Total pages in book: 222
Estimated words: 210715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1054(@200wpm)___ 843(@250wpm)___ 702(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 210715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1054(@200wpm)___ 843(@250wpm)___ 702(@300wpm)
The snake struck.
Damaes flicked his hand. Black orbs tore from the rim of the ring and sliced through the steam serpent. For a millisecond, its body hung in the air, severed in three pieces, and then it crashed into the river, breaking into liquid.
I wished Everard could see this. It was amazing.
Isadau was doing something complicated and pretty with her hands.
Sushi squirmed out of my arms. The Magnar brothers rowed like a well-oiled machine, putting more and more distance between us.
The ring tilted with Damaes inside it. More orbs tore from the rim, like gobs of black ink, and sped toward Isadau.
She raised her head. A circle of ruby blades flared in front of her, like a windmill made of swords. The windmill whirled, shredding the incoming projectiles.
The ring around Damaes spun, spitting a barrage of dark orbs.
Behind me Will swore.
The ruby fan of blades collapsed on itself bowing inward, toward Isadau, catching the orbs in the funnel of its blades, sparked with bright white, and sprang taut, firing a torrent of brilliant red at Damaes. The current of magic hammered the ring, breaking against an invisible wall. The impact careened the spell, shaking the Archmage inside.
“Kick his ass!” Lute yelled.
The red current died, exhausted. The ring around Damaes flared with purple and shed a copy of itself. The second ring expanded around the first and copied itself. Again, again . . . Three, four . . . eight.
“The Scream of Undensos. That fucker is actually trying to kill her.” I clenched the side of the boat with my free hand.
The rings rotated, some faster, some slower, each glowing with furious purple.
Isadau stared at the spell above her.
The rings snapped still. Purple lightning streaked forward from their rims, merging into a single ball of magic in front of Damaes. The Archmage raised his hand.
Isadau waited, defiant.
Damaes paused. The spell crackled in front of him. He was giving her time to escape.
Move, Isadau. Move, damn you.
She stood still.
The lightning popped, expanded into a circle, and tore a hole in the fabric of existence. Darkness churned inside the ring, primordial, terrifying, alien, so terrible that I didn’t want to look straight at it.
Isadau tilted her head.
The darkness tore out of the spell in a horrifying beam, searing the air with a deafening hiss and smashed into Isadau. The top of the hill disintegrated. It didn’t catch fire. It didn’t break. It just became nothing.
She was dead. That was an eighth-circle spell. It didn’t just kill, it undid the very matter we were made of. She couldn’t possibly—
The beam vanished. Isadau floated above the ground, her form translucent and glowing slightly.
The Fade! She had achieved the Fade!
I screamed and clapped my hands.
Isadau solidified. A fountain of bright red sparks burst from her, twisting into a glowing red flower. The flame-bloom—her signature spell.
The flower expanded. Fire and magic surged toward Damaes, wrapping him in a curtain of red. He fired back with an icy-blue meteor shower.
The river dragged us downstream, farther and farther. Soon we could no longer see the two mages, only the glowing explosions of light from their magic.
“Will she win?” Kaiden asked me.
“I don’t know,” I told him.
“You know everything.”
“I wish.”
“You’re asking the wrong question,” Clover told him. “Can she win?”
“Possibly.” Both Damaes and Isadau were monsters. He was more skilled, but she was beyond furious. It was anyone’s guess who would win.
“Let’s hope she does,” Lute said.
We glided into the night, our boat filled with our loot.
When Gort opened the secret door to us, the relief on his face was so obvious, it wasn’t even funny.
“See,” I told him. “Back in one piece.”
“You missed it, old man,” Lute said. “It was a show to remember.”
“Once in a lifetime,” Will said.
“Shut up and get inside, before someone sees you.”
“Empty everything on the floor in the basement, please,” I asked.
“And one of you tell your mother you’ve survived!” Gort growled.
The Magnar brothers, Clover, and Kaiden dragged our stolen loot past me. Sushi had ditched us as soon as we pulled up. She was probably back in my room now, in her nest under the bed.
“Where is the mage girl?” Gort shut the door and slid the heavy bar in place.
“She was still fighting when we left.” I hefted my sack.
Gort took it from me and carried it into the basement.
“Think she’ll survive?”
“I don’t know.”
Fighting this duel was Isadau’s choice. The thing between Damaes and her was so complicated and screwed up, even the two of them couldn’t make sense of it.
It took us only a couple of minutes to dump everything on the floor, and we began sorting through it. I had already shown Tillmar’s contract to everyone so they would know what to look for.
I picked up the first scroll. Some sort of bill of sale . . .
An IOU . . .