Shadow Mage Read online

  A light was pulsing in Finn, too. The oath stone had swollen in size since the last time Sarai had seen it. She looked at Agnes. Time to decide, now.

  A commotion sounded from the other side of Finn’s group, and fifteen more mages—armed to the teeth—joined them, headed by the Baron.

  Finn glanced briefly their way, then did a double take. “What the—you were under guard and informed you weren’t allowed to leave.”

  The Baron sniffed. “Yes, well, it seems I had to act. These lovely people are now my employees. Eminently well compensated I may add, for those of you still considering my offer,” he eyed the rest of the crowd meaningfully. A few people shifted uncomfortably.

  “Employees—what? No. These are students of the Table,” Finn spluttered. “You can’t just—”

  “Of course I can. Simple capitalism, sir.”

  “Now, look, we don’t want to hurt anyone,” Finn said, raising his voice.

  “Yes, well, it seems that none of you can do magic without calling in those monsters, and unless you’re planning on fighting her with your bare fists, we might need some weapons to keep her from killing you all,” the Baron replied

  Finn blanched. “No one is hurting Kel. We’re just talking.”

  Kel surveyed the group of mages nervously, then pulled her shoulders back.

  “I don’t want to hurt anyone, but… we’re running out of time. This is what has to be done. Finn is going to turn any day now. He may already have turned.”

  Mages looked from one to other.

  “Yep,” Isabelle said, standing at Kel’s side. “Finn, I love you, but we have to do this. It’s time. We’ve tried fighting him, and you’ve clearly tried—against my wishes I might add—killing yourself any number of times. It’s time to try this.”

  “You’re not getting through here,” the Baron said, and the mages behind him raised their weapons nervously.

  Sarai glanced to the side and saw Agnes was staring at her.

  What does she expect me to do?

  Sarai bit her lip, looking from Finn to Kel to Agnes. It was time to do something. If she killed Finn, though, magic was gone. But if she didn’t, Jeremy was dead. But if she did, Agnes and all the rest of these mages, along with magic, were probably dead.

  Goddamn it, Jeremy. This is the worse assignment ever. By a large, large margin.

  Agnes was still staring at her, tugging on her sleeve. Sarai froze. Her glance had strayed to the glass structure poking above the treetops behind Kel. Maybe there’s a way out of this. Or, at least out of part of this. Sorry Agnes.

  She licked her lips and pulled her elbow out of Agnes’s grasp.

  “Sarai, what are you—”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

  “Can’t what—?” She turned her head as Sarai glanced at Finn. “Wait, you aren’t still thinking about killing…”

  “No, I’ve got to go.”

  Agnes looked stricken. She reached out, but Sarai pulled back into her shadowy place. And Agnes, her face still twisted in pain, lost her. Her eyes glazed over; her vision slipped past where Sarai was standing. She looked around, desperately, as Sarai took a few steps back.

  “Sarai, you can’t just leave me like this. You can’t run away! We need you!”

  Not as much as Jeremy does. I can’t. I can’t do this. Sarai turned and ran for the platform.

  50

  Sarai

  Sarai tried to block out the reverberations of Agnes’ words in her mind as she ran away. She hoped the girl still couldn’t see her. She hoped maybe she could explain some time later. Although she doubted Agnes would ever speak to her again. Well, I guess at least I can say I had a friend once. That’s something. She tried to laugh but her stomach twisted. Jeremy. Think about Jeremy.

  It wasn’t hard. His broken, battered, terrified face came quickly to her mind, and she picked up the pace, careening into that great glass enclosure where the ambassadors had arrived that first day. God, if I’d known then. I would have left the idiot to murder himself.

  She flew up the stairs, found the green-sailed boat, swore in gratitude that there were actual levers and controls, that the boat didn’t require a mage to run it. She pulled handles at random and an instant later the thing started with a shaking creak and shot out, lifting up and over the battlements, shooting straight through the barrier.

  A hundred feet down below, the monsters clustered around the walls, climbing up the barrier and falling back down. They stopped and looked up at her as she passed. A few threw themselves at her, but she was too high, and too fast, and all too quickly she had passed over their many heads.

  The height made her head swim, but she forced herself to watch. She wasn’t afraid of anything, and she wasn’t going to start being afraid of things now. This was… something, though. She’d never gone this fast, the wind whistling and shaking, the craft swaying and rumbling every time it passed over one of the supporting pillars. This was built by students. Sure hope they knew what they were doing. This has run, what, ten times, max?

  But she didn’t worry for long. Half an hour in and she barely noticed the scenery whipping by below her anymore. The Iron Mountains were fast approaching, storm clouds dark behind them. And the contraption began to ascend. Only an hour more, and the twin waterfalls that protected Westwend came into view. Her heart leapt, as it never failed to do at the sight of her home, despite how much she’d hated living there at times. Despite how few people she knew, despite how lonely she’d been, it was still home, and returning to it always made her glad.

  Except this time she was leaving something behind, and she couldn’t quite get her mind off it. Is Agnes OK? Has Kel broken through anyway? How many people are going to end up dead today? Besides the ones Sarai was going to kill, of course, when she rescued Jeremy.

