Guardians of the Boundary (The Conjurors Series Book 3) (14 page)

Leo nodded. “I agree. The
records suggest that the Fractus plan to be ruthless as they grasp for power,
but many Illyrians believe that is the better option than annihilation. Their
fear is being fostered by Gabriel, whom I believe is Fractus.”

“Something has seemed off about
him over the last year,” Cyrus agreed. Cyrus knew Gabriel through his role as
an ambassador for the Society of Imaginary Friends. Gabriel was also a kind of
ambassador for Illyria, and Valerie had thought he seemed cold when she had met
him.

“What do you ask of us?” Elden’s
grave voice cut through the night.

“There are two things you need
to know. The first is that the Fractus have new weapons that you have not
encountered, and they will carve a path of destruction unless they are stopped.
They will attack soon,” Leo said.

“What kinds of weapons?” Cyrus
asked.

“The exact nature I cannot
discern,” Leo said. “But I think that if you work with Elden to infuse the
People of the Woods’ weapons with light, you will be able to counter the
Fractus’s weapons.”

“We do not share our weapons
with Conjurors,” Elden said. “They cannot be trusted with so much power. You
knew when we worked together that there were secrets of my people that I would
never share.”

Valerie remembered that Leo had
been the Grand Master of the Weapons Guild before he became an Illyrian.

“It’s time to set aside your
prejudice to fight against a common enemy,” Leo said. “Without your help,
Valerie will not succeed in leading another victory over the Fractus.”

Elden’s eyes darkened, and
Valerie quickly asked a question to try to diffuse the tension. “What’s the
other thing we need to know? Is it about the location of the Byways?”

Leo shook his head. “I am not
trusted with that information yet. But I do know that both of the Byways must
be destroyed to stop the Fractus from returning to Earth.”

“I thought we only needed to
shut one down,” Valerie said.

“Reaper has found a way to send
his army to Earth using one Byway if he channels enough magic. The amount that
would be required to achieve such a feat would be enormous, but it would not be
impossible for him to access it.”

“Have you searched Babylon yet?”
Elden asked Valerie and her friends.

Kanti shook her head. “We
haven’t been able to find it. Are there any clues you could give us that would
help us uncover it? Or do you know who could lift the spell that’s hiding it?”

“I will visit the woods of Arden
myself and see if I can sense anything,” Elden said. “If I can identify the
nature of the magic, I may know who can undo it.”

“I must leave,” Leo said. “If
they catch me surfacing, I will be banished from Illyria. Don’t rely on any
other Illyrians to give you information from the Akashic Records. I don’t know
who can be trusted.”

Without another word, Leo slid
beneath the surface and vanished with several strong flicks of his tail.

Valerie had the sensation that
someone was watching them, and her eyes scanned the trees. It only took a
cursory glance to find the spy that was crouching in one of the branches.

“Emin, your mom will be upset if
she knows you’re out here alone,” Valerie called to him.

Elden turned sharply and caught
sight of the boy.

“I followed you,” Emin said
gleefully to Elden.

Valerie thought Elden would be
angry, but instead he held up his arms and Emin jumped into them.

“Even I did not know you
followed. Such tracking is no small feat for one so young,” Elden said, and
Emin glowed at the praise. “But Cerise will be lost without you at home.”

Emin wrinkled his little nose.
“She won’t know if you don’t tell her.”

Elden laughed, and it was a low,
musical sound that made him seem more human to Valerie. She remembered that he
had a daughter of his own, and it seemed that he liked children. “Run home now,
little one, and if you beat me there, your secret will be safe.”

“But I want to stay and play
with Valerie!” Emin said, turning a summersault in the grass.

“Soon,” Valerie promised. “I
think the People of the Woods will be working closely with us, so we’ll have
lots of chances to see each other.”

Elden tensed. “Go now, Emin.”

Emin sighed dramatically, and
raced off into the woods.

“I have not agreed to share the
knowledge of my people’s weapons with you,” Elden snapped.

“I know,” Valerie said. “You
have no reason to trust us yet. But when we bring you the Byway, I want your
word that we can discuss sharing that information, since Leo believes that it
will be critical.”

