Chapter 17
Azar
When Gideon and the Americans asked for our help in defending against the vanir, I knew it was the right thing to do.
After all, our recovery of the heart released them.
And even though the Americans made it clear from the start that we were their enemy, even coming so far as to attack us in Iceland after we left, I’m not like my father. I don’t hold grudges.
The vanir are powerful—more powerful than the humans—but they were trapped in a volcano by my mother for a reason. I didn’t spend a lot of time questioning whether we should help. Liz wanted us to help, so I agreed.
Besides, we’ve already fought the vanir, not once, but twice.
But when we portal into Vancouver, I fear that we’ve made a significant mistake.
The vanir we fought as they escaped the volcano, and the vanir we fought in the small group in Finland are not like the vanir who are attacking in Vancouver.
For one thing, many of them have now bonded humans.
They’re riding the vanir and carrying weapons, which adds strength to their attack, but the bonds also make the vanir stronger.
And they’re attacking in ways I’m unfamiliar with.
There are small, dark moon vanir who appear and disappear in blinks and sparks.
The dark grey storm vanir make it almost impossible to fly steadily with their buffeting winds and sheets of rain.
Both moon and storm vanir only have teeth and claws with which to attack, but the massive ice vanir, of which I saw none in Finland, attack with pillars of ice, which are devastating and destructive, especially to the flame blessed.
We should have pursued them immediately and attempted to eliminate the threat they posed before they could recover.
I left Liz’s small siblings home in Australia, but I wish I’d left Liz home as well. She seems desperate to get herself killed, and if she doesn’t stop acting like she can’t be harmed, I’m going to bundle her up in a red sphere and sling her through a portal.
Not again, I shout, when she dives from my back and starts out after a small band of moon vanir I can’t even see. That’s enough.
But I’m the only one who can see them and the ones they’re hiding. I show you where they are, and then you can roast them.
The problem is that she can’t see them from my back.
She can’t even see them when she’s casually flying around.
She can only see them when she focuses on a given area and they draw close enough.
We think it’s the heart that allows her to penetrate their protections, but I don’t care enough about seeking out the pockets of vanir to endanger her life.
She’s helping, Hyperion says. You should let her do it.
It’s easy for him to say that. Coral’s not down there, darting and dipping and bobbing while winds cause her to plummet, and rain causes her to lose her grip on even her small swords. If an ice vanir shows up while she’s out there, luring them closer. . .
I know you’re worried about those stupid ice-queens, but there are two of us. We can take them out and also keep her safe.
Stupid Thunar, who actually knows how to fight them, disappeared the moment we arrived.
If I didn’t see the occasional burst of flames in the distance, I’d accuse him of bailing on the fight.
He’s certainly not about to join Hyperion and me and work as a team.
He’d rather take a group of strike blessed and fight in his own established patterns on the far west side of Vancouver, leaving us to manage the mountainous terrain of the east.
But our biggest problem is that the storm, moon, and ice vanir all have wings.
More than two thirds of the earth blessed now have wings along with their power upgrade, and our strike blessed have always been able to fly.
But the five thousand or so water blessed are stuck in the Georgian Strait, and in the Stave, Harrison, and Pitt Lakes.
There isn’t much they can do other than keep the storm and ice vanir from bonding humans on the ground, and it’s difficult to fight a battle in the air when you can’t even join it.
The other problem is one of sheer numbers.
With Thunar’s new additions, we now have more than twenty thousand blessed, but the vanir number close to a hundred thousand. That’s five to one, and with our water blessed all grounded, and a quarter of the earth blessed staying home because they didn’t get upgraded, it’s more like seven to one.
This time, when Liz plunges straight down, I can see where she’s headed right away. I blast the entire area in front of her in a wide column before she can get too far away, and two dozen vanir catch fire.
Bingo.
Azar! Liz shouts. I told you to wait until I tell you. That was barely a third of the ones gathering. Now they’ve scattered. She’s glaring up at me, her wings beating consistently, when she disappears behind a cloud.
Once the cloud has blown past, she’s gone.
