Page 23 of Of Flames and Crows

Klara’s expression grew flustered.

“Yes,” she mumbled, her cheeks reddening.

Julius elbowed her in the side. “Oooh! So, we finally get to meet your boyfriend, huh?”

Klara looked like she wanted to sink into the ground.

Marlena sighed. “Bryony tattled?”

“It was Abraham, actually,” Nikolai replied.

Even though it was late in the day, the galleries were starting to fill up with witches and sorcerers. It wasn’t every day they got to witness the skills of their own leaders and the white magic of a ley-line user.

Alastair braced on Nikolai’s shoulder as he assumed a defensive stance in the middle of a wide circle formed by Marlena, Klara, Julius, and their familiars.

“You ready, Niko?” Julius called out.

Nikolai reached for the banked source of power in his belly. “I was ready yesterday,old man.”

Klara snorted. Marlena swallowed a sigh.

“Good.” Julius’s expression grew fierce. “Moon Spear!”

Nikolai raised his left hand. “Shield!” A pale, circular guard exploded in front of him as a bolt of dazzling light arrowed toward his chest from Julius’s fingertips. He twisted on his heels and lifted his right hand as the spear smashed into his shield. “Shield! Multiply!”

Another two guards formed around him, blocking Marlena and Klara’s near silent spells.

Sweat beaded his forehead as he and Alastair defended themselves against a relentless onslaught over the minutes that followed, the orb above the arena flickering faintly as it augmented the powers of his attackers.

“Focus on your Moon Magic, Nikolai!” Marlena snapped as one of Klara’s blasts glanced off his left thigh. “Stop trying to use your white magic to defend!”

Nikolai gritted his teeth, his heart slamming against his ribs. It hadn’t been until his first training session in Prague that he’d learned of his ability to use Moon Magic too. Marlena had detected a trace of it when he’d fought Barquiel in Philadelphia. She hadn’t told him at the time as she wasn’t sure if it had been wishful thinking on her part.

Though his mother had ultimately been known for being a powerful white-magic witch, she had also harbored Moon Magic in her core by virtue of her lineage. It seemed she had passed on her power to him.

Identifying and separating the two types of magic fused in his core had almost broken Nikolai and pushed Alastair to his very limits as a familiar those first couple of weeks. Though the process had been agonizingly slow, they were now in a position to wield Moon Magic and white magic individually.

It was only after they’d managed to do this that Marlena and Julius had revealed how he could protect himself and Alastair from the debilitating side effects they suffered when they accessed a ley line.

Nikolai fought back his age-old instinct to reach for the white magic bubbling in his core and continued shielding himself and Alastair with his newfound power, the thin thread connecting his core to the artificial moon above the arena throbbing brightly within him. It was another ten minutes before he finally spotted an opportunity to counter the barrage of attacks hammering at his defenses.

Now!

Alastair’s feathers fluttered against his cheek as he spread his wings open. The crow’s eyes flared a dazzling white, his magic fusing fully with Nikolai’s.

Nikolai barked out the spell they’d learned a few days ago.“Moon Storm!”

A tempest of pale light erupted around them. Alastair’s claws sank into his shoulder as it boomed across the arena, so loud his eardrums throbbed and his teeth rattled. Marlena, Julius, and Klara gasped when the shockwave drove them back several feet, surprise widening their eyes. The artificial moon trembled, the shield protecting the spectators in the galleries holding true.

Nikolai’s chest lightened. That was the most powerful Moon Magic spell he’d cast yet.

It’s not over!

He grounded his legs, aimed his hands palm down at a spot midway between his braced feet, and sent a blast of white magic into the ground. It snaked through the concrete and the very foundations of the training ground before arrowing down into the earth, as fast as lightning.

A triumphant smile stretched Nikolai’s mouth when he found the potent nexus of power that lay deep beneath the headquarters of the Council of the Moon.

Something eerie brushed against his magic as he tapped into it.

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