Nemesis Rising (The Last Triumvirate #4)

Prologue

If doing the Tandem Read: Begin here

Almost twenty-three years agoCrissail

Crissail steadied the arrow she aimed at the rabbit where it hid – or thought it hid – twenty yards away in the underbrush.

She could use any number of her powers to stun or kill the animal, but she liked the challenge of the bow and arrow.

It kept her senses sharp, and she took pride that, even at close to eight hundred years old, she could still grip and aim the bow well enough to catch her dinner for the night.

The rabbit stood perfectly still, its nose barely twitching as Crissail prepared to take her shot.

She blinked a couple times to sharpen her focus, but it didn’t work.

One thing that hadn’t held up with time was her eyesight, and it took some practice to compensate for the fuzziness in her vision at this distance.

Crissail took note of the way the breeze blew the strands of hair that had come loose from the knot at the back of her head and adjusted her aim. She drew in a breath and held it. She was about to loose her arrow when she sensed a presence she hadn’t felt in nearly four centuries.

A presence that made her go cold.

Crissail eased the tension on her bow, and the rabbit, sensing its opportunity, bolted from its hiding place further into the forest.

“How did you find me?” she asked as she lowered the bow and straightened. The weapon was useless against this threat.

“Process of elimination,” a dainty female voice said. “You weren’t anywhere else, so you could only be here.”

Crissail smiled wryly. “You sensed the magic I used a few days ago,” she said, finally turning to the blonde woman who stood several feet away.

She’d known it was stupid to use that magic, but she hadn’t had a choice. At least, it hadn’t been a choice for her. She’d hoped her use of the power had been minor enough not to draw Magdalene’s attention, but no such luck.

The nearest town was half a day’s ride from her cottage, and Crissail rarely visited, but when she did, she always stopped at the baker’s shop.

He was the only one who knew where she lived all the way out here, and she used to talk to him when no one was around.

He’d been her only friend for decades now.

He tried to gift her a loaf of bread to take home when she stopped by, but she always slipped money into his till for it when he wasn’t looking.

The last time she’d seen him, though, she’d known immediately something was wrong.

It had been weeks since she’d visited, and the baker had grown sick while she was away. He’d been in great pain and already beyond her rudimentary healing powers, so she’d done the only thing she was capable of doing. She’d given him a merciful death.

Unfortunately, Magdalene had sensed it.

Crissail let out a deep breath. “What do you want?”

“You know what I want,” the woman said. “I want a return to the world we deserve, a world where we rule rather than hide in the shadows.” She gestured to the surrounding woods. “Or in tiny little cottages in the middle of nowhere.”

“I told you before, I have no interest in ruling anything.”

“So then let me do it,” Magdalene said stepping forward. “Give me what I want so I can realize my vision, and you can go back to eating bugs and squatting in the bushes.”

“And does that vision still involve destroying half of humanity?” Crissail asked.

“Half of mortals,” Magdalene corrected. “But why worry about them? They multiply as fast as that rabbit you were about to kill. They’ll repopulate in no time.”

Crissail shook her head. How this woman had ever been chosen as the Hand of the Protector, she had no idea.

“My answer is the same as it was the last time you asked. No.”

Crissail walked around Magdalene, giving her a wide berth, as she headed for her cottage.

“I’m afraid this time I’ll have to insist,” Magdalene said.

Crissail froze at the cold finality in the woman’s voice. “You don’t want to do this,” she said quietly.

“Yes, I do.”

Crissail spun around, but the icy grip of frost seized her chest before she could act.

She clutched at her heart as Magdalene strode toward her.

She knew the woman wouldn’t kill her, not yet, but she couldn’t let Magdalene near her either.

She wasn’t sure what Magdalene had done to acquire the power she now had, but it was moot at this point. She couldn’t let Magdalene touch her.

Every move, every breath was painful, but Crissail managed to re-nock her arrow and fire it quicker than anyone might expect of her. Magdalene screamed as the arrow pierced her shoulder, and she stumbled backward as the frost seizing Crissail’s heart dissolved.

