Chapter 28 Eiri #2
Brandow spun to face her, his hand hovering over the hilt of the sword at his side. “I don’t care! They knew the risks when they decided to commit treason. Break. Down. The fucking ward. Or I will have you arrested. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
The two mages dug into their bags of supplies, coming back out with something clutched in their hands.
“What do we do?” Eiri kept his voice low and his eyes on Brandow.
“The mages are just doing their job,” Ellis replied just as quietly, glancing at Xan from the corner of his eye.
“I’m aware of that, but if they get through to us, we’re as good as dead. I can’t let that happen.”
They were at an impasse. No matter what happened, Eiri couldn’t see how this ended with any of them walking away.
If Xan repelled the mages, soldiers, and furious prince in the room, then what?
Eiri could barely walk, and Syrus was still unconscious.
The four of them would be fish in a barrel.
A novice recruit would be able to capture them if they tried to escape.
On the other hand, if Xan’s ward failed, the queen would execute Eiri before nightfall, and it was likely Syrus wouldn’t survive the night, either.
Xan would be imprisoned at best, and while the queen might not be able to get away with killing two of her children, whatever fate awaited Ellis wouldn’t be a kind one.
Xan clearly had to be a powerful mage, but even he couldn’t hold on forever.
The four of them were completely alone in Lodie, without allies or support.
Brandow had the might of the throne and the goodwill of his countrymen, which came with a near-endless supply of soldiers and, more importantly, power over the narrative.
No matter what lies he and his mother spun to explain what happened here, the people would believe them.
Eiri had seen enough of Vaetreas to know how the common folk revered those that held power over them, even when those rulers clearly didn’t have their best interests at heart.
The mages exchanged quick whispers, then moved forward until they nearly touched the chalked line on the floor.
The woman opened her hand palm-up to reveal a handful of crushed rock, with glints of a reddish crystal sprinkled throughout.
Beside her, the man held a bundle of dried herbs.
Eiri didn’t recognize any of the reagents, but from the sudden tension in Xan’s body, they were in trouble.
“We’re running out of time,” he muttered to Eiri and Ellis.
The woman on the other side of the ward, her back now to Prince Brandow, gave a tiny wince of apology.
Neither mage looked pleased about this, but either their loyalty to the throne or their fear of Brandow was enough to push past their doubts.
“Eiri, are you a mage?” Ellis asked. He kept his voice low, but the two mages were close enough to hear.
This wasn’t something Eiri had ever intended to reveal to anyone in Vaetreas, but apparently Ellis had figured it out.
Considering he’d watched Eiri pull the fluid from Syrus’ lungs, it didn’t come as a surprise.
“I am, but not like Xan. I used everything I had to heal Syrus of the poison. Until I can get back down to the ocean and replenish, I’m useless.”
“You draw your power from the water?” Surprisingly, that came from the mage on the other side of the ward, the man who had been silent so far.
He kept quiet, as well, low enough that Brandow wouldn’t hear.
Not that he likely could, given the way he was pacing back and forth behind his mages, muttering furiously under his breath.
The two seemed sympathetic, but that didn’t mean Eiri was going to spill his secrets to them. The only people he trusted in this entire country were the three people on this side of the ward with him.
“Xan, do you think..?”
“Already on it.”
The quick exchange between Xan and Ellis made no sense to Eiri, but he let it pass.
The longer he stood here, the more his energy drained, and only his hold on Ellis and Xan’s arm around his waist kept him from toppling over on the spot.
He nearly did when Xan released him, leaving him clutching Ellis’ shirt to stay upright.
There was no hiding how badly his legs were shaking now, and he didn’t fight it when Ellis’ arm replaced Xan’s around his waist.
“What’s happening?” he whispered to Ellis.
Beside him, Xan was doing something with his own bags of spell components, but Eiri’s knowledge of mainland magic was so limited that he couldn’t begin to understand what it was.
The two mages on the other side of the ward didn’t like it, though.
The woman’s eyes went wide, and the man beside her started sweating, focusing on the herbs in his hands with a desperate intensity.