  People stopped and stared as the boat winged over the rooftops of the city. She made herself small and invisible, and leapt out onto a high rooftop as she passed. She had no desire to deal with the crowd that was already following it to the landing place. She’d had more than enough of mobs for one day.

  Pulling herself into shadow—magic was still working, it seemed—she shimmied down a drainpipe and ducked down an alley. Please, please let them still be at Jeremy’s. If they weren’t… she didn’t let herself think about that. She would find them. She would find him. There would have to be a clue.

  She found the back door in the alley, and her heart sank when she saw no one was guarding it. She unlocked it with the tiny brass key she always kept around her neck, along with the poison necklace, and here she paused. She wanted nothing more than to sprint up the stairs as fast as she could, throw open the doors and attack whomever was inside. No telling what they were doing to him even now. She imagined running up, imagined killing whomever was threatening him, Jeremy looking at her in wonder and gratitude, and then further surprise as she told him how she felt, how she’d always felt.

  Focus. She listened. There was shadow above. Deep, deep, deep, terrible shadow. So thick she couldn’t even tell how many people there were. She wrapped herself in darkness and slunk up the stairs.

  51

  Finn

  This is bad, this is so, so bad, Finn thought as the Baron showed up, with some of his students, armed. This… Everything was falling apart. Kel stood there, only a few inches shorter than he was, now, her face grim and determined. And Finn had no doubt that if Kel wanted to, she could fight through every single one of his mages, and the Baron’s, and do what she had come to do.

  Finn wiped the sweat off his upper lip. Why did it always come to this? To fighting. The school was tearing in half.

  “Please, Kel. You might hurt the mages, if you do this. There has to be another way.”

  “Stop saying that, Finn. We’ve tried,” Isabelle said. “I love you, but you have to stop this. This can’t be what Eraldir told you to do.”

  Finn shifted from foot to foot.

  “You’re not taking our magic,” one of the
mages behind him called out.

  “We only have magic because we’re torturing the Ael,” Isabelle shot back. “Not that I like, super care about that, but also, any day now Finn’s going to turn into a super powerful demon unless we do this.”

  “The Ael got to you, didn’t they?” Eric shouted, fire sprouting from his hands. “They’re trying to take magic back, and they’ve… possessed you somehow.”

  “Eric, stop,” Finn demanded, his voice clipped.

  “If it’s a choice between letting her kill us all, and maybe calling up one of those monsters, I’ll take that chance,” Arl said.

  The barrier around the castle rumbled darkly.

  Kel stepped forward, and all eyes turned to her.

  “Please,” she said. “I don’t want to take magic from you. What I’m going to do might not do that. I don’t know. But I do know that there are creatures in pain, and that they will be unless I do this.”

  “Don’t listen to her, she’s on their side!”

  Finn rounded on the kid. “Don’t say that. Whatever her opinions, Kel is on our side. Always.”

  “Pay attention, Finn. She’s literally about to kill us if we don’t move.”

  A sharp scream rang out, then another. Finn whirled around, and saw, to his horror, an arrow sprouting out of Payl’s chest. She sank slowly to her knees.

  Everything was frozen, the mages staring in shock, including the one who had fired the arrow. He was shaking, looking like he wanted to drop his bow and run.

  Then Payl tilted her head up, her eyes wide with rage. She lifted a hand, clenching it in the air, and ropes snaked around the neck of the archer, tightening.

  Agnes gave an agonized shriek and ran to Payl’s side, bending down and frantically trying to stop the bleeding.

  Another arrow came streaking through the air, straight for Kel. Illiam leapt between her and it, and it lodged deep within his shoulder.

  Then everything broke loose.

  “Stop!” Finn yelled over the din. Wind blasted people back and forth, hurling them against walls and tree trunks. Ice prisons froze people where they stood, only to be burned away by fire a moment later.

  Spiky icicle walls sprouted up and then were burned down, melted into puddles which refroze into solid sheets of ice. The air was filled with screams.

  Shit shit shit shit shit. Finn looked around desperately.

  He looked at Kel, standing motionless in the middle of the chaos. They locked eyes, and he was suddenly reminded of that moment ten years ago. Of her standing, wide-eyed in the midst of that fire he had caused.

  He saw Isabelle, a flash of white hair as she blasted a path between students, clearing the way to the door for Kel.

  He dropped his hands. He had to stop this.

  That’s when something far below him slipped out of his control, and he felt himself pulling deep within himself, his vision again reduced to pinpricks. He tried to call out a warning, but his voice was gone. He felt himself beginning to fall. So this was the end.

  52

  Sarai

  At the door to Jeremy’s quarters, Sarai stopped again. She bent her head, listening at the keyhole. Someone moved about in the room beyond. She heard them pacing left, then right. When they reached the far end of the room, she silently twisted the knob and opened the door a tiny crack.

  It was Jeremy.

  She pushed the door the rest of the way, hurrying inside and shutting it behind her.

