Breaking Stars (Book 2) (18 page)

Chapter 16

The sidestep was faster than Robyn expected, changing the ivory and green ballroom in Kilkiny to a landscape of weathered red rocks and broken buildings. She turned her head as they arrived, and the world sharpened to decipher where the Mages had brought her. She did not realize the location right away. The answers came to her on the whispered voices of the men and women around her: Roshenin. She knew the stories and seen sketches, but she never ventured near the city. No one did.

She grouped in the front of the masses of Mages, surrounded by their most skilled fighters and several of the Council. The Head Mage stood not far off in a swath of white, his cloak thrown back over his shoulders in a most dignified way. From his position, he gestured and gave quiet orders.

Six spies emerged from the surrounding buildings and gathered around the Head Mage. They gave reports, pointing to the large palace they stood before. It would have been a beautiful thing in its prime, but now it stood weathered, split, and peeled.

Mages dispersed and flanked around the foregrounds of the palace while some worked their way up the various stairs.

The plan, Robyn was told, was to take Nolen by surprise but give him a moment to redeem himself, handing over both Gabriel and the Silex. Should that not work, all were to attack at the Head Mage’s sign.

The stump of Robyn’s left arm itched, and her brain reminded her there should be a hand. The rude awakening was one of many the past few days had given her. Her servants had to lace up her boots and clasp the complex cloak together pinned at her shoulders and draped over her left arm. The tight boning corset felt right about her torso and hips, as if it were holding her together, and she needed all the help she could get.

Gabriel was somewhere in that massive palace. She longed for this moment for so long, that now it was here, she could hardly stand still for the beating in her chest. She fidgeted with the cloak.

Balien stood beside her, part of her guard. Lady Aisling begged him to stay to watch the palace, but there was no other place Balien was going to be than with his sister to find his foster-brother. Balien’s fair face scowled as he searched the palace. He marked the people around him, no doubt measuring battle tactics and looking for paths for the Mages.

“You will do nothing rash, will you?” she stated.

“I very certainly may, dear sister.”

“Do not, Balien. I do not wish to lose a brother today.”

He glanced at
Harbinger
over his shoulder and sighed heavily. “Can you spot anything out there?”

She lifted her hand and held it above her eyes. “Would that I—” The words left her as her keenly trained gaze on the main massive doors saw them buckle. A stir rose in the group confirming her eyes had not betrayed her, and together they watched as the doors swung outward.

“Did you see that Air pattern?” Someone asked. “Strong, strong indeed,” someone replied. “That is Silex work, I am certain.”

Figures appeared in the gaping black maw of the door. They were small from this distance, but Robyn could still see enough features to know who they were. A man came first, tall and stout with a gut to state his gluttony. He stopped before he crossed half the dais when he saw the Mages. Behind him was a small, reed-thin girl with unruly curly dark hair who also stopped and ducked behind the man before her.

“But where is Gabriel?” Robyn whispered.

Nolen’s face appeared next, she knew his chiseled features anywhere, and beside him was a fair woman she did not recognize. It did not take long for their heads to pop out over the dais and reveal a third person between them, supported over their shoulders.
‘Gabriel,’
her heart leapt, not just in seeing him—but seeing he was wounded. He could not walk on his own, and she was not sure if the light played tricks in his clothes, but his white shirt looked red in places.

Nolen and the woman walked forward slowly until a word from the man in front stopped them. Gabriel’s head popped up at whatever the man said, and he visibly straightened, turning his head to and fro with a wide-eyed look. Nolen slipped Gabriel’s arm off his shoulder and strode out.