Crissail pushed to her feet and sent a forcefield at the other syphon. Magdalene had yanked the arrow from her shoulder and was healing the wound, but she went flying backward to slide across the ground when the field hit her.

Crissail stepped toward Magdalene then hesitated.

It was forbidden for the Hands of the Gods to kill each other, except under extreme circumstances, and she wondered if this counted.

If it didn’t, her own life would be forfeit.

But what else could possibly count as extreme circumstances if not the extermination of half of all mortals?

Her hesitation was a moment too long. A glowing bubble appeared around Crissail just as she tried to release another forcefield, and the field hit the bubble to rebound back on her. She was thrown into the opposite side of it and fell to the ground.

“Where is Praya?” Magdalene asked as she stalked toward Crissail.

Crissail laughed as she picked herself up. “Dead. You heard the news as I did. Her ship went down in the ocean centuries ago. You can’t still be looking for her, can you?”

“If she was dead, another syphon would’ve been born to replace her, and I would’ve sensed their power by now,” Magdalene said.

That was true enough. If a new syphon had been born at Praya’s death, the woman would be around four hundred now, and the chances she’d never used the powers imbued in her by the Creator were remote.

The other option was that Praya was indeed still alive and either hadn’t used her powers in four centuries, or she was too far away for Magdalene to sense them.

“If she is alive,” Crissail said, “you’ll never find her.”

Magdalene stood next to the containment bubble. “No matter. At least you’re not going anywhere. I’ll just hold you until I find her.”

Crissail gave the woman a wry smile and called on the one magic that could reach outside the bubble.

She directed her power under the bubble into the ground, and the earth obeyed.

Dirt and stone shot into the air all around the bubble, and Magdalene screamed again as she was tossed into the air before being piled under a mound of earth.

The containment bubble fell away, and Crissail began to draw a portal.

She had to get as far away from Magdalene as she could.

She’d only drawn half the portal when the earth exploded behind her, and she pitched forward to sprawl across the ground.

She cried out as she landed. She had the body of an older woman now, and while she was still fit for her age, she wasn’t used to being tossed around.

She was slow to rise as she examined her hands and arms, which were scraped and cut.

As if voicing Crissail’s own thoughts, Magdalene said, “You’re getting old, Crissail. There’s only so long you can fight me off. We both know you’re coming with me today, so why not give in to the inevitable?”

Magdalene was right. Crissail’s power had been fading for a while now as the wear of time and the loss of her mate had taken their toll.

She didn’t have the power she once had, and – if she was honest with herself – nor did she have much will to keep fighting.

She was alone most of the time. Only one other person visited her, one other who knew, or cared, that she was alive.

Outside these woods, the world pushed on without her.

Crissail straightened as Magdalene limped toward her. She couldn’t fight anymore, and she was tired of running, tired of hiding.

“You won’t take me today or any other day,” Crissail said, her voice stronger under her resolve.

Magdalene stopped, and something shifted in her face as she took in Crissail’s defiance. “What are you doing?” she asked warily.

Crissail smiled. “Going where you can’t follow,” she said. “Or where you won’t follow.”

She felt strangely light as she put a hand to the center of her chest and let the magic flow into her.

That magic. She wasn’t sure how much time it would buy the world, but she sent a prayer up to the Trinity, to the Nemesis, that what she was about to do wouldn’t be in vain.

Somehow, someway, she hoped her sacrifice might stop Magdalene.

“No!” Magdalene screamed as she lunged forward, but she yelled out in pain and leapt back again as Crissail’s body flared into a ball of fire.

Crissail savored the feel of the flames on her skin. They were more for show than anything, but they sent a comforting warmth through her, an assurance she was doing the right thing.

She took one last moment to savor the look of horror and defeat on Magdalene’s face before she called on her god-granted power to take her beyond Magdalene’s reach.

Magdalene’s scream was the last thing Crissail heard as her body turned to ash and crumbled to the earth, leaving only a lingering gray cloud in the air where she, the now-former Hand of the Nemesis, had once stood.

Tandem Read: Go to Clash of Stone and Steel (Bk 3), Prologue-Chapter 14