman’s defenses, straight into her core self and, without thought or consciousness, she offered unspoken compassion for Natania’s pain.
In the strange dark space within their twisted, tangled minds, Natania screamed in agony and despair. Then her will to fight broke, and the writhing struggle between them went still and silent.
* * *
Natania was crying.
Kneeling on soft mats, Piper held the woman to her. They were sitting in a corner of the sparring room in the Griffiths Consulate. The nearest wall was lined with weapons of all shapes and sizes, while the far wall was decorated with practice equipment, targets, and man-shaped dummies.
She gazed around the room as she hugged Natania. This had been one of her retreats as an apprentice, a quiet spot where she would hide when things went badly—the room where she’d always felt strongest and the most in control, the place where she truly excelled. It didn’t exist anymore outside her memory.
r /> That’s what this was: a memory. Her memory. She and Natania were inside her mind instead of Natania pulling Piper into hers.
She rubbed Natania’s shoulder gently as the woman sobbed harshly, her whole body shaking. She could feel everything in Natania’s mind and soul, and it broke her heart. Tears streamed down her face, dripping off her chin.
“Why,” Natania choked hoarsely. “Why did you have to be so goddamn soft?”
Piper continued to rub her shoulder. “How could I hate you?”
“You hated me before.”
“I didn’t understand before. I couldn’t comprehend it.”
“I could have won,” Natania wept. “If you hadn’t …” She choked wordlessly. “I loved them. Why did they do this to me?”
She held Natania more tightly. The haemon woman had loved Maahes and Nyrtaroth with all her heart and all she’d wanted was for one of them to love her back. They’d loved the idea of her—a strong, confident woman brave enough to draw them both in—but they hadn’t truly loved her. She’d been a toy, a prize. They’d cared—but not enough. They hadn’t loved her.
Piper hadn’t been thinking of any of that when she’d let go of her negative emotions and extended her compassion to Natania. She’d just wanted to do something, anything, to ease a little of the woman’s pain. She hadn’t expected the gesture to break Natania’s will to fight. She hadn’t expected anything, to be honest.
She sat back and let her arms fall from Natania. The woman wiped her cheeks and pushed her hair back from her face. She lifted blurry blue eyes to Piper.
“I just wanted one more chance to live, to try again.”
Piper touched her arm. “I know. It’s okay.”
More tears trickled down her cheeks. “Don’t make me go back. I can’t bear it. I can’t—I just can’t—”
Piper squeezed her arm, smiling gently. “You don’t have to go back. I don’t know what comes next, if there’s another life after this one or just peace, but your time is long past due.”
Painful hope lit Natania’s eyes. “Is … is it over then?”
“I think so.”
“Please,” she whispered, clutching Piper. “I just want it to end.”
Piper pulled Natania back into her arms, holding her the way she would a heartbroken child.
“Close your eyes,” she whispered.
Natania buried her face against Piper’s shoulder, holding her tight as though she really were a lonely child in too much pain. Piper closed her eyes too and slowly pulled in all her love and compassion. She wrapped it around Natania, letting it flow through the woman, filling in the gaping wounds left by betrayal and isolation, calming the seething hatred and acidic bitterness.
Natania sighed softly, the tension lifting from her body. As she went limp in Piper’s hold, Piper could sense peace well up from within Natania, pushing away the last of her violent rage and leaving only gentle melancholy and a quiet undertone of hope.
“Thank you,” Natania whispered.
“May you find peace, Natania,” she whispered back.
With an aching heart and tears running down her face, she felt the chains of magic that bound Natania in her stone prison dissolve, the rage that had fueled them gone. The woman’s mind and soul slipped away like water rushing through her fingers, and then she was alone in her own head.
Chapter Thirty
Her eyes flew open.
In a single instant, she felt it all: the raging maelstrom of power ripping through her body, her fist still poised in the air for the strike Natania had interrupted, and the Sahar’s magic rapidly unraveling inside the stone clutched in her hand. Layer upon layer of weavings laid into the Sahar five hundred years ago were coming apart at the seams.
In a single burst, all the power contained in them came howling out of the Stone and into her body.
She screamed in agony and fierce determination as she whipped her fist down, unleashing the vortex of power within her. Magic tore out of her. The four towers exploded in colossal blasts of silver power. Bolts of white lightning shot for the sky as wood and stone debris launched in every direction, raining down on the estate before the explosion dissipated, leaving giant black craters where the structures had been.
And then, finally, silence.
She dropped to her knees, gasping for air through the blinding ache that seared every nerve in her body. Even though the raging maelstrom of magic from the Sahar was gone, it still hurt to breathe. Her muscles shook violently and her heart pounded erratically in her ears.
Painstakingly, she lifted her trembling hand and opened her fingers.
