Page 117 of Pretense

“Essie’s brothers would call this bonding.” Farrendel spoke between gritted teeth. Despite Melantha’s magic, his head was pounding, though he was not sure if it was from Rharreth’s magic or from having to hold such a tide of his magic in tight control.

Through the heart bond, he sensed Essie reaching for him and the magic, asking if he needed her to take some of it.

No. He tried to tell her through the elishina, hoping she would get the sense of his words. I have this. I can do this.

He had been practicing with Weylind for just this reason, gaining finesse. If he could hold his magic steady over a swathe of forest without incinerating so much as a blade of grass or leafy twig, then surely he could handle this.

Two cannonballs thunked into Weylind’s wall, and his brother muttered something under his breath.

Rharreth’s magic crept farther and farther along the border in each direction, meticulously finding each marking stone.

Farrendel let his magic follow Rharreth’s magic in spurts, holding it back for a minute or two at a time, then releasing it to catch up before he strained to contain it yet again.

Finally, the taste of muddy river came through the magic, first from the north, then from the south. Rharreth’s magic had reached the two great rivers that formed the northern and southern borders of Escarland.

“Hold there to the south.” Farrendel was shaking now under the building force of his magic that begged to be released. Sweat dribbled down his forehead and between his shoulder blades. “Follow the center of the Hydalla to the sea on the north.”

It would do no good to reinforce this border if they left the crossing over the Hydalla from Mongavaria into Tarenhiel unprotected. Tarenhiel’s sea coast would still be undefended, but it was rocky, with few harbors to provide a landing spot, especially for an army big enough to gain a foothold. Farrendel could create a magical barrier along that border—as well as along Escarland’s southern and western borders—later.

Rharreth nodded, and his magic flowed through the bedrock beneath the river.

Weylind muttered under his breath again before saying, louder, “Hurry. Looks like they are mustering outside the tower, and they are wheeling one of their cannons to bring it closer.”

“Oh, good. I’d love a good fight.” A smacking sound of wood against a palm accompanied Zavni’s words, as if he were hefting his ax.

“You cannot kill anyone.” Melantha’s tone held just as much command as Rharreth’s. “Bloodshed would start the war we are trying to avoid.”

“Yes, my queen.”

Farrendel’s magic coursed along Rharreth’s beneath the river until, finally, Farrendel could sense the ocean, a mix of salt and power and unexplored darkness.

At last. He grasped a hold of that sense, letting his magic race ahead of Rharreth’s until it fizzled against the crashing, roiling waves.

With a roaring in his ears, he unleashed the full force of his magic. Power tore along the pathways he and Rharreth had marked, rising high into the sky as far as anyone could see.

Farrendel snapped his eyes open and stared past the crackling wall of his magic. Past Weylind’s tree barrier. To the hazy shape of the Mongavarian tower and the land spreading before them.

He remembered Essie, gasping and bleeding out in his arms. The way he had felt her through the heart bond, slipping away from him as death took her. The desperation to keep her alive. Finding out that the Mongavarian spy-assassin had nearly killed their unborn child as well as Essie.

He had not killed the assassin. He would not raze all of Mongavaria to the ground in revenge for what was nearly done.

But he would keep his family and his kingdoms safe.

He filled the magic with that determination, letting his love for Essie, his love for both Escarland and Tarenhiel, pour from him until the magic itself felt alive with it.

He was no longer shaking or sweating with the strain. His magic eagerly formed to his will, building and building like the mightiest of waves in the ocean.

“Ready?” Farrendel did not shout the word. He stood in the center calm of his magic’s fury. Somewhere, distantly, the Mongavarians had begun firing rifles, such minuscule pops against the thunder in his ears. The bullets were nothing but pinpricks.

“Hold just a moment more,” Weylind gasped between ragged breaths.

Then, Weylind yanked his magic back, slamming it into the maelstrom of Farrendel’s power. Farrendel’s power eagerly snapped it up as the threads of Melantha’s magic helped twine the powers together.

Rharreth, too, poured another surge of his power through the line he had drawn.

Farrendel waited one heartbeat, two, sensing the magic building…

Then, he gathered it all in his mind and slammed it down, driving it deep into the earth where it was anchored by Rharreth’s magic. The earth shook, giving a groan as if the mountains themselves were in pain from the magic Farrendel had stabbed into them. The magic flashed and imploded inside Farrendel’s head.

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