Chapter 11 #2
He unleashed a barrage of spells almost instantaneously—stunning spells, disarming spells, spells that could seriously hurt her.
Lesya threw up a shield in front of her, blocking all of them.
Now, if she’d been using any other weapon than a hand harness, she wouldn’t have been able to pull up a shield on such short notice.
Her shield hadn’t fully dissolved when she leaped out of it and threw a radial binding spell at Clive. She’d seen how deftly he had side-stepped in his fight with Elias. A radial spell would make it difficult for him to dodge.
She was right. Clive was caught off-guard momentarily. This wasn’t a spell that was usually used in combat. Lesya had learned it from Trisha’s medical books. It was a spell they used in psychiatric wards and prisons in case of a breakout, one that bound you and rooted you to the ground.
Lesya wasn’t about to wait for Clive to shake off the spell. He was hit with it even though he’d jumped to the side. She cast a look around her, saw that Cassian was impressed, Elias was fuming, and the soldiers were no longer looking amused.
Lesya brought a pillar of fire raining down from the sky where Clive stood. He shot up a shield. The fire barrage shattered his shield, burning him.
Clive screamed, and sent a torturous curse flying at Lesya. Profane-craft. A torturous curse sent blinding pain through your whole body. It felt like you were being burned alive. Or spilled open by a thousand cuts.
Lesya had plenty of time to dodge the spell, but where was the fun in that?
She stood there, arms held out, the spell hitting her in the chest.
There it was, pain. Blinding pain that made her feel alive like nothing else. She didn’t scream. She harnessed all the pain, standing still, tears rolling down her face. Profane-craft had its own set of rules. Whatever you sent someone’s way came back to you threefold.
Lesya channeled all the pain and agony in her hand harness and sent it at Clive, who was still shaking off flames from his clothes.
The spell hit him with brute force, throwing him off his feet, sending him flying through the sky. He screamed as he fell to the ground, writhing as the torturous curse, turned thrice as potent, seared his body.
His soldiers made to rush to his side, but Lesya held her hand up. The duel was still ongoing. She walked up to where he lay thrashing, her steps slow, her harness aimed at him. She levitated him off the ground, then brought him back down with great force, knocking him out.
“Holy fuck,” Elias whispered, gawking at Clive’s unconscious form.
“Lesya!” Cassian said loudly. “What did you do?—”
“Just showing that I’m not a liability,” she said casually, tightening her harness. “Besides, he was the one who used the profane-craft on me first.”
“Are you okay?” he asked, running up to her. “Are you in pain?”
“You of all people should not pretend that I’m averse to pain,” she said, giving his cheek a pat.
“Rosefield!” Clive barked as he got to his feet, assisted by two of his soldiers. “Come here!”
She walked up to him, a strut in her steps.
“That was remarkable,” Clive said, wiping blood from his lower lip. “Where on earth did you learn how to fight like that?” He held out his hand in reverence.
She shook it firmly, a sign of respect after a successful duel.
“My mother, Mr. Bane,” she said. “Whenever she’d give in to her sickness, she’d look for me. Torture me. Try to subdue me. There’s only so much a girl can take. When I grew up, I learned to fight back.” She could’ve told him the whole story, but trading spells was far more fun than trading words.
“I don’t doubt it,” Clive said, then nodded at Elias and his group. “How about you take lead and whip them into shape? I don’t expect them to be combat-ready by tomorrow, but anything’s better than nothing.
“Mr. Bane, it would be my pleasure,” she said, grinning at him.
“That’s a real obscure piece of knowledge about profane-craft, Rosefield,” Clive said, still drawing shallow breaths. “Good work on that. I wasn’t expecting it.”
“You three! Fall in line!” Clive yelled at Elias, Theo, and Freya. “Since Ms. Rosefield is clearly better skilled than all three of you, you three shall duel her together.”
Lesya knew that Clive was trying to get back at her for defeating him so humiliatingly in front of his soldiers, but these three were easy work.
Lesya hadn’t told Clive Bane the full truth.
She never told him about the alleyway duel clubs, the ones where you could stand to make decent money if you stood your own.
She hadn’t always known how to alchemize gold.
There was a time before Umbrveyl when she was growing up in abject poverty.
Her mother didn’t have a job. Whatever savings she had, she used for her own experiments and rituals.
