Chapter 16 Sam #2
All the tendrils vanish in the blink of an eye. I’m still waiting with knees bent, prepared to jump and evade, to do whatever I can to keep this farce from escalating. I search the floor for more tendrils I’ve missed, a stray piece of Rook’s spell lying in wait to ensnare my ankles.
Which is why I don’t see it coming, when a sizzling ball of pure power crashes directly into my solar plexus. I go down with a gasp.
Rook has landed hits on me before. It’s part of my job description. But he’s never hit me that hard in my life, not even on that first day when he was trying to make me quit, like all his other seconds.
I just lie there for a moment, turtled up on the floor, wheezing.
“I did tell you, Sammy.” Rook’s voice is soft. Through tear-blurred eyes, I see his feet padding toward me. He’s wearing these absurd, emoji-face-patterned socks that I got him as a gag gift for Christmas last year. “If we’re going to do this, you’ll need your magic.”
When his feet stop before me, I have a direct sight line to a bright red emoji wearing an exaggerated frown. Steam puffs out of its ears. I stare, fascinated by the absurdity of this moment.
I close my eyes. “You want me to use magic, huh?”
“I want you to fight,” says Rook. “You’ve never truly fought me before. I don’t think you’ve ever truly fought anyone before.”
“You want me to fight,” I repeat dully. With a groan, I drag myself up onto one knee without lifting my head. My ribs are tender. I wonder if Rook’s spell bruised one or more of them. “You sure about that, princess?”
I can practically hear the smirk in his voice as he coos at me, “Surer than I’ve ever been about anything, Sammy.”
Stupid games and stupid prizes, indeed.
When I finally lash out against my champion, I don’t use magic.
Not at first. Instead, my weapon is pure physical rage.
I dive toward Rook’s feet and yank them out from under him with both hands, throwing the power of my entire body into the movement.
Rook hits the hotel room carpet with a faint gasp of surprise.
I waste no time. I pin him to the floor with one knee.
When he tries to shove me off, I straddle him, scrambling high on his torso until I’m practically sitting on his chest. I don’t let myself settle back comfortably, though.
Instead, I move my weight forward, leaning all of it into my hands and knees to lock his straining biceps down to the floor.
“Still no magic,” he gasps up at me. He tries in vain to buck me off. “You sure you’re even a magician anymore?”
I don’t answer him, holding the pin in place.
All magicians who enter the arena are trained, to some extent or another, in physical hand-to-hand combat.
We have to know the basics, at least, or we’re near useless in close quarters.
Casting a spell to enhance our bodies with strength or agility or dexterity doesn’t do us much good if we don’t know what to do with those bodies—the same way a Stradivarius would be pointless in the hands of someone who’d never studied the violin.
Rook, though, has always neglected the skill of pure physical combat. He relies too much on spells cast from a distance or from the power he generates from magically enhanced strength alone. And usually, that’s enough.
But not against someone who’s trained with him nearly every day for the past three years.
I sense the magic that courses through his muscles as he calls upon enhanced strength to bench-press me off of him.
Predictable. I close my eyes and counter with magic of my own, slipping it into my body to make me heavier than anyone with my frame should be.
It’s a fraction of the power he’s summoned—just enough to push back a little, force him to waste a little energy.
As he pushes me off with a grunt of triumph, I clap my hands together. Magic crackles between my palms. “You want to see me cast something, huh?”
Before he can answer me, I thrust the spell toward him.
I’ve never cast this one against him before.
I’ve used it on other training partners—in scrimmages, or in experimental rounds with Master Silverstein’s other magicians as I learned to mimic Rook’s upcoming opponents.
I got good at that, too—making unfamiliar magic my own, training until I moved just like my champion’s enemies, cast magic that mirrored theirs.
Made myself into a tool, the perfect instrument to hone Rook into the unstoppable terror he is today.
He’s right, though. I’ve been holding back by not letting him taste the full range of magic I can cast. So when I unleash my first true spell against him, I make sure to pick a mean one.
Before I can chicken out of casting the damn thing, my magic snares itself around Rook’s body in hissing coils of crackling arcane energy. No takebacks now.
He narrows his eyes as the bonds settle into place. “What are you playing at? You’ve never—”
I twist my fingers and make a fist before he can finish the sentence.
