Page 97 of Storm to Victory
“If you can deflect the magic-stealing magic, then how was ogre deflecting magic taken to use on their aeroplanes?” Fieran shot Aaruk a glance before he swept his gaze over the street ahead of them, looking for threats.
“One, the magic’s purpose isn’t for stealing other magic. That’s what those scientists twisted it to do.” Aaruk’s mouth pressed into a tight line, his eyes flashing. “I can deflect the twisted magic coming from these machines. But that machine hooked up directly to your body was something else entirely.”
With a nod, Fieran clamped his mouth shut. He’d experienced that difference firsthand. The machine under the airship had latched onto his magic, draining it, but it hadn’t been carving the very essence of his magic out of his chest.
The tromping of boots, too rhythmic to be anything but a squad of Mongavarian soldiers marching double time, echoed from somewhere around the far corner.
Fieran glanced at Dacha, even as he reached over his shoulders for his swords. “So what’s the plan?”
Dacha faced the street and drew his swords, letting his magic twine over his hands and down the length of the blades. A smile, both grim and strangely glinting, creased his face. “We destroy stuff until they surrender.”
For a moment, Fieran could only blink at his dacha. Then he grinned as he drew his own swords. When he released his magic, it crackled down his blades and pooled around him on the street. There wasn’t so much as a hint of pain in his chest.
While Fieran couldn’t see it, Aaruk must have been using his magic because Fieran’s magic skated away from the ogre when it got too close, the taste of that familiar now-not-unknown magic filling his magical senses, although the wielded version was much stronger and deeper than the false and twisted version he’d encountered before.
As Fieran joined his dacha facing the distant, oncoming Mongavarian soldiers, he flexed his fingers on his swords, readying himself. “Was this always the plan when you and Uncle Edmund were going to be here on your own?”
“No. Your uncle’s plan was a lot more subtle. It involved far more sneaking and far fewer explosions.” As if growing tired of waiting for the enemy to come to him, Dacha stalked down the street once again, his magic crackling around his feet. “This is my version of the plan.”
“I like your plan.” Fieran hurried to catch up. “I knew my tendency for explosions didn’t come from my human side.”
Dacha’s grin was feral, blue light dancing in the depths of his eyes. Behind them, Dacha’s magic reached their abandoned aeroplane, and it went up in a concussive explosion. “No, it did not.”
Fieran smirked back and let his magic burst more powerfully from his fingertips and down his swords. Time to rescue Pip and end this war.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
Pip jerked awake from a light, restless doze at the sound of boots tromping down the stairs. By the time she rolled upright, blinking at the weak light of dawn filtering through the windows across the way, a dozen guards had marched into the passageway. Six of them headed for Prince Edmund’s cell while the other six faced hers.
Across the way, Prince Edmund struggled to push himself onto his elbows.
Pip forced herself to let go of the blanket as the guards unlocked the door to her cell. “Now?”
“Not yet.” Prince Edmund answered her dwarvish with the same language.
How long did he want her to wait until she revealed her magic? Was he going to wait until they were facing down the guns of the firing squad?
Probably. He was Fieran’s uncle, after all. She now knew where Fieran had gotten his flare for the dramatic.
Pip stood and didn’t resist as four of the guards entered her cell. They shackled her hands in front of her before shoving her into the passageway.
The guards shackled Prince Edmund’s hands before they dragged him from his cell. He seemed to be struggling to walk, his legs unable to hold him. She wasn’t sure how much was an act and how much of his weakness was real.
The two of them were marched up the stairs and through several corridors before they were hauled through a door into the courtyard that Pip had seen through the window of her original dungeon cell.
She and Prince Edmund were dragged to a spot where several buildings created a sheltered spot near the outer wall.
There, another dozen soldiers were loading their rifles as they stood behind a wall created by a double layer of straw bales. Likely to absorb any ricochets off the stone wall.
Pip swallowed and staggered closer to the guards dragging Prince Edmund. “Now?”
“Not yet,” Prince Edmund murmured, hanging nearly limp in the grip of the guards.
The guards hauled Pip and Prince Edmund to a spot in front of the outer wall of the castle. When the guards released Prince Edmund, he crumpled to the ground. One of the guards gave a huff, dragged Prince Edmund back to his feet, and shifted him to where a ring was set into the wall, likely for hitching a horse, back when horses were the primary transportation. He shackled the prince’s hands to it.
Prince Edmund gripped it, his legs still wobbling and sagging beneath him as he propped himself up against the wall.
