Page 10 of Only Cold Depths
That cold nugget in my mind finally cracked wide open, and his voice and presence rippled through me.I’m here.Get ready to move.
Before I could ask what he was planning, a swirl of scarlet caught my eye. Across the junkyard, Esmina jerked her head to the side, spun around, and strode away. Pollux scurried after her.
Kyrion popped into view and hurled a small metal ball through the air. The ball arced up, then down, and landed in the exact spot where Esmina and Pollux had been standing.
Boom!
The explosion ripped through the air, the force knocking some of the bounty hunters off their feet, but Esmina kept walking forward at a slow, steady pace. Pollux kept moving right beside her, backpedaling all the while, and the two of them headed away from the battle and toward the front of the junkyard.
I frowned. Esmina had knownexactlywhere the device was going to land and detonate even before Kyrion had thrown it. How was that possible?
The bounty hunters scrambled back up onto their feet. Some of them fired at Kyrion, while others targeted the retreating Esmina and Pollux.
Esmina never turned around, but Pollux used the lunarium heads on his war hammers to send several bolts shooting right back at the bounty hunters, who screamed at the brutal impacts.
A man stood up, aimed his blaster at Esmina, and pulled the trigger.
Pew! Pew! Pew!
Bright blasts of energy streaked through the air toward her. Pollux spun in that direction, but he was too far away to deflect the bolts with his hammers, and Esmina was directly in the line of fire.
My seer magic surged to life, and time slowed down, as though I was viewing everything one frame at a time on a holoscreen. The blaster fire zinging through the air. The streaks sparking and crackling with deadly electricity. The colorful bolts painting Esmina’s scarlet cloak in an eerie glow . . .
I blinked, and time snapped back to its normal speed and flow.
At the last instant, right before the bolts would have slammed into her back, Esmina stepped smoothly to the left, then to the right, and then to the right again. She easily avoided all the bolts, which punched into the piles of junk around her. Sparks and smoke spewed up into the air, even as several engines crashed down, blocking the aisle behind her and Pollux, but Esmina didn’t duck for cover. Instead, she just kept walking forward as though she was strolling along a garden path instead of away from a dangerous battle.
My jaw dropped. How could she avoid blaster bolts when her back was turned? When she couldn’t evenseethe danger zipping her way?
Esmina stopped and glanced over her shoulder, her gaze locking with mine.I seeeverything, Vesper. Don’t worry. We’ll meet again soon, and then we’ll see how useful youreallyare.
Her smug voice and thought stabbed into my mind, as clear, sharp, and bright as if she had just punched her lunarium dagger into my skull. Pain exploded in my head, and white starbursts erupted in my eyes, blotting out everything else. Her words echoed in my brain, and her magic was so strong that every syllable felt like a splash of acid burning everything it touched.
I sucked in a breath, too stunned to even scream. My left leg buckled, throwing me off-balance, and I couldn’t stop myself from staggering forward, away from the relative safety of the cement blocks and out into the middle of the junkyard for everyone to see—and target.
Foramoment,allI was aware of were the psionic echoes of Esmina’s magic jangling through my mind like a bad song blaring on repeat. A second passed. Maybe two or three or even ten. I staggered back and forth the whole time, listing dangerously from side to side like a space cruiser about to crash into a skyscraper.
Pew! Pew! Pew!
More blaster fire rang out. Bolts zinged through the air all around me, the bright streaks of color adding to the starbursts still exploding in my eyes. I snapped up my stormsword and whipped it back and forth in a wild motion, trying to stop the bolts from hitting me.
Pew!
A bolt slammed into my right bicep. Electric agony erupted in my arm, as though someone had stabbed me with a red-hot knife. I screamed and crumpled to the dirt, my stormsword tumbling out of my twitching fingers.
Vesper? Vesper! Hang on! I’m almost there!
Kyrion’s frantic voice sounded, cutting through some of the pain, and I latched onto the sticky cobweb of him in my mind. The cool, silky threads helped me push away some of the electric pain, although my arm continued to burn and burn, like a chemical fire that refused to be extinguished.
I sucked down one breath after another, and the starbursts faded from my vision. Somehow I had stumbled past the cement blocks and ended up close to the blitzer at the back of the junkyard. Blaster fire zinged through the air behind me as Kyrion battled the remaining bounty hunters. I needed to help him, so I got up onto my hands and knees and focused on my stormsword, which had landed a few feet away.
My right arm was still burning from the blaster bolt, so I stretched out my left hand, trying to use the truebond and Kyrion’s telekinesis to make the sword lift off the ground and zip over into my waiting fingers.
Nothing happened. No bond, no telekinesis, no sword spinning through the air.
I growled and tried again with the same useless result. I didn’t have time to figure out what was wrong, so I crawled forward. I reached out with my left hand again, and my fingers finally closed around the hilt—
Footsteps scuffed on the dirt, and a shadow fell over me. I froze and raised my head.
