Page 42 of Sustaining
“I. Don’t. Know.”
The tension mixes with the disappointment thickening in my chest, but I refuse to accept that.
“You don’t know?”
The hate in her eyes softens when she looks at me, and I can tell she feels a sense of sisterhood between us. It’s how I felt with Agatha and Ellise the moment I met them. Something bigger than ourselves swirls between us as I stand here with this stranger.
“I find it curiously odd thatyoudon’t know.” Her stance remains rigid, but her tone is no longer sharp and slashing. “Do you know how many mages are left in this world?” There’s a bland emptiness in her pretty eyes as she waits for my reply.
I shake my head slowly. “Maybe a few hundred.”
Her lips part with a bitter smile. “Lower. Much lower.Obscenelylower. Less. Than. Ten.”
That number hits me hard, striking through my chest with more force than any magic she could have thrown at me.
“Ten?”
“I get glimpses here and there. There’s a friend of mine living along the coast of Warf. There’s a small group of elder mages rotting away in the Northern Kingdom: there’s one that Barron himself blinded, there’s the Queen who started it all, there’s me. And there’s you.”
All I hear is the pulsing heartbeat in my ears as I stare wide-eyed at the wild woman in front of me. Eight. If she’s right, there’s eight mages left in the entire world.
“You and I are on the brink of extinction, my friend.” She says it so casually it hurts to even listen to her anymore, but of course, I fucking do. “Barron wanted to demolish our kind and slowly, with time, with the natural fading of life, he will.”
Is that the reason why Ellise wanted me to go to Attika with her? Is she building a haven for us there? If she was, why didn’t she reach out to Agatha?
“How do I know what she wanted with me?”
Her smile is a faint appearance of happiness. It’s like she wishes she truly was happy but she just can’t find it in her to try anymore.
“You’ll have to ask her yourself. My cousin was always was a private woman. No one knew Ellise would attack her own army until the damage was done. She had big plans, but the world would have been a different place indeed if she’d been more prepared that day. If she’d reached out to even one mage of equal power, it would be an entirely different world that we live in today. It’s funny how easily history could have been changed once it’s all over and we see the bigger picture.”
A chill crawls across my bare shoulders at the sound of her sorrow-filled words.
The mage before me is lost in the thoughts of the world she’s envisioning. In that world, mages would be rulers, and men like Barron, like Linden, they’d be at our mercy.
And I wouldn’t have had to hide a day in my life.
I can feel her gaze on my face and when I look up she’s searching my features, picking me apart on the surface, but I feel her attention sinking into me, prying into my thoughts with an eerie feeling that crawls within my mind.
“You could summon her,” she tells me on a low, conspiratorial voice. “With manifesting magic, the summoned individual cannot leave until they’ve fulfilled the request or questions of the summoner.” Her eyes are shining bright with vicious excitement.
“Is it dangerous?” Kain cuts in, and his simple question makes the mage scowl at him as if she just now remembered he’s here.
“It’s not. The summoned remains in the space of the summoner’s magic until the request is filled. Then the summoned is thrown back into their previous location in the blink of an eye.”
“What do I need to do to summon her?”
The mage’s smile pulls at one corner, and it’s a quiet look of excitement.
“It’s a more powerful sort of magic. It’s so powerful, the magic will know who you wish to see the moment it’s set into motion. To summon someone, to tear them away from their lives to fulfill your own needs, sacrifices must be made.” She glances from Kain and then to me, building the pressure in my chest to an unbearable pain with each second that passes. “You’ll need a piece of someone you last harmed, a drop of someone you’ll always love, and a part of pain that you caused.”
My lip curls as I try to make sense of her words. A piece of someone, a drop of someone, and a part of pain? That doesn’t even make sense. She’s just saying crazed, strange things to scare the shit out of me, and quite honestly, she’s doing a fucking fantastic job.
Kain’s warm hand slides into mine. He nods, and I think, whether he understood a word of that or not, he’d still be pulling me away from this woman.
“Be careful, Arlow,” the mage whispers as she takes a daunting step closer to us, eating up the space of sand until she’s driving us back into the sea. With intent, she holds our gaze while forcing us out into the sea.
Cold water laps against my toes, and the moment I feel it, I react.
