Shadowborn Page 18

  They all scattered. Kael reinforced the front door with ice, then followed Clara down the hall, his wings softly humming to keep his body near weightless. A window shattered somewhere near, then another. A stone boulder smashed in the front door, twisting ice and metal into ruin. Clara grabbed his arm and pulled him through a door. Once he was inside, she pushed him out of the way so she could close and lock it.

  The two were inside an oval room meant for entertaining guests. Gaming tables covered with little playing pieces sat between the many chairs, and on the northern wall several dozen books rested on a shelf. Clara stepped behind one chair and aimed her gauntlet at the door.

  “Wait for noise,” she whispered. “We need the surprise.”

  Kael braced his shield beside her while arming his own gauntlet. Whatever retaliation the specters offered, he would be there to protect her.

  They listened for the passing of the specters, holding their breath to hear better. Detecting them would be no small feat. The specters moved silent as their namesake, the mansion eerily quiet but for the odd, distant wail or cry. Kael flexed and unflexed his gauntlet, nerves fraying. The search was too organized, too methodical. Where was the needed overextension?

  Wait, Clara signaled when Kael started for the door. He frowned to show his impatience, but she shook her head and remained behind the chair.

  They come to us, was her response.

  Before he could signal back, he heard the tiniest of clicks from the door. Instinct poured power into his shield as he braced his legs. The door exploded inward with a burst of flame and smoke, a scorching fireball ripping through the debris to slam against Kael’s raised shield. It detonated impotently, the heat and flame dissipating into the shield’s glowing aura.

  Clara retaliated immediately. Three jagged spikes of ice shot from her gauntlet through the doorway, two finding their mark. A specter dropped dead, chest and abdomen completely punctured. Two more stood beside him, gauntlets sparking with electricity and frost. The first charged in, using his lightning to blind and disorient. Kael fell back, his shield up to protect him and Clara from any attacks. Shield still up, he pushed his flat palm to the floor and focused his mind on the desired shape. Ice crawled across the carpet for several feet before bursting upward inside the doorway, separating the two specters from each other.

  With no room to run, the specter released his lightning in a powerful attack. Kael trusted his shield, his eyes closed as the strain pulled against both mind and element. Clara dropped to her knees and formed a second ice wall, trapping the specter between the two. With a savage cry she stood and flung both arms forward, sending her ice wall crashing backward to smash against the other. The two walls crumbled together, gore and mangled metal all that remained of the first specter.

  Both walls now crumbled, the second specter had a clear shot and tried to blind Kael and Clara with a wide spray of frost, the cold sticking to the tables and furniture and clouding the air with white. Kael shrugged off the cold while squinting against the sudden flurry. Their foe dashed aside, rolling below a spike of ice from Clara’s gauntlet before coming up with a blast of his own. Even through the frost, Kael could see that the specter’s aim was slightly off and he would strike the side of Kael’s shield, so he stayed put. Ice piled against a bookshelf to their left, sealing it over. Clara retaliated with smaller orbs of ice from her own gauntlet. The specter dropped to one knee and curled a half sphere of ice about himself for protection. The sound of steel rang through the room as the specter drew a sword in his left hand.

  “Your Seraphim training betrays you,” the specter said. “You lack understanding. You lack imagination.”

  The specter clenched his fist. The ice across the bookshelf exploded in a spray of razors, bypassing the protection of Kael’s shield. He dropped to the side, crying out in pain as the thin shards struck. They were sharp but frail; their Seraphim jackets and uniforms provided adequate protection. Their exposed faces and necks were a different matter. Thin, stinging cuts opened across the both of them, the damage superficial but the distraction the attack caused deadly. Both their guards down, the specter lunged with his sword. The tip passed by Kael’s shield and would have pierced his heart if not for Clara’s quick reaction.