A crumbling clump of silver dust sat on her palm where the Sahar had been. She stared at the remains of the all-powerful, indestructible lodestone. A gust of wind blew over her, whisking half of it away and scattering sparkling dust across the wet rooftop.
Natania’s soul was free. Piper smiled weakly as a few tears mixed with the rain on her face.
A loud warning chirp made her look around and she was shocked to see Zwi standing beside her, back arched and mane standing on end. She’d forgotten all about the dragonet. Zwi growled at her and nipped Piper’s elbow, the pinch shocking her out of her daze.
Flicking her hand to cast away the Sahar dust, she lurched to her feet, staggering as her muscles threatened to give. Just as she regained her balance, red light flashed all around her from a dozen reapers teleporting onto the rooftop.
Zwi snarled ferociously and transformed in a flash of black flames. She spread her wings and jumped in front of Piper. As she arched her back and lowered her head threateningly, blue fire rushed over her wings and down her tail—Tenryu’s blue fire. Zwi was drawing on Ash’s new powers too.
The nearest reaper flung a glowing red attack at them. Piper tried to summon a shield but agony flared through her every nerve and she almost collapsed.
Zwi roared and the blue fire running over her scales leaped higher, devouring the attack in a flare of azure. The dragon leaped forward, springing at the reaper before he could react. She bowled him over, her fangs ripping into his body, then she snapped her tail around, connecting hard with another reaper. His pained cry didn’t quite cover the sound of his bones breaking.
As the other reapers hesitated, Zwi whirled around and jumped toward her. Piper had one shocked moment to realize what Zwi was doing—then the dragon used her head to scoop Piper onto her back as she jumped off the rooftop.
Sprawled backwards across the dragon’s back, Piper hung on as Zwi dropped with her wings spread wide—wings no longer capable of flight and barely slowing their fall. The dragon crashed down on the ground, her legs buckling. Piper was thrown off her, rolling across one of the dragon’s flame-coated wings and onto the wet cobblestones. Her clothing sizzled as the puddles extinguished the flames that had clung to her. Good thing neither leather nor dragon scale was very flammable.
She staggered to her feet as Zwi clambered to hers, shaking her head side to side in a daze. Piper’s eyes shot for the rooftop to see the reapers illuminated by nearby flames. She swore, her eyes darting to the entrance to the Chrysalis building. She was supposed to be with Lyre but she couldn’t lead these reapers straight to him.
“Come on, Zwi!” she yelled.
She broke into a limping run, bullying her body into cooperating. Zwi followed and they darted into a dark, narrow pathway between two buildings. Red light flashed behind them as the reapers teleported onto the ground. She and Zwi ran, careening through twisting alleys and pathways in an attempt to lose the reapers. The pouring rain hid the sound of their footsteps but also disguised any noise of pursuit.
When she couldn’t run anymore, she stopped in the shadowy opening where a footpath opened out into a sprawling stone courtyard. Breathing hard and still shaking from the aftermath of the Sahar’s power rampaging through her body, she propped herself on the wall with one hand, looking around as her desperation grew.
She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t know where
anyone was, including the reapers chasing her.
Blue light lit the clouds above.
Tenryu soared above the barracks as he unleashed another blast of blue flames. At the same time, a red orb shot from a rooftop below the dragon. It struck his underbelly and Tenryu roared, so loud that, even at a distance, the sound vibrated in her chest. A swirling inferno of blue and black fire consumed the dragon as he dove for the rooftop where the blast of magic had come from. Flames erupted in every direction, tearing the building apart.
From another rooftop near the dragon, a red glow appeared as a new magic orb was fired, illuminating the distant silhouette of some kind of large turret gun. Three more blasts shot from various rooftops as Tenryu raced into the sky, ascending out of the weapons’ reach.
Guns to shoot down flying opponents: another deadly combination of magic and human weaponry. Ash and Tenryu needed to help the draconians fighting the Hades soldiers on the ground but they couldn’t if they were too busy evading and destroying the turret guns. She clenched her hands, helplessness choking her. How was she supposed to help?
As she studied the nearest turret gun, frantically thinking of what she could do to destroy it, a different kind of red flash caught her attention. A reaper appeared beside the dozen soldiers manning the weapon. He spoke briefly with them before vanishing again.
The urgency drumming in her head stilled, turning to ice. That reaper had been a runner delivering orders to the soldiers operating the gun—orders from a general. The well-timed activation of the shockwave spell hadn’t been a coincidence; though they could have activated it immediately and prevented a great deal of damage to the estate, someone had waited until all the draconians were inside the perimeter wall and engaged in combat before incapacitating them. And someone had ordered men to those guns to attack Tenryu. Someone was coordinating all of this.