Page 90 of Pawns of Fate
“Do you thinkLysander will follow us if he’s still alive?” Rose asked as they approached a small oasis. They’d been walking in the sand for what felt like hours; she couldn’t wait for a drink of water and a chance to sit in the shade of the palm trees.
“No,” Nicholas replied firmly, bending down to the water’s edge and cupping some in his hands. He offered it to Rose.
“How can you be certain?” she asked.
“You made me strong enough to defeat him. He knew that;I saw it on his face.” Pride filled his voice, and a smirk crossed his features. “We’re too strong for him to kidnap you, now. That’s why he destroyed the cavern. I would have killed him otherwise.”
Rose drank from Nicholas’s hands, removed her boots, and dunked her aching feet in the cool water.
“What happened in there, Rose?” Nicholas sat beside her.
“Lysander forced a spell on me that increased my connection to the aural plane.” Rose rolled up her sleeve, but the runes had disappeared. Either Lysander had died, or he was smart enough to nullify the spell.
“I could see mana on the aural plane with more clarity and detail than I would have ever imagined. I’ve actually always been able to see traces of it, though I hadn’t realized that was what I was seeing at the time. But Lysander’s spell was like using one of those scientific devices for stargazing.” She frowned as she searched for the correct word. “Perhaps it was a telescope, or a lens. A microscope? Something like that.”
“What did you see?” Nicholas was curious.
“So much. Every little crystal was… a world of life. It was hypnotic, almost. But there was druid magic! I talked to an elemental spirit, Nicholas!”
“What? How is that possible?”
“It lived in the circle between the pillars of star crystal. It wasn’t happy with Lysander defacing its home. But I don’t think it could connect easily to the physical plane. I couldn’t see it without Lysander’s spell.”
“Elemental spirits disappeared with the druids, Rose,”Nicholas said with concern.
“I don’t know for certain what it was. Maybe it was a fairy?” Rose splashed her feet a little. “But wedidmeet a druid, and they were supposed to have disappeared, too. Is it such a stretch?”
“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” Nicholas replied, voice softening. “I wonder if we’ve stumbled onto something better left alone.”
“Well, I promised the spirit we’d clean up Lysander’s mess if it helped us.” Rose thought about how the spirit had enveloped Kagon’s body and wondered if it had survived the explosion.
Nicholas barked out a laugh. “I hope it haunts Lysander, then. He’s the one who destroyed their home.” He held up his hand, sparks of silver and, occasionally, pink lightning magic dancing in his palm. “There’s no denying that it helped us. So, did the elemental spirit increase my mana?”
Rose felt heat rise to her cheeks. “No, that was me. The spirit stopped time. It was happy to chat with me.” Rose let out a small laugh. The spirit really hadn’t shared her sense of urgency for the situation.
“York is going to be so jealous.” Nicholas grinned.
The thought of York and Ava twisted Rose’s heart. She missed her family, missed the coniferous forests of Onanish, and never wanted to see another grain of desert sand as long as she lived.
She was about to voice all of this to Nicholas when a spell circle erupted behind them.
Nicholas jumped, brandishing his sword and throwing himself between Rose and the spell. Rose watched as silverlightning danced around his blade, so much stronger than the tiny sparks she’d seen when they’d been attacked by mountain ogres so long ago.
Two figures emerged from the circle.
“Thank the gods,” Nicholas said, lowering his sword as two shadow mages stepped out of the teleportation spell.
Relief coursed through Rose’s body. It was Syzman and Lyla.
“You’re alive!” Lyla’s voice carried so much relief in it. In a rare show of affection, the mage even gave Rose a hug.
Syzman, on the other hand, simply nodded curtly at Nicholas and asked, “What the hell happened?”
Rose rubbed her forehead. Where to even begin? She looked at Lyla and decided that her bodyguard deserved to know the truth. “We were captured by a shadow mage named Lysander. He claimed to be your brother, Lyla.”
Nicholas’s eyes widened, and Rose realized that this was the first he was hearing of this, too. In all of the chaos of their escape, she hadn’t remembered to tell him that little detail.
Lyla’s shoulders slumped, and she stared at the ground. “Did you… Where is he?”