There was also the matter of the frozen dead body in the basement and its upkeep.
Lesya learned early on that a young girl in such dark alleyways could stand to make twice as much money as the other contestants if she could get hit by one profane spell after another and still be standing at the end of a match.
The people who bet on her and against her took great pleasure in watching her suffer.
She didn’t mind as long as it meant that she walked away with enough money to survive the next month.
When she finally got admission into Umbrveyl, she promised herself that she would forget that life.
But such things did not do well to be forgotten.
If she hadn’t tried to put that past behind her during her first week, she’d have sent a curse hurtling toward the one who had hurt her in Voltaire’s Research Wing. She’d have dismantled him right then and there. But something had stayed her hand. A desire to reinvent herself.
Besides, if the whole thing hadn’t gotten to Cassian’s notice then, he wouldn’t have ever come to her, asked her if she was all right. She wouldn’t have ever fallen in love with him. They wouldn’t be together now.
Perhaps not all forgetting was bad.
“Oy!” Elias said, clapping his hands in front of her. “We’re waiting.”
Cassian was standing behind them at a fair distance, worry evident in the many furrows of his brow.
I’ll be all right, Lesya let him know.
It’s not you I’m worried about, he joked. Go easy on them.
The three of them circled her, Freya standing behind her, Theo to her side, and Elias facing her head-on.
She waited for them to make the first move.
They cast a stunning spell at her in unison, something she deflected effortlessly.
She still waited patiently, not making any offensive move.
Theo unleashed a barrage of stunning spells at her mixed with a series of disarming ones.
He figured if he could take her harness off her hand, they’d stand a better chance of finishing this fight as victors.
Lesya deflected the attacks with a flick of the wrist. When it came to deflection, you could only deflect spells that were not profane.
With profane spells, you could not deflect or parry them.
You could only avoid them, or get hit with them.
There was a spell of torture, a spell of controlling the other’s mind, a spell of blindness, a spell of madness.
Several spells, each with their dark purpose, but none of them darker than the death curse.
What made it dangerous was that it could not be seen.
Whereas other spells carried through the air with a streak of their own or with a powerful effect, the death curse was silent, invisible, the deadliest spell to exist. It also extracted a horrible cost from the caster, leaving them weakened.
It was a spectacular dance, Lesya wearing her black robes, swishing and swerving as she avoided their spells, the other three wearing the beige robes that represented their house.
She ducked and cast a disarming spell on Theo just after he’d finished sending another barrage her way. His spellblade rose in the air. She pulled it toward herself and grabbed it.
Then she sent lightning all around her, bored of all the rhythm, wanting to switch things up a little. It was not a harmless spell, but it wasn’t lethal. She watched with some sick satisfaction as all three of them writhed as electricity jolted their bodies.
Theo fell on his knees and raised his hands in surrender as the spell ended. Freya still stood behind her, readying her next spell. But Elias, furious, fuming, stood with murder in his eyes. She wanted to disarm him before he did something stupid, but she could feel her mana depleted.
Her eyes grew wide with shock as she saw him mouthing the words to the death curse, his face burning with hatred.
Was anyone else seeing this?
She had no time to see if they were. She threw herself back, saving herself from the spell.
There was a painful scream from behind her.
She looked with horror as Freya collapsed to the ground, unmoving.
“No!” Elias yelled as he realized what he’d done.
Lesya, still in disbelief, ran over to Freya. Freya’s skin had gone pale and cold instantaneously. She had no pulse.
“No, no, no,” Lesya whispered under her breath, panicking. Freya was not a friend nor someone she’d ever talked to at school. But she was an Umbrveyl student, and she’d just witnessed her dying.
Lesya?! Cassian called out in her head.
She set up a wall in her mind. She did not need him right now.
Aeterna, she called out in her franticness. She didn’t deserve to die just yet. It was an accident.
The Death Mother’s presence felt like a dark cloud covering her. She could only feel her, not see her.
You hold the power to do what you needs be done, Aeterna spoke clearly in her mind. By the old blood and what power I have granted you, bring her back if you so desire.
Lesya considered the consequences. Elias knew he’d cast the death curse. It was why he knelt on his knees, unable to move. He’d killed his best friend in doing so. If Lesya was to bring Freya back, he would know what she was truly capable of.
But the life of an innocent hung in the balance.