Chapter 7 Nikolai
Nikolai
The beast lunges before I can. I’m too far away.
It slams into the girl and the collision ignites the sky. A column of light streaks upward, wide enough to completely obstruct my view. It spirals like jagged lightning, trying to escape. The sandsmuggler screeches, his glamour dissipating.
Fucking labyrinth. It isn’t the brother at all. It’s her.
The sheer power.
In the wake of her violent discharge of magic, the girl’s legs quiver. I’m stunned she’s still standing. Her arms are shelled up over her face. But besides the shock, she appears physically unscathed. My throat dries.
Bloody sands. She’s the reason the desert brought me here.
“Your pleas must have swayed the sands,” the sandsmuggler mutters. His gray robes sag with the weight of what I fear to be dozens of dangerous pieces of glass. I watch him, tightening my fingers over the etched glass in my own pocket. Only four amulets left.
I can’t win this fight.
But I can’t leave her here. I don’t know how she’s remained undetected until now, but I led him right to her. Like a rattlesnake to a cornered rabbit. The smuggler ogles her greedily, overconfident, before turning on me. His movements are lazy, like he’s already won.
He’s right; I can’t beat him in a fair fight. But I’m from the Halls of Glass.
I hold my palms up, empty of amulets. He knows better than to fall for it, but when the girl stumbles a step back, he glances at her.
That’s all I need.
Darkness cloaks his vision. It’s a minor annoyance at most, but it’s enough. Leaping forward, I clasp the source’s wrist in a gloved hand and haul her out of the way, leaving an identical copy of her standing in her place. Her eyes are huge—dazed and terrified.
The mage roars, burning my shadows away by sheer force. I curse, grasping at my own waning magic to hide us in plain sight. I’m tempted to draw from the source, but after her veritable explosion of magic, I can’t risk draining her.
My first amulet sputters out.
The source swivels in my grip, instinct driving her to flee.
“Don’t move,” I hiss, but her jerking head jars the glamour. Cursing, I draw heavily from my second amulet, burning through it in seconds. I fucking hate invisibility.
“What’s happening?” she cries. Quelling the sound takes another rough pull from my magic, and my third amulet gutters out beneath my fingers. The air shimmers in front of us. Not good.
The source takes advantage of my split focus and bolts, shattering the illusion entirely.
This was not part of my plan.
She hardly makes it two steps before the mage sees her.
Her scream is raw as she collapses to her knees, clapping her hands over her ears.
I instinctively reach out but pull back.
I can’t stop him, not without sacrificing everything.
I grit my teeth through her screams, wrapping my fist around my last amulet and slash out at him with a testing flurry of strikes.
He doesn’t even flinch, and I immediately regret trying.
The mage pivots toward me, flicking a handful of sizzling bolts in my direction.
Rather than cover all of my senses, I ration my remaining power by catching individual blows before they can blaze through my mind.
The source’s screams stutter into silence as the mage turns the brunt of his attacks on me.
My last amulet burns out.
Fuck.
I reach deep within my cloak and snatch the one piece of glass I did not want to use.
Rage burns through my veins as I throw a full shield up over all my senses and dart forward with the dirtiest trick in the book. While my image feigns sprinting away in the opposite direction, I grab a handful of sand and throw it in his face.
Try to magic that away.
The sandsmuggler howls, rubbing at his eyes and buffeting magic as he tries to clear them. He hasn’t yet grasped that the sand is real. Reality can hurt worse than an illusion.
I’ve stolen a minute.
I turn to the source. “You need to come with me.”
“No.” She shakes her head and backs away from me. “No…”
I don’t have time for this. This would be so much easier if she wanted to be saved. My eyes flick to the mage, then back to the source from this mangy village, the place that has already cost me a month’s worth of magic and my entire journey.
Blazing white fire whips through the air. Training takes over as I deflect the brunt of the explosion. I’m down to the dregs of my magic, too much power wasted on this girl.
The source screams as the mage’s claws slash into her mind. She doubles over, slumping to the ground.
Shit. We’re out of time.
I grab her.
Dragging her to her feet, I twist her senses into darkness. I blur us into the shadows, shielding us from the cascade of illusory flame. Careful to avoid her bare skin, I lift the girl and carry her into the desert.