Chapter 39 The Hybrid #2
The first words out of his mouth in English definitely surprised me the most.
“Do not kill her!” he shouted loudly. His voice thundered out of his chest. He held up his good arm, his silver eyes sharpening as spells began twisting towards me over the snow. “Do not kill her! Non-lethal spells only!”
I used the plasma to melt several clouds of magic careening my way.
One had been transforming into collection of gold spears.
One of those spears got through and slammed into my leg, making me grunt and stumble backwards, but I barely felt it.
I sent a ribbon of fire at the mage who cast it, and he gasped, barely managing to throw it off him with a dense shield, even as he stepped out of the way. I heard other voices shouting now.
That time they came from my right, the direction of the school.
I recognized some of those voices, too.
I looked over just long enough to see an uneven line of mages and witches sprinting towards me through the falling snow and icy mud. A black and gold cape rippled off the shoulders of one near the front, and I recognized the chiseled face of my cousin, Valor.
Magic left his hand, even as I focused on him.
It slammed out toward the crowd of black-robed Magicals, and suddenly, the air lit up all around me.
I saw the black-robed wizards and witches scatter across the snow, taking up defensive positions even as Malefic sent a streak of blue and purple fire directly at my cousin.
I saw Valor block it with a grunt, but Malefic hit him with a second curse and Valor stumbled and went down on one knee, even as he continued casting.
Between the two fronts, a gap opened up in front of where I stood.
I didn’t think, but began to run.
My feet pounded over the hard earth as I ran directly towards Bones, threading between the Dark Cathedral fighters and the ones fighting alongside my cousin. I could see him, up ahead, collapsed on the snow, and closer to the forest than anyone else.
The two Magicals I’d hit with that sun-like plasma smoldered in the snow to either side of him. They’d stopped screaming a while ago.
Now, neither of them were moving.
I’d barely gotten within a dozen feet of where Bones was, when another robed figure suddenly darted out of the shadowy woods. Before I could reach him, she stood over him, something bright and gleaming in her hand.
She looked back over her shoulder at me and I immediately recognized the eerily beautiful face, the blue and black-streaked long hair, the close-set blue eyes, and the cruel twist to her smile.
Sirena grinned at me, and pressed the long knife she held to Bones’s throat. Her other hand fisted in his hair, holding him up off the snow.
Blood trickled down his pale skin where she nicked him with the blade.
I skidded to a stop, staring at that line of blood.
“Don’t!” The word exploded out of me. I held up a hand, fighting to think. “You heard Malefic! You heard what he said!”
“I heard him say I couldn’t kill you.” Sirena smiled at me sweetly. “I didn’t hear him say anything about pretty, pretty Caelum.”
A sick feeling twisted through my gut, even as my magic began pulling on the sun primal over my head. I brought as much of it down to my hands as I dared, still watching the blade she held tightly to Caelum’s throat.
“Let him go,” I managed. “Please.”
She stared at me for a moment longer, a near curiosity in her round eyes, like she found my agitation and desperation and devastation fascinating.
Then, before I could get out another word, she took a step back, still holding Bones tightly by the hair. She dragged him sharply with her.
She and Bones vanished.
I stared, for less than a breath.
Then I screamed without thought, and leapt forward over the snow.
“NO!”
My mind scrabbled to make sense of their disappearance.
It had to be a vanishing spell, some kind of illusion.
She’d made them invisible, cast a strong chimaera.
I could still find them. No one could phase other than Bones.
Valor would help me track them in the woods.
I had the dragon ring. He said he never took it off.
I could find him. There was no way she could have possibly taken him out of there––
I skidded to another stop when I’d nearly reached the place where they’d been.
A mirror lay on the ground, frameless and inert.
I ran the rest of the way up to it and tried to put my feet through, to follow them to the other side, but the glass stopped my boot without letting me through. I fell to my knees and felt over it with my hands, but the wide, oval panel remained inert.
I went into my sun primal and tried again.
I threw the blue plasma on it, trying to bring it to life.
It didn’t matter.
Nothing I did changed the pane of glass.
I heard shouts and more screams, and I looked up from the other side of the mirror just in time to see the rest of the black-robed figures vanish.
I stared numbly as three in a row disappeared from the field without a sound.
Then a hauntingly tall mage with rings on his fingers, straight, black hair, and a shockingly pale face jumped towards the ground, and disappeared just like I’d seen Sirena do.
Malefic.
I pulled on my sun primal with everything left in me. Using every ounce of my magic I could summon, I tried to force my way through, but the glass panel wouldn’t change. It lay there, like a normal human mirror, reflecting the dark sky as snow landed softly on its surface.
That time, when I hit into it with my bare fist, the surface cracked.
He was gone.
Wherever she’d taken him, wherever they’d gone, I couldn’t follow.