Elden considered her words and
then nodded. “It will not be me alone you will have to convince. The People of
the Woods will vote. And while they may trust you, vivicus, it will be hard to persuade
them to trust the corrupt hearts of other Conjurors. They may not see that the
stakes are high enough to make them take such a risk.”

“Then we’ll convince them,”
Valerie said.

Elden nodded and then disappeared
into the woods, and Valerie followed his form until it was indistinguishable
from the shadows.

Valerie woke at sunrise the next
morning and decided to find Azra. The unicorn’s advice always grounded her, and
she also wanted to make sure that Azra’s pregnancy was progressing well. She
knew that Azra lived in the woods of Arden, not far from the Lake of Knowledge,
so she headed there alone.

Tramping through The Horseshoe,
she didn’t see a soul awake yet, and she had a rare moment of peace. Being
alone was different when she was choosing it, instead of all the years it had
been forced upon her in foster care.

The hairs on Valerie’s arms
rose, and her adrenaline spiked. She whipped her head around, looking for the
threat that her body sensed, but she didn’t see anything.

She continued through the
winding streets of Silva and saw a few Conjurors who were awake as well, but no
one paid any attention to her. She couldn’t shake the nervous energy that
filled her, making her palms sweat and the magic she had been collecting at
Oberon’s instruction bubble to the surface. If someone was after her, they were
in for a surprise.

When she was just inside the
tree line, she stopped and turned around. If she was being silly, there was no
one to see her.

“I know you’re there. Come out
and tell me what you want,” she said in her strongest voice.

It was almost a relief when
Rastelli stepped out from behind a tree that was several yards away. Her entire
body hummed with magic, and she knew that she wouldn’t need Henry this time to
defeat Rastelli.

“You don’t belong here,”
Rastelli said, his voice strained. The wildness she remembered from when he
attacked Cyrus was back in his eyes, but he was muttering quietly, as if he
were having an inner argument with himself.

“Leave her alone, this isn’t who
you are,” he said, but his eyes burned with hate as he stared at her.

Valerie didn’t let her pity slow
her reaction this time when Rastelli shot lightning from his staff to her
chest. She ducked and rolled, and the bolt missed her and hit a tree.

She gracefully leapt to her feet
and wrenched the weapon from his hands. Rastelli hummed with power, but with
her own magic singing in her veins, he couldn’t touch her.

“It’s true. You ARE getting
better,” Ani’s voice made Valerie turn, and Rastelli tried to hit her in her
still bruised face.

But with her magic at full
power, dodging the blow, even while distracted, was simple. She elbowed
Rastelli in the gut while she responded.

“What are you after?” Valerie
asked, hoping to delay Ani before she used her power. Ani was a siren, so her
power would attack Valerie where she was weakest—her mind.

“I thought that would be
obvious,” Ani said.

Valerie reached for her locus.
She only needed a minute to knock out Rastelli and then reach Ani with her mind
at her own command in order to disable her. She doubted that the siren had the
ability to withstand Valerie’s fighting power.

As quickly as she had the
thought, she wrenched Rastelli’s staff from his hands and hit him in the head.
He crumpled to the ground.

Ani had begun singing, and
Valerie focused on an image of Pathos in her mind as hard as she could. But the
beautiful notes of the song were haunting, even if she didn’t understand the
words. It was as if Ani was singing about Valerie’s deepest longing, absorbing
her loneliness. Trying to block out the song was like staying cooped up inside
when it was a beautiful, sunny day.

Valerie couldn’t remember why
she was fighting the song, but she trusted herself. She’d made a plan, and she
was sticking to it. But what had it been? The sight of Rastelli, unconscious
and bleeding on the ground, gave her a reality check. She gathered up the magic
that she had been pooling inside of herself during her training with her father
and hurled it outward.

The burst of magic freed
Valerie’s mind. She charged at Ani, who was stronger than Valerie anticipated.
Ani managed to use Valerie’s momentum against her and she flipped her over her
shoulder. Valerie landed on the ground, hard, but Ani’s song had temporarily
stopped.