Rook screams, falling to his knees. The bonds haven’t moved. Rook’s limbs don’t break, and his skin doesn’t bruise. But I have an idea of how he’s feeling. Most spells that I’ve truly mastered, I’ve also endured at some point in an arena.
“I told you,” I tell him quietly, “I won’t damage my champion. I wouldn’t risk harming you physically before a duel. So, unfortunately for us both, I have to bewitch your pain receptors alone.”
I keep my tone light and conversational, but I don’t release my fist—or the spell. Not even when Rook begins to whimper faintly, clawing at the hotel carpet. A part of me wants to throw up. Another part of me wants to cry.
But the biggest part of me simply wants this to be over.
The awful sounds that Rook makes begin to change. For a dizzying moment, I wonder if I’ve screwed up the spell somehow, if I’ve hurt him in some terrible, permanent way.
Before I can consider letting go of the magic, though, I realize why Rook sounds different: He’s no longer whimpering. Instead, he’s laughing. A harsh, crazed cackle of laughter. Swaying slightly, he rises to his feet, still laughing.
“Oh, Sammy,” he manages between chuckles, “you really are a damn piece of work.” Bloodshot blue eyes meet mine. “Did you really think I, of all people, would yield to pain compliance alone?”
I don’t see his hands move. I don’t even sense Rook’s magic in the air. But in the blink of an eye, my spell is shattered. In its place, Rook’s magic roars over me in a wave of pure energy, pinning me flat to the hotel room floor.
I can’t speak. I can’t breathe. I’m a swimmer being pulled into deep water by an ocean tide, and for a few moments, I’m utterly helpless.
“That was a pretty good move,” says Rook. I see his feet padding toward me again, but his voice sounds tinny and distant, like we’re talking over a poor phone connection. “You surprised me. You really did. I’ve got to give credit where credit’s due, you know?”
Rook crouches down beside me. Perched in a deep squat with his lanky limbs, he looks like a character on some kids’ cartoon.
Harmless. Friendly, even. And his expression seems almost sympathetic as he finds my gaze again.
“I’m not letting you out, Sam,” he tells me, sounding like he actually regrets the situation and hasn’t brought it on us both himself.
He chews on his bottom lip for a second or two, then adds, “Not unless you yield—or unless you find a way to counter me. Which is it going to be?”
I expect to panic. I expect, at the very least, to feel furious at how thoroughly my champion has trapped me here. Instead, a bizarre sense of calm settles over me.
I’ve found a way to breathe around the pressure of the spell settling against my chest. I use careful little breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth. As I breathe, I think.
I’ve seen Rook force at least two opponents to yield with this technique.
Both successful duelists, both of whom panicked when push came to shove.
Smothering spells are fairly common in the arena, and both of those unfortunate magicians had previously countered smothering spell attempts from lesser opponents.
The sheer magnitude of Rook’s magic, however, proved too much for them to contend with.
But I face that magnitude every day of my life. And I’ve never shied away from it. Not even on that brutal day when we first met, and I took the job no one else wanted.
I continue to breathe. And, in time with my inhales and exhales, I weave the counter-spell with my fingers. It’s a simple little thing. All it requires is force of will.
And force of will, as it turns out, is something I have in spades.
My counter-spell is not especially dramatic when I cast it. Magical energy so frequently sparkles, or roars, or crackles, as if the arcane needs to announce itself to affect a magician’s opponent.
It doesn’t. And my counter-spell proves just that, as it quietly, invisibly releases me from Rook’s smothering power. I stand, gasping for air.
“So you can cast after all.” Satisfaction drips from Rook’s words as he starts toward me again. One hand is raised, ready to cast his own spell. “Good. Maybe you’ll put up a real fi—”
I don’t let him finish. The spell behind my counter-spell closes around his neck, silent but sure. A skinny, near-invisible cord of arcane energy sneaking out to ensnare my champion in the wake of my escape from his assault. It’s a simple little thing, barely noticeable.
Which is, perhaps, why it sneaks right past Rook’s usually impeccable defenses. He’s so used to grand displays and intimidation that he doesn’t expect to be attacked by the mundane—by something barely visible to an arena audience’s eye.
My little cord of magic would be harmless in most circumstances. It’s so small, so weak, it barely even counts as a spell.