Page 15 of Hijack the Seas: Tsunami

“How?”I demanded loudly enough that a couple of nearby witches paused their conversation to stare at me.I smiled weakly back and turned away, trying to spot Pritkin in the crowd.But they’d pulled him off somewhere, or too many witches had crowded between us because I couldn’t see him anymore.“We either both die here—tonight,” I hissed.“Or one of us lives, gets to Rhea, andends this—”

“And what about you?”it was strident.“You die here, and changing the past will alter nothing!You’ll still be dead—”

“Pritkin.There aretwo worldsat stake.”

“There are always bloody worlds at stake!”he exploded.“Or gods to fight!Or some fucking other thing that—”

“And we just had this discussion,” I added, because he was right.We were always fighting something these days, which meant that one of us was nearly always in danger.It was what he’d struggled with more than anything else, not with the danger to himself as war mages all had the assumption that they’d die in battle someday, and, with how reckless they were, almost acted like they were looking forward to it.But with the danger to me.

But we’d had this discussion because one life didn’t matter anymore.Bodil had been right: only the mission mattered.But now, the first time he had a chance to prove that he understood what partners meant, we were right back to square one.

And I couldn’t do this.

“You agreed,” I said, my voice breaking slightly with some emotion between desperation and anger.“You said—”

“Don’t do this to me.”It was flat.

“—we werepartners, but if that isn’t enough, try this.You are bound to me by oath and—”

Pritkin cursed some more, inventively, and cut me off.“Tell me you have a plan!”

“I have a plan.”

“Cassie—”

That was his ‘you’re lying to me, and I know it’ voice, but I didn’t give him a chance to get started.“So youwillleave me, and youwillfight to save them or live knowing that you failed us all when it mattered the most!”

I cut the connection because I was starting to hyperventilate, and that wouldn’t work, not here, not now.The only thing the covens valued in their leaders was strength, and I had to project it, at least long enough for him to get away if he was going.I couldn’t tell, but I did get hit with a rush of magical energy the next second, which helped to steady me.

But it wasn’t much because he didn’t have much left.We’d been almost non-stop fighting gods, fey, and every other conceivable creature for days.This fight wasn’t going to take long.

But there would be one because it looked like Zara’s people had had time to talk sense into her.Refusing a challenge would make her look weak and embolden those unhappy with her leadership.Killing me would get rid of a problem, slake the witches’ lust for vengeance, and make her look strong, all at the same time.

Her magically enhanced voice rang out around the great cave once more, bringing the room’s cacophony to a pause.

“Very well.If the vampire’s bitch wants a duel, she shall have one.It will substitute for the Gauntlet and decide once and for all who leads this coven!”

There was some muttering to this, but nobody defied her, perhaps hoping I’d kill her and then they’d gang up and take me out.Or maybe I was just being paranoid.Because I didn’t think I was going to kill her.

No, I didn’t think that at all.

The witches drained away from the central area of the floor where we stood, leaving just Zara and me in the center.Then somebody levitated the crudely made torches out of dozens of witches’ hands and sent them spiraling above us, casting flickering tongues of light below like a wildly rotating chandelier.It reminded me of the crazed lights at the fey court, although those had been balls of spell-light that actually illuminated something, while these—

Were throwing shadows that masked the first hammer blow of a spell that almost took my head off.

Only it didn’t, and not because Zara was playing games.But because I dodged it.Or, no, that wasn’t exactly right.Idodgedit with a fluid grace and speed that I was incapable of on my best day, which this was not.

I’d slept in my smelly suit of armor, giving me bruises on top of my bruises, and had eaten God-knew-what in wholly insufficient quantities.I was frazzled, exhausted, freaked out, and spent, completely used up after the week I’d had, and in no shape to be doing...whatever the hell I was doing.But the rapid-fire curses hitting the ground all around me, that tore up the stone in explosions, the flying detritus of which alone slapped me in the face and punched my body almost as hard as fists, never actually touched me.

They caused the witches to scream, shield, and back the hell up even farther than they already were.They took out some of the torches, raining sparks and steaming pitch down on me and Zara, and causing others to spin wildly as they were knocked out of rotation.The fiery whirls crisscrossed the darkness in front of my dazzled eyes, strobing my vision and making an already difficult-to-follow fight virtually impossible.The blows looked like they were coming from all directions at once, and maybe they were; maybe her friends were cheating.

And yet, somehow, I was staying ahead of all of them.Jumping over one that came from the side in a leap that would have made an Olympian proud, and causing it to smack into another that had either ricocheted off the walls or been thrown by someone else.And sending the original curse flying back the way it had come, almost frying Zara had she not ducked at the last second.

As it was, it seared some of the wild salt and pepper hair off and caused both of us to stare for a moment.

Damn, I didn’t understand anything!

Until I did, when everything suddenly slowed way, way down.

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