“Something insane, but we don’t really have many options right now,” Ellis said, which didn’t answer a single thing. He felt it when Xan’s magic surged, though, strong enough that the two mages faltered for a moment.
Eiri’s experience with other mages had always been sporadic, at best. Fewer and fewer mages were born on Canjir with each generation, and now, only a handful remained.
Few chose the dangerous life of a raider, preferring instead to remain on the island and use their magic to help as much as they could.
With his affinity for water, Eiri tried to do the same, usually finding ways to draw whatever fresh water he could find to the pitiful fields on the island to help irrigate the crops.
There simply wasn’t enough to do much good, though, so he’d quickly learned to adapt and use his abilities to help raiders.
He could help Canjiri skiffs move faster while creating rougher waves in their wake to delay pursuers.
It had to be subtle enough to keep anyone from discovering it was magic, but it had ensured any raiders who went with him avoided capture.
His clashes with mainland mages had always been brief, with no time to really study what they did or feel their magic.
Even if he’d had all the time in the world, though, he knew they wouldn’t have been capable of whatever Xan was doing.
Xan’s magic washed through the room with the implacable, unrelenting power of the tides themselves, pushing and pulling the world around them, shaping it to his will.
The glass ceiling above them splintered, cracks spreading like spiderwebs across the clear panes, reaching to every corner of the room in only a few seconds. Brandow stopped in his tracks and looked up, tracing the lines back to Xan.
“Stop him!” he shouted at his mages, stalking up behind them and grabbing the woman’s shoulder in a grip that would surely leave bruises. “Break through this fucking ward now and stop him!”
“We’re trying!” the man protested, earning him a furious glare from the prince.
“Not hard enough, clearly.” Brandow turned his attention to the three of them, molten hatred roiling in his dark eyes. “Hanging is too good for the lot of you. I’ll see that you suffer first.”
Ellis ignored his older brother completely, instead turning his head to look at Eiri. “I need you to stand on your own for a moment. Can you?”
He genuinely wasn’t sure, but Eiri nodded anyway and locked his knees.
He swayed when Ellis released him but stayed upright, if only barely.
The younger prince slipped away, and a moment later, Eiri heard a quiet grunt of effort.
He didn’t dare look away for more than a moment, but a brief glance showed Ellis hoisting Syrus off the cot, struggling under the sturdy weight of him.
Ellis staggered back, his own legs shaking as badly as Eiri’s were.
Syrus’ eyes fluttered, but he wasn’t fully conscious yet.
Xan still hadn’t moved, his eyes unfocused and his breathing labored as he worked whatever magic he was attempting.
The two mages on the other side of the ward turned to each other, still holding their herbs and dust. The moment their hands touched, the ward shimmered, wavering under the force of their combined power.
“Xan!” An edge of panic crept into Ellis’ voice as Eiri watched the ward shimmer again, the chalked line disappearing to almost nothing. They were out of time.
“I’m trying!”
Another surge of Xan’s magic washed over Eiri, followed by another sharp blow from the other two mages, and the chalked line completely disappeared.
Several things happened all at once.
Brandow and his soldiers drew their weapons, charging forward the moment Xan’s ward disappeared.
The mages stumbled back, the man going to his knees, both pushed past their limits.
Xan’s magic surged outward in a crush of power that sent Eiri to the ground, pain shooting up his spine where he hit the stone floor.
The wall behind them shattered, the rocks falling to the ground.
Without the wall to support it, the glass ceiling shattered further, sharp shards falling in a deadly rain.
Just before Brandow reached them, another wave of magic surged through the room, crashing into Xan’s and circling the four of them in a silvery haze.
The world spun around him, and Eiri’s stomach lurched when the floor disappeared beneath him.
For just a few seconds, barely more than the span of a breath, darkness overtook him.
There was a sense of such utter nothingness, a pure emptiness that he’d never imagined was possible, that his mind couldn’t comprehend it.
Before he could panic, it was gone, and the darkness cleared.
What he saw brought the panic clawing to the forefront.