Ani moved faster than Valerie
would have guessed she was capable of. As she dodged Ani’s blows, she began to
get a sense for her enemy’s rhythm. Ani was a good fighter, but Valerie knew
she was better.

Quickly, she had Ani on the
defensive, landing a crippling blow to her abdomen. But before she could knock
her unconscious with a swift blow to a nerve in her neck, Kellen fluttered into
her view.

“Never send a siren to do a
fairy’s job,” Kellen muttered. “I told him.”

A mist of fairy dust enveloped
Valerie, and she held her breath. Maybe if she didn’t breathe it in, it
wouldn’t affect her. But her skin tingled, and she could swear her pores opened
to let the magic in.

Before Kellen had control of her
mind, she landed another blow to Ani’s neck, but she missed the spot that would
have rendered her unconscious. If she’d known Kellen was coming, she wouldn’t
have used so much magic to throw off Ani’s attack. Her little pool had shrunk
considerably.

Valerie had faced Kellen’s magic
before. This time, instead of attacking, she turned and fled. She let her magic
propel her, and her legs moved faster than they ever had.

Valerie spared a glance behind
her and saw nothing, but her instincts told her otherwise. Ahead, the track of
the rollercoaster leading out of Arden glinted in the sunlight that made its
way through the leaves, and she registered that a car was on its way and would
be there in seconds.

Her remaining magic made her
fast and strong enough to jump into one of the cars as it flew by. There were
two passengers already in the car, and they gasped at her sudden entrance.

“She’s a traitor! On the run
from the law!” Kellen said, fluttering near her head as if flying at such
speeds was effortless. He must have been keeping up with her the entire time.
How fast could fairies fly?

Before the passengers had to
choose whether or not to throw her off, Valerie leaped from the car as she
approached the Lake of Knowledge and dove under the water. The sun turned the
magical lake into a thousand brilliant sparkles, so Valerie swam blindly, her
sole focus on getting away, hidden until she could escape Kellen’s magic.

Her lungs begged for air, and
eventually Valerie had to surface. She didn’t know which way was up. She registered
the flick of a tail of a passing Illyrian, who smacked her in the backside with
enough force to send her rushing to the surface. She didn’t know whether the
Illyrian had meant to help her or kick her out of a lake where she didn’t
belong, but as she gasped for air she decided to be grateful.

Unfortunately, Kellen was
waiting for when she emerged from the water, and he hit her with another blast
of dust.

She gathered up what magic was
left inside of her, determined to use every last ounce to prove to Kellen that
he couldn’t control her. At the same time, she reached out with her mind to
Henry.

But the distraction cost her.
Before she could contact her brother, Kellen’s magic swept through her mind
like a strong wind, kicking up all of her fears. She fought images of Henry
kneeling before Reaper, Cyrus lying unconscious, and Oberon’s eyes filled with
tears of loss.

But while her mind struggled for
control, her body obeyed Kellen’s magic. She swam to shore and the sand
crunched beneath her knees. She was at his mercy. For several long minutes,
Kellen’s magic attacked her mind and Valerie struggled against it, trying and
failing to focus on Pathos.

She didn’t know how much time
had passed, but she was still on her knees and under Kellen’s complete control
when Ani stood over her, her teeth bared and a little bloody from a blow
Valerie had landed on her jaw.

Then, as if thinking of it made
it appear, Kellen dropped a little glitter over Ani’s hand, and Pathos
manifested itself in her grip. Ani turned the weapon over, her admiring eyes
taking in every detail.

“Seems only fitting that she
should be held hostage by her own mind and her trusted weapon,” Kellen said,
his beady eyes full of glee and hate.

Valerie stared at Pathos, unable
to reach out and touch the gleaming handle. She yearned for the security of it
in her grip. Ani drew the tip of the blade lightly along the delicate skin
below Valerie’s neck, hard enough to draw beads of blood.

Valerie shuddered, not from
pain, but from the wrongness of Pathos being used against her. She knew she’d
never look at the sword quite the same way again, even if she ever managed to
regain it.