“Give me an amplifier-pattern,” the Head Mage said to an older man beside him. He wove his hands together and held them before Casimir’s face. “Prince Nolen,” the Head Mage’s voice boomed out across the landscape. Nolen strode forward to the edge of the dais and clenched his fists. Something large and crescent-shaped was gripped in his right hand. “You have had your fun. We all know the truth in your deeds and are prepared to deal with you harshly. But we are a merciful race, and I will give you one last chance to turn yourself and your company over to my care, as well as relinquish the Castrofax and the Silex. It is obvious you possess them.” Nolen flicked his hands together and created the same pattern, for a moment later his voice softly brushed Robyn’s ears. “I think not, Head Mage.”

Casimir was prepared. “Then hand over Mage Gabriel and the rest of your party.”

The woman with Gabriel took a step forward and said something none of them could hear, but Nolen held a hand up to silence her. She continued to argue until Gabriel put a hand on her arm, and she fell silent. He looked a little stronger, standing without her assistance, but he kept a hand on her shoulder to steady himself. Robyn expected hope was returning to him to offer its strength, and the mere thought made her smile for his sake.

“The Mage wishes to stay with me.” Nolen announced.

Casimir looked over his shoulder at Robyn. “Yes, I understand you feel very prideful in breaking him. The reports say you savagely killed Princess Robyn. I hate to be the weevil in your grain, but….” As he spoke, Robyn stepped forward, flanked by her guard, to where Nolen could see her.

Nolen’s hand holding the amplifier-pattern dropped as he stared down at her. Even from this distance, she could see the shock. But her eyes were on Gabriel. He put a hand on his chest and his mouth fell as his brain wracked itself. She scrambled to think of a sign they alone would understand, but nothing came to mind as he stood and gazed down at her. The whole Mage population seemed to hold their breath.

There was only one solution. He must have known of the wound she took in the night to free him, so she pulled her left arm out from its hiding place and held it against the dark red fabric of the cloak.

Gabriel did not move, but she thought his hands tightened and his eyes pinched shut after a moment.

“The answer is no, Head Mage,” Nolen stated. “I serve a greater master now, one that will dethrone you easily, and in my era I will strike women from the Eagle Throne and wipe out their memory. Nevermore will a woman sit it. Your death will be by my hand this time, cousin,” he said and pointed the crescent object at her.

Casimir turned, and the man with the amplifier-pattern dropped his hand, barking orders. As he spoke, the Mages sprung to action, hurling blocks of stone for defenses while the main staircase knit itself back together. Fire raged in circles before her as her guard pulled her back. Walls of water appeared before her and froze.

“As soon as those stairs are mended, I want people on them!” Casimir shouted. He faced Nolen who was seething, and waved the Mages on the side stairs to begin their attack. With the defenses set, he threw a hand skyward, and bolt of light shot out, signaling an attack.

Robyn surged forward before her guard caught her. “No, no, Princess. You remain with us,” a stout man stated and held onto her cloak. She would have argued, but she knew she was useless against Mages. With a bow she could do damage even at this range, but she was rendered worthless.

She stood, looking over the Mages swarming the palace as the stairs finished repairing themselves. As they rushed, Nolen raised his hands and twirled his fingers. With a flick of his wrist the battle began.

Gabriel’s hand on her shoulder was heavy as he transitioned most of his weight to one leg, but Mikelle was strong enough to handle it—at the moment. Her weakness had not yet crept up on her, but she knew it would come, and she would be at an impasse. There was nothing to lean on or support two of them. The floor would have to be their savior should she have no other resort. Thankfully, she was too excited and terrified to dwell on her weakness now.

Dozens of Mages rushed at them from every side, raising a battle cry of a single angry note. Nolen held a wide see-through Spirit shield in a half-dome around them, but they felt the heat of fire attacks.

Nolen set a pattern that made Gabriel mutter in disapproval, and moments later the Mages before them were surrounded by strange, faceless people clad in nothing but shadow with each brandishing a clear blade. The faceless army hacked at the nearest things that moved, and it took the Mages a moment to form shields and divert their attention to the new threat. Some Earth Mages pulled pillars of stone up to rise from the army while Water Mages rose up on blocks of ice, but it made them better targets for Nolen and Tabor.

