Page 65 of Pawns of Fate
“When will your mana refill?” Ava asked.
“I’ll have enough to send Syzman a short message through this spell—” Lyla tapped on a black spell circle that decorated her bicep “—after a few hours. I can’t do much more than that. Teleporting all three of us is out of the question.”
“Will Syzman come help us?”
“Depends on where he is,” Lyla said with a noncommittal shrug. “I left him with teleportation scrolls. I adjusted a few to the mana of lightning mages, so he may bring Nicholas or York.”
Hope Rose had forgotten flooded into her when Lyla mentioned Nicholas.
“Will they come find us?” Ava’s voice wobbled with relief.
“I sent Syzman a short message after Rose was attacked in the library, but before the troll. So they don’t know we’ve left the city.”
“Shit,” Ava and Rose replied simultaneously.
“It’s likely Syzman won’t have enough mana to help teleport all three of them to Uddedin, even with the scrolls. Our best option is to find a border village and wait for them there.”
“How far is the border village?”
Lyla grimaced. “I don’t know. We didn’t get nearly as far from Uddedin as I wanted us to.”
“Should we wait here, then?”
“No. Trolls and drakes aren’t the only monsters in this desert. Not to mention the heat.” Lyla was right. It was still early summer, so it was bearable, but sitting under thesun for hours, maybe even days, was a bad idea. “We need shelter.”
“We walk, then. Which way?” Rose asked.
Lyla pointed toward the highest of the looming rocky foothills. “I’ll climb one of those trees. If I don’t spot a village, we’ll head north until we do.”
Rose suppressed the panic that clawed at her chest. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all they had.
The three women set off, and a thought tickled the back of Rose’s mind. All of this time, she had been worried about Nicholas fighting for his life in the swamps. She couldn’t help but laugh at the irony that now she was the one in a more precarious situation.
Chapter 21
NICHOLAS
Nicholas cleaned the lizardmen’s blood off his sword while he waited for Syzman to contact Lyla. Perhaps if Lyla could help them deactivate the spell controlling these monsters, things at the swamp would sort themselves out quickly. As frustrated as he was with the shadow mages, stumbling upon the source of the red spells was the best solution to the monster problem.
Really, it could only be better if they found the person manufacturing the spells. The more Nicholas thought about it, the more that piece of the puzzle worried him. He couldn’t shakethe idea that everything was connected to the shadow mage Rose had seen in the garden, and Syzman had done nothing to discourage that line of thought.
The ferns rustled. Nicholas grasped the hilt of his sword, but much to his relief, York stepped forward instead of another lizardman.
York glanced over the defaced druid ruins. “What sort of mad experiment is this? Syzman, don’t tell me you did all this?”
“When would I have possessed the time?” Syzman mumbled, then resumed prodding one of the less-complete spell circles.
The mage’s quiet, subdued demeanor bugged Nicholas more than Syzman’s usual devil-may-care attitude. Syzman was trying to hide his concern.
“Contact Lyla, Syzman. Tell her that Rose and Ava must stay in the warded house, even if she’s with them.”
Syzman nodded. Nicholas watched one of the spell rings that encircled his bicep spring to life with an obsidian glisten.
“Lyla!”
Nicholas and York exchanged a concerned look. Syzman had never yelled during a simple communication spell before.
“What’s wrong?” Nicholas grabbed the mage’s shoulder.