  Clara shot a beam of ice directly into the back of the chair she stood behind, flinging it forward to slam into Kael’s back. The force rammed him into the specter, closing the distance and plunging the thrust harmlessly into the air behind him. The two tumbled together, one over the other. Kael reacted without thinking, shutting off the light elements to his shield the second he was atop the specter. The shield’s tremendous weight returned at once, to gruesome results. The specter screamed, the bones in his right arm and shoulder pinned beneath and snapping like twigs. Kael grabbed for the specter’s throat, closed his fingers about it, and let loose his ice. It spread from his palm, encasing the specter’s head and neck in a frozen coffin.

  “Holy shit,” Kael said, rolling onto his back. Blood trickled down his face and neck. “I feel like I’ve been clawed by a dozen cats.”

  “The scars will give you character,” Clara said, offering him a hand.

  He took it and stood, sparing only a glance at the specter he’d crushed. The macabre image was more than enough to force his eyes away.

  “Where to now?” he asked.

  “We follow the sounds of battle.”

  Such sounds had grown numerous since the start of their fight. The specters must have reached the first line of defense set up by the house guards. Kael sealed off the broken doorway to protect their flank and then exited the other side. The carpet in the hall was slightly charred. Farther ahead he saw two bodies lying facedown, their corpses blackened to the bone. They lacked any armor or weaponry. Servants, then, or perhaps one of many nobles trapped inside when the battle began.

  “No time,” Kael said, powering up his wings. “Fly with me.”

  The hallway was tight but he could manage to fly if he kept his wings steady. His silver wings hummed, and Kael burst down the short hall. When it split into a T, Kael barely slowed. He twisted the upper half of his body while crouching his legs. He slid in the air to the left side of the hall, and the moment before he hit the T he kicked out against the wall, shoving him into the right hallway.

  A lone specter stood guarding a doorway, her back to Kael. The woman spun upon hearing his wings, and fire swelled in her palm for a brief moment before she dove to the ground. Kael shot overhead and twisted his body around, enduring the awful pain in his back and sides to reverse his direction. He floated a half second, momentum equalizing, and then he shot back to the specter. She rolled onto her back, gauntlet up to release her flame. He gave her no target, just his shield. Judging the distance, Kael cut off power to both his wings and shield. Immediately he felt the heavy pull against his limbs. Like a stone he dropped, the lower edge of his shield leading. The specter pushed off with her hands and legs, trying to dodge, but she misjudged his path.

  He landed directly from above, the immense weight of his shield slamming the hard ground with its bottom edge, decapitating the specter where she lay.

  Kael rose to his feet, his shield at guard, the light upon it reigniting. Two specters rushed out from the bedroom upon hearing the noise to avenge their fallen comrade. They unleashed a swirling mix of lightning and stone, a powerful barrage that would have crushed any other Seraph. Light flared about his shield, surging with power. Kael gasped at the strain, feeling it tearing at his mind and sucking the air from his lungs. The lightning fizzled, the stone cracking to dust the moment it made contact with the brilliant blue sword emblazoned across the center of the metal.

  Clearly the two specters hadn’t expected him to endure the attack, either, and they hesitated for a moment to work through what they’d witnessed. It was in that moment of hesitance that Clara turned the corner, gauntlet up and ready. Two long spears, one for each specter, pierced their backs. One died instantly, his rib cage ruptured. The o
ther rolled across the ground, the spear glancing off his silver wingless harness. He came out of the roll before Kael could ready his own ice, the furious specter flinging his open palm up to fire. Nothing emerged from the dead focal point but a soft burst of sparks from the damaged unit. Kael ended him with a lance of ice to the skull.

  “This is awful,” Clara muttered. Kael turned to find her standing before the open door the two specters had exited. Her arms were crossed over her chest as if she were cold.

  “Don’t let it in,” Kael said, coming to her side. He didn’t need to look into the room to see the innocent dead within. He didn’t need to confirm the pain and sorrow he knew she felt. “We can break later, but not now, all right? Not now.”

  “I know,” she said, turning away. “But knowing changes nothing.”

