Page 11 of Lera of Lunos
Stars.Aiming the tip of my sword at Viper’s heart, I lower my level until my thighs roar, and lunge.
Viper sidesteps from my line of attack, his sword swinging in a powerful arc. The blade whistles through the air, the light reflecting off it making me squint. My heart stutters, my breath clogging in my lungs. I twist on instinct. Angle my blade down. Meet the blow with the center of my steel.
“Someone’s been training with Coal,” Viper says, a note of approval in his voice, like a spark of light in the darkness. A moment later, his voice drops, his accent—an echo of Tye’s, with its songlike syllables and strong, rolling r’s—hardening. “You’ll need more than that to get my tail, lass.”
Viper strikes again, moving as fast as his namesake, thewhoosh, whoosh, whooshof his sword assaulting without a moment’s pause. I block each strike, my muscles screaming between the blows. Each collision forces me back, one step at a time.
Strike, block. Strike, block.The escalating attack drives me into a never-ending retreat. Sweat snakes down my face, stinging my eyes, while rising bits of sand coat my panting tongue. The sound of my own rasping breath is harsh against Viper’s soft grunts, the ringing of clashing steel.
Strike, block. Strike, block.No end. Never an end.
Distantly, I notice action at the edges of my vision. Bodies in combat as my quint fends off the other warriors, the clang of metal so steady that I know my males aren’t playing to win, but to buy me time.
And Viper isn’t playing to win either. He’s playing for a different reason. My eyes widen as I spin from another blow. “You... are... herding me.” My words come in gasps.
“Aye.” Viper grins.
“Where?”
“Och, to just about... here.” Before I can scream, the male snaps his fingers and a shield of shimmering, opaque silver encircles the two of us in a space twenty paces across and at least fifteen smooth, impenetrable feet high. A wall of magic cutting me off from my quint. The burnt sky overhead only intensifies the feeling of being caged.
“What the bloody hell is that?” With my sword between myself and Viper, I rush to the shimmering wall and find it solid as stone. “River!” I bellow with all the air left in my lungs.
River, River, River, the echo calls.
“They can’t hear us.” The self-satisfaction in Viper’s voice burns through me. “It’s a static shield. It exists on its own now, without us needing to hold it. Took all our magics and a great deal of study.”
I reach desperately for the connection to my males—and find silence. Even my sense of Coal is gone, cut off from me by that shield. There will be no additional magic to echo, but my existing weave of power, that thick braid of silver, brown, and orange cords, still whips about, purple wisps magnifying its force. A great weave of a quint’s full power, all within me, and no way to get to River for relief. No safety valve. No one to help rein in the feral monster that I’ve woven into existence.
Cut off. Alone. Isolated.
My vision darkens at the edges, wiping away my fatigue. My muscles tighten. My lungs expand, each fiber in my body trembling with energy even as the storm of panic bubbles in my veins. Out. I need out of here. Now.
I slam my fist into the shield, my knuckles screaming at the impact. Nothing. Again. Pain erupts in my bones, and I stare at the blood now leaking from my hand.
The braided magic inside me flails, slipping from my grip.
The earth underneath us gives an ominous shake. I scramble to re-grasp the magic, nausea from the effort rising in my stomach.
“Stop,” Viper shouts, the amusement gone from his voice. “I won’t touch you. The shield will—”
My ears start to ring, cutting off sound. The cords of magic slip further, even as I dig my nails into them. My sword thumps to the sand, my breath halting, all my concentration going toward holding on while the magic rears like a terrified stallion.
With the next jerk, the thick weave pulls free of my grasp and lashes like a whip against the shield.
Hits. Bounces. Ricochets into the ground.
The earth trembles, portions of the ground rising up and down like waves. Again. Again. Each shocking quake greater than the last. Up and up, before falling from beneath our feet.
“What are you doing?” Viper bellows. “Stop! For stars’ sake, stop.”
“I can’t!” I snatch desperately for the bolting beast, only to find it wilder still, vengeful for the earlier restraints that led it into this trap. Determined to shatter that opaque shield jailing us here.
The wounded earth quakes again, rising in a wave so massive that it launches me into the air.
Viper throws himself at me, twisting to take the brunt of the impact as we’re thrown against the shield. A trickle of blood snakes down his sweaty forehead when we land. I open my mouth to ask if he’s all right, to demand an explanation for his protecting me, but the words change before I can utter them. “Watch out, Viper!” I point at a crack starting at the circle’s edge and spreading along the ground through its center. Cleaving it in two.
Ignoring my last attempt to stop it, the dark brown cord of River’s earth magic pulls free of the now unraveling weave and descends upon the shifting earth. The ground cracks beneath the pressure, and what started as a small crack erupts into a five-pace-wide fissure that swallows Viper into its darkness.
