Chapter Eighteen #3
That was an offensive shield used against people, Tor realized distantly, but he didn’t have time to think about that right now, because he was using his own shield against the door that was blocking him from his family.
With a crash and splinter of wood, the door gave way, and they burst into the room.
There were perhaps half a dozen guards, most of them attacking the shields protecting Tor’s family. He saw everything in weird bits and pieces, like his brain was compartmentalizing and assessing in split seconds.
Nostex was standing over the shield that Fernila and the baby were in.
Cala was bawling. In a second shield, Ada was collapsed on the ground, but she still had a shield shimmering over her.
Both shields were tinged lightly pink, but Tor had way more experience than he wanted with knowing it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could get.
Var’s magic was still holding up, despite the onslaught.
Everyone had paused their attack to gape at Tor standing where the door had been.
“You know what your problem is?” Tor said to Nostex, who looked truly startled and just a little bit fearful. “You actually think that you have a chance to defeat me.”
“How did you get free?” he demanded wildly.
Tor realized that Fernila was sobbing as well as the baby, and now she was crying out Var’s name. Tor tuned it out.
“By being smarter than you,” he said simply, edging farther into the room and making sure that no one was at his back.
“You thought that you got rid of my allies? You thought that you could betray my trust and that was the end of it? You have no idea what I’m capable of. You don’t know anything at all.”
A few of the guards tried to rush Tor, but with another blast of magic, they were sent careening across the room.
Nostex scowled fiercely. “Stronex. You really think it wise to go up against me?”
Stronex sounded implacable. “I’ve been up against you from the beginning, Nostex, or did you forget that? I wanted a unified peace, and you seek nothing but power.”
“I’ll serve no one!” Nostex snarled.
“You’re the ruler of an entire realm!” Tor snapped.
Nostex gritted out, “I was made to kneel.”
Tor had been ten when they’d passed the peace accords. He didn’t think anyone had been required to kneel to his mother, but he supposed that to someone like Nostex, magical Fealty was the same thing.
“You were given an opportunity to create real and lasting peace,” Tor corrected. “You’ve thrown it away for your own selfish gain. It won’t be tolerated.”
“You can’t stop me.” His smile was mean. “Just like I killed your brother and your sister, I’m going to kill the rest of your family, and then I’m going to kill you.”
Tor’s gaze went involuntarily to Ada’s still form in the shield, which was, of course, when Nostex attacked, an avatar twice his size—its head practically brushing the ceiling—appearing and stabbing with a pure magic blade right at Tor.
Tor barely managed to parry in time, and the strength of the blow made him stumble back.
The battle rapidly descended into chaos.
Nostex was crafty and incredibly strong.
He was holding nothing back, his avatar and sword arm delivering fierce blows that Tor deflected as often as he could.
They had to work around the shielded forms of Fernila, Cala, and Ada, and Tor and Stronex had to make sure not to hit them accidentally, as that would only weaken Var further.
The baby was still crying—was it just Tor who was filled with the instinctive urge to stop what he was doing and go soothe her?—and Beluna, Cavun, and Stronex’s guard were fighting the other guards who hadn’t been knocked out by Stronex’s shield.
Stronex had manifested his own avatar to fight Nostex’s, but Tor didn’t manifest his own yet, worried that its size would make it clear he wasn’t actually a ruler with the Fealty of an entire realm.
As sweat trickled down his back, Tor acknowledged he should have checked his avatar before, but it hadn’t occurred to him.
He didn’t know if five thousand people was enough.
Did Var have an avatar that would fill this whole room because he had the Fealty of every ruler? Not a helpful thought at this point.
Nostex’s eyes gleamed with a maniacal light, no humanity in them. He really planned to kill Tor’s whole family and his own daughter and granddaughter to try to seize power, as if he didn’t have enough already.
Tor thought he must have been a phenomenal fighter when he was younger. He wasn’t quite as fast on his feet as Tor was, but the sheer power behind his blows was a serious problem, and his avatar had a huge reach.
If Tor hadn’t had Stronex with him, he would have been in serious trouble, but it was still difficult. Nostex thought he was on the cusp of bringing a decades-long plan to fruition, and the glittering hatred that he shot Tor’s way was disconcerting in its ferocity.
Without warning, the shields around Fernila, Cala, and Ada disappeared, and magic surged through Tor. Not giving himself time to think, Tor threw up his own shields, protecting his family once more. These shields gleamed pure white and Nostex’s eyes flew to Tor’s.
Tor made himself smile at the man. “Have to have a few tricks up my sleeve. After all, I do have the Fealty of the entirety of the United Realms at my fingertips.”
Nostex let out a snarl of rage and came at Tor.
“Not mine! You don’t have my Fealty, you peace-loving fool!”
Tor was driven back by the savage strikes, but Stronex managed to intervene again, his Avatar crashing into Nostex’s and distracting it, sending the two avatars off into battle so Tor could square up against Nostex once again.
Had Nostex renounced his Fealty to Var? Goddess, what sort of a toll would that have taken?
Tor gritted his teeth. “I don’t need your Fealty to defeat you. I’ll do it just like my mother did.”
Face twisted into a rictus of fury, Nostex attacked Tor again, savage blows that sent pain ricocheting up his body.
Did Tor know how to piss someone off, or what?
He fought back with every trick he had, unleashing more magic than he ever had before, because he was normally up against an opponent who was magically weaker than he was—or he’d been playing with his brother.
Even when they’d battled hard practicing with the guards, Tor knew now that he hadn’t been putting everything he had into those fights.
He had the Fealty now, but he’d never felt like he was fighting for his very life the way he was now.
(Unless it was the landslide. Fighting to keep everyone safe from the landslide had had similar dire consequences, but fighting nature wasn’t the same as fighting someone who hated you with burning ferocity and was determined to kill you and everyone you loved.)
His arms ached, and he was sure he was bruised from head to toe.
Mantling his skin with this much of his magic was close to the strength of a shield, but the magic didn’t entirely deflect the force of all the blows that slipped past his guard.
None had been fatal or broken skin yet, but they still hurt.
Tor felt like he was getting firsthand experience of what it must have been like to fight in the war, and he had to say, he didn’t like it. Rulers were meant to be protecting their people and the land, not wielding their magic like a weapon.
Pel really was right that their society put way too much emphasis on Extraordinary magic.
Would Nostex would run out of magic eventually? He’d been attacking Var’s shields when they arrived. Wouldn’t he need to pause and replenish at some point? Was he fueled purely by spite?
He had the advantage in that he wanted everyone in this room to die, and so he didn’t have to take care to protect anyone the way that Tor and Stronex did, always trying to make sure everyone else stayed safe.
Really, that was always going to be Tor’s weakness—and likely Var’s, too. Nostex finally figured that out, going after Beluna. Tor knew she was absolutely no match for the magic-powered force of Nostex’s blows, so he lunged after the man—and failed to take note of what Nostex’s avatar was doing.
It crashed into him with the force of a collapsing building, sending him flying into the wall, his sword falling from his temporarily nerveless grasp.
Head ringing, Tor looked up at the enraged, triumphant man bearing down on him, sword raised for a killing blow.