Page 88 of Pawns of Fate
“I understand. I loved once, too.”Rose had never heard a more wistful voice in her life. The urge to join the light tugged on her mind again, but in an almost… playful manner. Rose only had to look at Nicholas’s face to squash any urge to join the light. Worry for him flooded her entire being. The spirit seemed to have stopped time, but she couldn’t be sure how long it would last. She still needed to help him.
“Will you help us?” she asked the spirit. Who knew what it really wanted? Rose decided that it couldn’t hurt to ask.
The ball of light shuddered, wiggling back and forth.
“What will you do if I help you? I don’t want any more spells here.”Rose could feel it pointing to the floor, where Lysander had defaced its home. She could feel its suspicion in her own body.
“We could erase those spells,” Rose replied hastily, “but only if you can take care ofhimfor us.” She pointed to Lysander.
The ball shook back and forth.“I can’t stop him, or I wouldn’t have let him ruin my home in the first place.”
“Just help my husband defeat him, then,” Rose proposed, a little hope daring to find its way into her voice.
The ball of light chuckled.“You can do that, little mage.”
A part of Rose wanted to argue, to tell the spirit that she was not a mage. But again, her concern for Nicholas drowned out all other thoughts.She reached out and touched Nicholas’s frozen cheek, wanting to soothe the pain she saw painted on his face.
She’d seen his aura before. Sparks of silver lightning, though there were a few traces of pink now, which warmed her heart. And this time, she could see the flow of lightning mana through his body, like thin veins of silver light that merged on his heart, forming a delicate knot.
“You can do that, little mage.”The spirit’s words started to make sense to her. Lysander’s insistence that aura and mana were two sides of the same coin started to make sense to her. She could do this.
Rose reached out and held the knot of Nicholas’s mana in her hands. She willed it to grow.
Her breath stilled for a moment, and then, the knot beganto grow, sparks of electricity, silver and pink, dancing and growing stronger around it. Even the veins of mana that flowed through Nicholas’s body grew from small streams to rivers of shimmering energy.
“I told you.”The ball of light bounced up and down in a way that seemed to indicate it was pleased.
“Thank you, thank you! How can I repay you?”
“Set me free,”the spirit replied with a hint of sadness.
“How?”
“I don’t want to live with the madman’s mess anymore. His spells ruined my home.”
“Are you certain?” Rose yelled, feeling the tug of time restarting around her and her consciousness drawing closer to her physical form.
“Take care of my descendant.”The little ball of light flew over to Kagon and enveloped his reptilian body. It shone impossibly bright for a minute, then disappeared entirely. But before Rose could ask any of the thousands of questions that tugged on her mind, her consciousness fully returned to the physical plane.
Chapter 28
NICHOLAS
Lysander’s shadows overpowered him. Nicholas drowned in an ocean of midnight. A scream sounded in the darkness. Was it his own?
He tried to actuate another spell, but it only cut through a few inches of the inky magic. He was going to die here, going to suffocate from these shadows.
And yet all he could think about was Rose. Her warmth filled his heart, even here at the end of his life. Suddenly, that warmth grew. Nicholas shuddered. His body felt stronger, healthier than it had been since he was a teenager. He could command athunderstorm with all of this energy. What had happened? Had he died already?
“Nicholas, please! You can break through! I know you can!” Rose’s voice sounded distant and close at the same time. Was she beside him or miles away? Nicholas couldn’t tell, but he had nothing to lose. If he were dying, he might as well go out fighting for her.
He actuated a spell that usually took all of his mana, and when the sparks formed around his blade, the shadows melted away as if he’d summoned lightning strong enough to vaporize a troll. Strange. Normally, he could hardly burn a goblin with his magic.
He thrust his sword into the middle of Lysander’s spell circle, and it disappeared completely.
That was far too easy. What had happened? Was he dead already?
He looked over at Rose, who was leaping up and down with joy, cheering him on. Was he imagining this?