But instead of stabbing her with
Pathos, Ani kicked Valerie’s chin so hard that her head snapped backward and
she collapsed on her back. Instead of fighting back or lying there, her
traitorous mind made her body move back to her former position—kneeling before
Kellen.

Kellen examined his fingernails
as if he was bored, but the excited triumph in his eyes told a different story.
He wanted to kill her, now. Another burst of dust drifted from his wings, but
it was different from what he had used before. This dust was black.

When it touched her, pain ripped
through Valerie in a torrent. Every hair on her body was on fire, she was sure
of it. The magic was burning tiny holes in her skin, and eventually it would
consume her. With her mind locked in Kellen’s control, she wasn’t able to look
down at herself to confirm if what she was feeling was true. Kellen forced her
to stay on her knees, facing him. She couldn’t even scream.

“No,” Ani said sharply. “You
can’t kill her. Reaper may need to channel the release of her magic into the
universe through her death if he can’t find both Byways.”

“I know that!” Kellen snarled.

The fire that was consuming
Valerie’s body eased a fraction. Seeing her enemies distracted, Valerie fought
for her locus, struggling to regain her hold on her mind. But she couldn’t even
remember the name of her sword while the pain ripped through her. On her thumb,
the Laurel Circle was cold.

“We bring her to the Black
Castle alive,” Ani said. “But that doesn’t mean she has to be conscious.”

Valerie had one
second to register Gideon’s determined face as he drew a sword from a sheath at
his side before Ani’s foot connected with Valerie’s temple, and she collapsed.

Valerie couldn’t have been
unconscious for long, because when she struggled to open her eyes, Gideon was
fighting Ani. The two were well matched, but Gideon had the upper hand in spite
of the fact that Ani was wielding Pathos. She was reminded of what Gideon had
told her: In the wrong hands, Pathos is simply a well-crafted piece of metal.

The sweet notes of Ani’s siren
song had no effect on her mentor, and Kellen fluttered nearby, screeching.

“I’ll see you kicked out of the
Knights of Light for this! No! I’ll see you dead!” Kellen yelled.

Gideon’s sword sliced Ani’s biceps,
drawing blood. She yanked her arm back with a yelp and dropped Pathos. Her song
ceased. Faster than Valerie could follow, Gideon hit Ani with the flat of his
sword, and she crumpled to the ground, clutching her side and groaning.

In one swift motion, he yanked
out a woven, silver net from his pocket and hurled it at Kellen. The fairy let
out a yelp when it closed over him, and Gideon immediately cinched it closed.

“Where did you get this?” Kellen
spluttered. “The People of the Woods have made any enemy today! The fairies
will never forgive this offense.”

“Your people gave it to me, not
the People of the Woods,” Gideon said calmly. “They don’t approve of your
behavior.”

Kellen moved more and more
slowly, his wings fluttering erratically. Within seconds, he was a silent heap
in the bottom of the net. The second he fell, Valerie’s pain lessened
considerably, though it didn’t vanish.

Gideon went over to Valerie and
knelt beside her. “I saw him use the dark dust. You will not recover quickly
from that magic. Its use is forbidden by fairy law. We need to get you to a Healer
right away. Some do not survive the dark dust.”

He helped Valerie get to her
feet, and then hung the net containing Kellen over a nearby branch.

“Is he alive?” she asked weakly.

“Yes. I will leave him to the
justice of his people. We don’t have time to bring either of them with us. The
sooner we get the dust purged from your veins, the better your chances for a
quick recovery.”

“I’m fine,” Valerie said, but
she could hear that her words were slurred. Aside from the pain, her mind was
muddled from Kellen’s first blast of fairy dust.

“He gave you an overdose of
dust,” Gideon explained, helping her hobble out of the woods. They passed Ani,
still curled up on the ground, moaning and cursing. “Most fairies cannot
produce that much. It was enough to brainwash you for weeks. But if he hadn’t
expended all his magic to hurt you, I would not have been able to capture him.”

“I’ll be okay. I always am,” she
insisted, concentrating on keeping her knees from giving out under her. She
wasn’t sure if she was telling herself that or Gideon. “How’d you find me,
anyway?”