Where is she? I shout. Hyperion! Liz was there and now she’s not.
Moon vanir, Hyperion says. It must be. He starts flaming the air right and left, and almost a dozen of the little vermin fall, screaming.
I find myself doing the same until. . . What if we burn her?
Can we? He freezes, his wings beating only to hold him aloft. She’s your bonded.
I’ve never tried burning her, I say. I’m not sure.
What the heck have you been doing with the door closed so much, if not training?
If I wasn’t so terrified right now, I might laugh. How do we find her?
Liz!! Hyperion screams.
Duh. My bond. I reach for her, and I realize it’s dark. Wherever she is now, it’s dark, and she’s quiet. She must be closer to the ground. I shoot forward, sensing she’s not near. Flame away, I say. They’re taking her down. I pull on the bond again, and I hear a strange sound.
Waves.
Where could there be waves? I recall the ocean’s straight west, and there are probably waves in the Strait of Georgia. Euphrasia’s there, I believe, keeping me apprised of Thunar’s movements, should she see anything amiss. I reach out.
Liz is coming your way. I hear waves. I’m headed that direction, too.
I’ll follow, Hyperion says. I can cover for you.
No, I say. Stay here. Keep flaming the air around you so they can’t sneak up on you. A hidden ice vanir’s the biggest threat, and I’m sure they have some. They must be holding them until we’ve worn down. Be safe.
You’re the smallest flame blessed, Hyperion says. You be safe. And go get your girl.
A pang of terror shoots through me, and I take off.
Don’t worry too much, though, Hyperion says. She looks weak, but that stupid feathered human’s surprisingly hard to kill. She flies right back out of volcanos, usually with a nasty new surprise of her own. You may find her only to discover she’s already defeated the vanir’s leader, whoever that is.
Liz says it used to be an old ice vanir named Bjorn.
Euphrasia finally answers. Heavy casualties here. Hundreds of us are dead. The storm vanir have been attacking in large groups, kept hidden by the cursed moon vanir, and many of the water blessed are begging Thunar to take us back to Australia.
The fact that they’re hauling Liz that direction should have told me things might be grim. By the time I see the water, I can’t help scanning over the piles of blue bodies on the shore. I’m coming.
But how will I know where I should attack with the moon vanir shielding their compatriots?
A small, shrill sound is the only warning before a long, sharp spear-shaped column of ice plows through my wing and slams into my shoulder.
Strong gusts of wind hit me almost simultaneously, so it’s obviously a well-planned and coordinated effort.
Luckily, I’m not far from the ground, and when I crash, I hit a small grove of trees.
Normally, I’d steer clear of the water, but as things currently stand, it’s one of the few places I have allies.
I throw up a red-magic shield, which is good, as ice-arrows pelt it right after I manage to get it up, and then I hobble toward the shoreline.
I reach out through the bond, and that’s when I finally hear her.
Azar, they’re using me to lure you. Don’t come toward the water. There are three ice vanir. Whenever she talks to me, I sense something. Coughing, maybe? A pressure I can’t understand.
There’s a roar overhead, and I see Thunar, roasting the air and then rending the vanir he tags with his teeth and claws. A few tips before he ditched us would have been really nice.
I’m already here, I say. Where are you? Are you alright?
They won’t harm me until you get here, Liz says. That’s why you must stay away. They’ve been focusing their attacks on the water dragons. They know they’re the weakest.
A large group of earth-blessed are arrowing toward me right as I reach the shoreline.
Without an offensive strike, like the electric shock of the strike blessed or the flame or ice attacks, they’re stuck fighting in much the same way as the storm vanir, only without the wind or rain to give them an edge.
Even so, they have fierce hearts and they care greatly about protecting me, knowing I’m also their earth-blessed prince.
I start to warn them away, but their presence has lured the ice vanir out of hiding.
One of them is attacking the earth blessed instead of me, and that allows me to follow the trajectory of the ice arrows back to their origination point.
It betrays where he or she must be hiding.
I drop my red bubble and release the largest volley of flames I can manage to that area, and the ice vanir screams.