  Jeremy spun around, shock registering on his broken face.

  “Sarai, what are you—”

  “Where are they?” she asked, drawing a knife in each hand. “Are you all right?”

  She scanned the room. Something wasn’t right. All that shadow…

  “Aw, shit.”

  “They just left,” Jeremy said, coming towards her. “My gods, they must have heard you killed him. You did it, didn’t you?” He shook his head in admiration, the puffy eye and lip deforming.

  She lifted the knives.

  “I didn’t kill him, Jeremy.”

  He stopped short, watching her warily. “What? Then…”

  “I came back here to rescue you.” She spat out the last word bitterly. “Except you don’t need rescuing, do you?”

  He dropped his arms to hang loosely at his side, watching her through narrowed eyes. Finally, he shrugged. “All right, no. I don’t.”

  “Why? Why would you do that?” Do you realize how terrified I was?

  “Because you’d clearly switched sides.”

  “Switched…”

  “The mark, or someone, identified you, and offered you more than I was paying you.” He shrugged. “It was bound to happen eventually.”

  “And you… you…” She gestured to his face.

  “I had a friend help.”

  Her face twisted, she readjusted her grip on her blades, but she felt like a two-year-old: petulant, ridiculous, with toy knives.

  He eyed her. “And am I wrong? Have your loyalties changed?”

  She considered this. “They hadn’t.”

  Her heart was breaking. “I left people I care about. I left them about to kill each other. For you.”

  And I left part of myself there, too.

  “Well, you shouldn’t have strung me along like that, then.”

  “Strung you—”

  “All that bullshit about him being protected by magic. I saw the truth. You wanted to stay there. You saw someone with more power than you had. More power than me. And you wanted it for yourself. And you didn’t even show me the decency of letting me match their offer.” His lip curled into a sneer. “Not that I would have. I paid you what you deserved. More than that. Do you know how many people work for me? Plenty. And plenty who are better than you. You’re just a skinny little orphan with a creepy penchant for slitting throats. Without me you would have been nothing, and you have the gall… the gall to betray me like this. To consider switching sides. After all I’ve done for you.”

  She hadn’t noticed, but he was drawing closer. Now he was inches away, and there was a knife in his hand.

  “I didn’t betray you. He really was protected by magic.” But he was right in a way, there were things she hadn’t told him about. She shifted, tried to hide, but he gave a bitter laugh.

  “You know how many times I’ve watched you do that, Sarai? More than enough.” He reached out and grabbed her hair with his free hand, forcing her head back. She yelped and twisted in his arms.

  He raised his blade. “You’re no good to me anymore, Sarai. Not that you were that great to begin with. A tool. Useful in some ways. As long as I babied you and told you you were special. Well you know what? You’re not special, you’re not that useful, and you never were.” She twisted again, but this time only to distract him as she raised her arm, still gripping the dagger.

  He knocked her blade away with his own. He was stronger than he looked, and much stronger than she was. She gulped in air with a small cry as he lifted the blade. She brought her hand up, driving the heel of her hand into his chin so hard she heard his teeth clack together. He made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a moan, but before he could do anything else, the blade in her left hand was between his ribs. She drove it in hard, felt it connect with something vital, knew she had him. He stumbled with her in his arms, but his grip on her was still tight.

  She thrashed and pulled against him, but he didn’t loosen his grasp. His face was going white, pale, but he had her, and if he was going to die, he was going to take her with him, too. Sarai twisted her body and pushed the knife in deeper, but he seemed to be beyond pain now.

  He raised the knife again in a shaking hand, poised just above her throat, when suddenly a tremor went through the air around them.

  Jeremy blinked, confused for a moment, then resumed his movement. The wind picked up, stronger and stronger. It whirled around Sarai in a thick tornado. Jeremy was hurled back so hard he hit the wall opposite. He was knocked unconscious, the blood still draining out
of him, and he slumped to the floor. Sarai was whirled backwards, the current of air yanking her from the room, down the stairs, and suddenly she was a hundred feet in the air, hurtling over the treetops, down the mountainside, and out onto the plains.

  What the—Sarai barely had time for a full thought before she was somersaulted over and over again, and it was all she could do to remain conscious.

  She was hurtling straight for a pillar; at first she thought she would hit it, but she whipped right past it, thundering towards the earth. She collided—none too gently—with a metal object. Cuffs opened and snapped shut around her arms, wrists, neck, legs, and ankles, holding her securely in place.

  Then everything stopped. The world was silent, except for the faint rustling of the grass, the sky grey and cloudy above her.

  Her heart was thundering in her chest; she still couldn’t believe she was alive. Unless this was death. It wouldn’t be that surprising if this was what death was like. It might even make sense in a weird way.

  Then, the pillar spoke.

  53

  Kel

  They didn’t know she couldn’t use magic. If they realized, it would all be over. Kel stood, trying to keep calm. Trying to look confident. Feeling the tensions rise, feeling the hatred and anger directed towards her. It was so intense she almost couldn’t stand it. There in front of her were these mages, and they blocked the way. She needed to make them see, make them understand.