Page 84 of Pawns of Fate
Vapors of mana, like a living thing, twisted and slithered around Kagon’s bestial life force. And that was only the start. The star crystals, she understood their name with a new depth. Blooms of mana, tiny galaxies of light, overwhelmed her senses and drew her in. She could gaze forever and never see all of it, just in this little section of the cave. The urge to go back and gaze on the larger cavern, with the pillars of crystal, pulled on her mind.
“Lady Rose?” Kagon’s voice snapped her senses back to the physical plane. He was shaking her shoulders. Had she fallen down? So much for her plan to manipulate his emotions and garner his empathy.
“I’m sorry, Kagon. I need to rest.”
The druid’s lips thinned with concern. He helped Rose to her feet and led her back to the cavern where she and Nicholas were kept tied up. Rose clung to his arm the whole way—partly because she felt lightheaded. But also, she wasn’t ready to let go of the wild hope that she could turn Kagon away from Lysander.
But the biggest reason was that her mind reeled with the possibility that Lysander was right. If Rose really could manipulate the flow of mana, what came next? How would she and Nicholas ever escape if she were forced to make their captor even more powerful?
Chapter 26
NICHOLAS
Nicholas struggled to maintain consciousness. It was probably an effect of the druid’s venom. The antidote had saved his life, but didn’t stop every symptom. Pulling himself out of the fog took effort, and he was trapped in it more often than not.
Someone fed him, kept him alive. Lysander or Kagon, he couldn’t remember which. Rose whispered to him sometimes, which cleared the fog more than anything. He wanted to hold her so badly. Lysander may not have cut off his limbs, but he’d certainly managed to rip outNicholas’s heart.
Every time their captors took Rose away, Nicholas cursed his lack of magical talent. York could have fried the ropes with a bolt of lightning. But the meager sparks that Nicholas could manage without his sword did nothing.
ROSE
From when Kagontied her back to the slab of rock to when Lysander came to retrieve her, Rose didn’t sleep a wink. Between worrying about Nicholas—who was sleeping far too much for her to think nothing was wrong—and how she was going to fool Lysander into thinking his spell hadn’t worked—she couldn’t see the flow of life force and mana, so she certainly couldn’t increase or manipulate his mana flow—Rose had thoroughly strained every fiber of sanity she had left.
“You look terrible,” Lysander said with disdain as he led her to the cathedral-like chamber that housed his strange workshop.
“I’ve had trouble sleeping,” Rose said, returning all of Lysander’s disdain with her tone.
“Well, if you increase my mana flow, I’m sure I could find a cot for you somewhere.”
“I’m more worried about Nicholas than myself.”
Lysander waved off her concerns. “Kagon’s venom has after effects, even with the antidote. He won’t die. It’s probablyharder for his body to completely cleanse itself since he’s been so anxious yet sedentary these past few days. You should tell him to get some fresh air.”
Rose wanted to snap at the mage for teasing her about such a thing, but held her tongue. She’d already gotten a taste of what happened when Lysander was in a bad mood, and the thought that he might have strangled her to death if Kagon hadn’t stepped in had stomped around her mind a thousand times since yesterday, further exacerbating the issue of her strained fibers of sanity.
“Access the aural plane. With my spell, you’ll be able to see the flow of mana and manipulate it,” Lysander demanded. They sat down beside the pillars of star crystal.
It took several minutes, but Rose tethered her senses to the aural plane. Without the spell, all Rose would have been able to see was Lysander’s malevolent, shadowy aura. But today, like yesterday, her connection was enhanced. She saw so much more.
The blooms of star crystals were overwhelming, still filled with tiny dots of light, entire galaxies within every one. But the pillars at the center of the room were truly something special; she couldn’t look away from them. Each a universe unto itself, they all faced a holy light at the center, brighter than the sun and yet never blinding. It called to her, a siren song begging her to reach out and touch.
“Join us.”
Was that the light? It sounded sowarm.
“Join us, Rose.”
So inviting. She reached out, so close. The tip of her aura brushed the light and disappeared. Terror filled her heart. Would she disappear into this light, too? But now she couldn’t pull away. The light had her, and it was sucking in more and more of her essence, her life force, her aura, with every heartbeat.
Something burned her arm. A sting of pain, and all she could see was indigo rocks and the faint glow of star crystals.
“Rose!” Lysander was shaking her. Why were they standing in the center of the room, in the middle of the pillars? She looked down at her feet and almost jumped; they were standing on a host of inactive spell circles and runes. This was dangerous. Rose would never walk all over spells like this, even in a dormant state. What happened?
“You were in some kind of trance.” Lysander dragged her out of the pillars and back to his workshop. “What did you see?”
“There’s some kind of deity or elemental spirit, maybe spirits.” Rose pointed to the center of the cavern. “It pulled me in.”
Lysander scribbled frantically in his notebook. “That would be the druid magic. I should have thought of that before activating your spell. Still, I never would have thought you could see it from the aural plane, even with the enhancement.”