  The end of the hall was a grand dancing room, not quite the extravagant ballroom where they’d hosted the solstice celebration but large enough to fit the six house soldiers who were standing side by side in the center. Their shields were linked together, that wall of steel the only protection against the elements of the two specters darting before them, the bodies of four dead guards at their feet. The specters alternated hits, one thrusting the moment another retreated away from a spear. Their gauntlets flashed with elements, either fire or lightning to bathe the shields. The guards screamed every time, but they fought through the pain to hold their ground.

  “I’ll take left; you take right,” Kael told Clara behind him, the hall not wide enough for the two to stand side to side. “Fire on three.”

  Any missed shot risked harming one of the guards, but the longer the battle lasted the more their lives were at risk anyway. Together they raised their right hands, Clara steadying hers with her left hand, Kael positioning his shield below his arm as a brace. The two specters still had their backs to them, too focused on their vicious dance to realize they were flanked. Kael led the countdown, not tracking a specific specter since they too often switched locations but instead keeping it focused on the left half of the doorway.

  “One, two, three.”

  Kael unleashed three thin lances of ice, not trusting his aim but trusting the shields of the guard to withstand should any of Kael’s attacks miss. Two did, and as he’d hoped, their long, sharp tips broke against the steel. The third lance struck the specter through the shoulder and pierced out the front. The hit knocked him closer to the guards, and off balance; he was easy prey for their spears. The other specter fared even worse. Clara’s lone shot cracked against the back of his skull and knocked him out instantly.

  Kael felt no elation at the hits, too drained for anything other than relief. A flick of his thumb shut off the element to his shield, and he leaned against it to take in a quick breath.

  “How fare the others?” Clara asked the soldiers as she joined them in the room.

  “We do not know, Miss Willer,” their leader said after bowing low. “We are the last of us in this wing.”

  “Start patrolling the east then,” Clara ordered. “Push the invaders from our home.”

  “As you wish,” the leader said. “For Weshern!”

  “For freedom!” the others shouted in unison.

  Kael rubbed at his eyes and pulled his shield up from the ground as Clara returned.

  “Are you going to make it?” she asked.

  “It’s not like I have a choice,” he said, grinning to hide how tired he was. “What next?”

  “Next we find Saul and Bree,” she said. “And we make sure not a single damn specter escapes death.”

  “You’re scary when you’re bloodthirsty—you know that, right?”

  “And you’re surprisingly handsome while cut up and bleeding.”

  “I do what I can.”

  Despite their flippant words Clara took his hand in hers and squeezed it tightly.

  “Thanks for being here when I need you,” she said softly.

  “Nowhere else I’d rather be,” he said, squeezing back. “So let’s find some unwanted guests and show them how scary we both can be.”

  CHAPTER

  14

  The specter advanced upon Bree with his wide grin still visible upon his masked face. Bree stood wing to wing with Saul, the two trapped on either side by Center’s elite assassins in one of the holy mansion’s numerous hallways. Their serrated swords swam through the air, ice and stone hovering above their gauntleted hands.

  “Come now, Phoenix,” her foe said. “Let me see those blades you are so famous for.”

  Bree lifted her burning swords, her knees bending as she posed for a pounce.

  “Are you sure?” she asked. “No one has survived them yet.”

  In answer, the specter slid his gauntlet across the smooth edge of his blade. Ice sheathed the weapon, thin and sharp.

  “You have your fire, and I have my ice,” he said. “Let us see which is stronger.”

  “Stay on task!” the other specter called, his gauntlet up and ready to counter the moment Saul made a move to use his ice. “The Archon is our goal.”

  “It’s the damn Phoenix,” the first specter shot back. “I will not turn down such a chance at glory.”

  “You want a shot at glory?” Saul asked. “Take it. I’ll make sure the playing field stays even.”

  Ice poured from his gauntlet, forming a solid sheet across the hallway. The specter on the other side smashed it with boulders from his gauntlet, shaking the ice wall and shooting deep cracks throughout. Saul’s gauntlet never stopped spraying, banishing the cracks and thickening the wall with each passing moment so it might withstand the opposing barrage. It was a test of elements. Bree didn’t know who would win, but she could not spare a moment in aid.