“What is this?” Mikelle marveled, watching the dark figures fight, their features highlighted in pale white. “They look like specters.”

Gabriel tried to pull forward an inch but stopped to answer her. “It is the legion-pattern, to create an army. They’re easy to be rid of with fire, but it’s an old pattern.”

“Only a Class Ten can manage?”

He searched the foray for the golden-headed girl. “No, Eights and Nines could.”

“Steady now,” she said as Gabriel’s grip on her shoulder tightened. He looked weary, pale in the face with sweat beginning to bead on his brow. “Conserve your strength.”

“I must get to her,” he replied. “I—I thought she—”

“Don’t excite yourself,” she said and wrapped an arm around his waist. He was shaky on his feet, but the added support seemed to give him stability.
‘He hasn’t got long,’
she thought. The color left his face long ago, leaving his lips gray and his eyes all the more blue, but the light in them dimmed with each minute.

With the Silex hung around his neck, Nolen had no trouble throwing pattern after pattern at the advancing Mages while his legion-pattern distracted them. Those he attacked in front were mostly Earth Mages who pulled blocks of stone up to shield themselves, leaving a network of hiding places for others to follow. A Fire Mage with some serious strength wailed on the shield with a single blast of orange flame. It caught several of the legion and dropping them to smolder. The more assault the shield took, the more it would drain on the Mage holding it, but the Silex had no limit to its energy. Tabor threw back Mages with patterns of compressed Air, but Kindle had tucked back behind one of the great broken warthog statues with a weak shield around her.

Minutes ticked by as Mages ran up to assault the shield. An Earth Mage, in quick thinking, rippled the stone Nolen stood on, causing him to lose his focus long enough for someone to shoot a frozen spear of ice through. It skidded across the floor along his calf and ripped his trousers. He grunted a muffled sound in the cacophony of battle, and they saw blood bloom against the dark fabric.

In retaliation, the Prince hurled his attacks further down the Mages, down where the Princess of Anatoly stood behind barricades. The Head Mage, in his clean whites, launched his own attacks, hurling beaming balls that streaked through the sky like stars and burst onto the shield in a dozen places. Men and women surrounding the Head Mage moved as one to launch identical attack patterns in unison, turning Nolen’s focus to them.

To his left, Tabor threw his own Air patterns. He was older and wiser than Nolen, and a bit faster in his laying. He was quick to dispel the advancing Mages by wrapping them in compressed air and flinging them back the way they came.

“We can do something,” Gabriel whispered and looked to her.

“You can hardly stand.”

“Then
you
can do something.”

“I hardly have a pattern to combat a Class Ten.”

“You have me,” he said above a whisper and tapped a finger to the neckpiece. “Do you know the declaration-pattern? No. What of a water-wrap?” She nodded. It was a simple pattern to wrap a person in water and quickly freeze it. “Wrap his legs and get the floor good and wet so he can’t break loose, then finish it with a blood-boil.”

“
You
cannot manage.”

“I can,” he said emphatically. “Grip the underside of this, and my Elements will be transferred to you.”

“That is nonsense,” she whispered, glaring at the cold copper band she was wroth to touch.

“Be quick,” he stated and led her smoothly under the cold metal. As soon as she made contact, the sweet Elements rushed through, making her want to choke and giggle at the same time. Sensations of brokenness and an undercurrent of hope reached her senses. The new Elements tickled her, but there was no time to explore them, and she honed in on the powerful Water surge in her chest.

Gabriel’s power was so much stronger than her own. What should have taken several moments to gather water took only seconds as she pulled the blue threads of Water from her chest.

“Get closer,” he whispered. Nolen was only a few yards away, but they sidled up behind him softly until they were a stride away.

The Prince was busy fending off a band of Fire and Earth Mages who were hurling melted rock at him. It coated his shield with the lava-like material and hardened. Blood seeped down his boot onto the red stone.