  The specter ripped off his mask, revealing himself as a dark-skinned man with even darker hair cut close to the scalp.

  “A private duel,” he said. “I could not ask for more. See the face of your better, Phoenix. It’s come time to pay the price for your blasphemy.”

  “Shut up and fight me already.”

  She flicked her wings with a momentary surge, gaining speed as she lunged toward the specter. Her burning blades hammered against his sword. It should have melted right through the metal but instead the ice held strong.

  “Did you think you were special, Phoenix?” the specter said, laughing. “We’ve been watching your tricks, and we’ve been learning. You are not the only one who can bless their blades with elements.”

  He shoved her back, then spun while ducking low. His gauntlet passed over his sword, refreshing the icy sheath so that a fully covered blade cut for her knees. Bree barely blocked, the contact between their weapons releasing the hiss and crack of fire on ice instead of the sharp ringing of metal on metal. She chopped with her other hand, not surprised in the slightest that the specter easily blocked. He batted his weapon back and forth, ice crumbling off it as every single attack she made found a waiting answer.

  “Where is the skill?” he asked. “Or have you relied on your fire to hide your flaws, Phoenix?”

  Bree parried twice, staggered backward to avoid a thrust she missed, and then had to cross both her swords together in an X to stop a vicious chop toward her neck. Three blades screeched, fire dwindling, ice melting. Bree felt the strain in her mind, an exhausting pull similar to the one she’d felt when she had been forced to release her flame back in the dungeon. If the specter felt a similar strain, he hid it well.

  “Your lack of skill will make the honor of killing you a falsehood,” the specter said, his sword a blue blur as he weaved it through the air. “Not that it matters. You will be dead, and only the worms will know how terribly lacking you were in all things.”

  Bree leapt onto the offensive, hoping to surprise him while he boasted and blustered. Her swords rained down on him with all her might channeled into the blow. The fire roared, her mind equally focused on overwhelming him with power. Her swords were blazing infernos slamming against a spinning, dancing beam of ice. Every hit showered the gr
ound with frost. Every hit, that ice returned to withstand another blow. She kept going, no finesse, no feints, just savage rage.

  This time the specter did not laugh and mock.

  Bree sensed him weakening, sensed her control over the battle becoming singular and total. Her world swam red, all her fury unleashed on the boastful, unbearable specter in the form of two, simultaneous downward slashes. She bellowed out a mindless, formless battle cry. The specter clutched his sword with both hands and blocked, but his strength was not enough. Nothing could possibly match it. The flame across her blades’ fine edges sparked a blinding yellow, the entire hallway between them flooding with a sudden eruption of fire. No dodging. No avoiding. The prism in her gauntlet cracked and drained, but the power continued to flow out from her through the blood washing over it. The ice about the specter’s sword vanished into white mist. The metal melted as if it were warm butter. The eruption surged on, swarming over the specter’s body, blackening his flesh and reducing his clothing to cinders. When Bree’s swords cut through him, they scattered only ash and bone.

  “Holy shit,” Bree said as she dropped to her knees and gasped for air. She’d lashed flame out from her swords, and she’d released greater infernos before, but never had her swords themselves blazed with such heat and fury. Even Center itself would have split in half at her strike.

  “Bree!” Saul screamed.

  Bree spun to help her friend. Ice roared from Saul’s gauntlet, fighting back against an advancing wall of stone. Spikes lined its front, and like a battering ram, they were beginning to punch through Saul’s ice barricade. It was only a matter of time before Saul’s wall shattered completely.

  “Back away,” Bree shouted, a plan forming in her mind. “Strike when I give you an opening.”

  Her confidence was a mask. Bree felt exhausted, and though the elemental prism in her gauntlet shone vibrant red once more, the toll of refueling it was wearing on her. Could she pull off what she needed for her plan to work?