Island Shifters: Book 02 - An Oath of the Mage (25 page)

“Kiernan! Move from the door! Now!” Her father barely managed to get the words out before she heard him grunt as if he had been hit. Sensing immediate danger, she backed away from the front of the door and dragged Kirby with her.

“
Ejektelo!
”

The spell exploded both doors of her father’s suite off their hinges and across the hallway where they crashed into the wall. A young woman stepped out of the ruined opening with her hands raised. Kiernan recognized her as one of the students from the Academy.

“Eden! You can relax, the soldiers are down.”

The girl turned to her and also looked at her stomach. “Good. You are still pregnant. This should be easy then.”

Kiernan’s blood ran cold and she lifted her sword in front of her, knowing it would be no match for a sorceress.

“Stand back, Kiernan,” said a voice behind her. “Leave this one to me.”

Kiernan turned in surprise.

It was Sapphire.

The dark-haired sorceress held her hand out toward Eden.

“
Bindeno
!”

Had the spell worked, it would have glued Eden’s arms and legs tightly to her body, but the sorceress was able to issue a counterspell that deflected the curse.

Kiernan peeked into the room while the two witches circled each other. “Stay inside!” she ordered.

Sapphire looked at Eden with indescribable disappointment in her eyes. “You are my sister, Eden. You took a vow to protect and defend the coven. What would make you cast aside your oath?”

Eden did not answer. Instead, she tried to cast another spell, but she was dealing with the Sect Leader of Spell Casting. She never had a chance. Sapphire countered the spell and rushed her, placing both hands on top of Eden’s head. “
Morbendi
.”

She said it softly, her voice laced with regret. It was a killing curse.

Gemini once told Kiernan that for a sorceress to take a human life, the spell required her to physically place her hands on the intended victim when uttering the incantation. Accidental killing was not possible—it had to be a very up close, very personal decision.

Eden slumped to the ground.

Sapphire turned to Kiernan and shook her head. “This was the first time I have ever had to use that curse and on a sister no less. Diamond had a feeling that a sorceress was involved in this mess so she sent me after you. However, that was all I had the authority to do. Now, that the threat of magic is over, the rest will be up to you.”

Kiernan nodded and without another word, Sapphire turned and went back through the door to the stairs to the servant quarters.

Her father walked out of his now doorless chambers, hurried over to her, and took her in his arms. He had a bloodied gash on the side of his head. “I was so worried for you.”

“Is everybody all right?” she asked.

He nodded and stepped back, and she saw Captain Bo Franck, Saber Ryan, Miss Belle, and Larkin step out of the room.

She quickly walked over to Miss Belle and Larkin. “The danger has not yet passed,” she told them tiredly. “Go to your rooms and hide there until the fighting is over. Quickly now.”

Miss Belle looked at her as if she were mad. “Like demon’s hell, child! I have lived in this city for more than sixty years, and I refuse to
hide
in my room while murderous thugs roam the streets. I still have a thing or two I can teach those ruffians! Come on, Larkin!” The stout woman hiked up the sides of her dress and ran down the corridor.

Larkin shrugged her shoulders with an excited grin and took off after her.

Kiernan watched them go in frustration. She turned back to Kirby. “We need to secure the castle. Preferably before those two women have a chance to get themselves killed.”

Captain Bo Franck spoke up. The scar he received in the Demon War created a jagged line from his temple to chin. “I will see to it, Your Grace. Come on, Ryan.” He paused. “I will keep an eye on old Belle, don’t you worry, girl.”

The two soldiers hurried off.

The clash of swords and shouts of fighting men echoed throughout the palace. Kiernan just hoped that the sounds meant that the Sabers had been successful in freeing the imprisoned legionnaires. If the Sabers were fighting alone, they would not stand a chance.

“We need to find Etin and put an end to this charade once and for all,” she told her father and Kirby.

“Your Graces!” A Saber skidded around a bend in the corridor and raced toward them. “Word has just reached the city.

Commander Hugo Bassus is dead! Lord Gregaros defeated Etin’s army on the plains near Janis!”

Kiernan let out a breath of relief. “Finally, some good news. Any word of Lord Etin?”

“In the midst of the diversions, he left Lady Conry by jumping out of the carriage and running this way toward the palace. I was tracking him, but he managed to slip away. He is in here somewhere. I am sure of it.”

Her father grabbed her arm. “I must go out into the city, Kiernan. It is imperative for morale that the troops and citizens see that I am freed.”

He was right. She nodded, and he turned to go. “Wait! You cannot go alone! Where is Captain Morel?”

The obsidian eyes glazed over. “Dead.” He turned and resumed his flight.

Kiernan looked over at the Saber that had joined them with news of Bassus. “You are now the King’s primary guard. Protect him with your life.”

He banged his fist to his chest. “On my oath as a Scarlet Saber, Your Grace,” he confirmed and was gone as well.

She had her own mission.

She was going hunting.

Hunting for a Lord.

The intense sting of Beck’s wounds from the whip and the rawness where the shackles cut into the skin of his wrists and ankles woke him with a start. He did not know how long he had been hanging against the cavern wall, but it felt like a lifetime. Every so often, he would drift into an exhausted slumber only to be awakened by the pain.

Almost worse than the pain was the image in Beck’s mind of the monster that Avalon Ravener had become.

He discovered that morning that she was still able to bodyshift and wanted nothing short of her death when she transformed into the figure of a young, dark-haired girl. Even though this girl was quite a few years older than his daughter, she reminded him of Kenley. Imagining Kenley in the hands of this creature that cared nothing for human life was more than he could endure.

When she reappeared, he would hand over The Protetor. He could stall no longer. If he gave Avalon the book she so desperately wanted, she would have no reason to go anywhere near Bardot. If it cost him his life, so be it.

Not for this first time, he wished that he had fulfilled the request of his grandfather and become a Mage. If he had, he would not be hanging here as helpless as an infant. Powerful as Avalon was, her witchcraft would have been no match for the sorcery of a Mage.

Thinking of what might have been, he slipped into sleep once again. When he awoke sometime later only to find himself still trapped in the same nightmare, he found that he could not breathe. He shrank back as the ceiling and walls of the cavern began to shift, closing in on him to crush his body in a vice of stone. Panting in terror, he felt like he was suffocating, and the walls continued to move steadily closer. Tears sprang to his eyes and he cried out in sheer helplessness.

“What is it?”

He physically recoiled at the voice, and then glanced down at the Cyman guard standing before him. The same guard who brought the whip against him. Was it yesterday? Or longer?

He looked back up. The walls had stopped moving and his fear was chased away by the guard’s presence.

“It was just a dream,” the Cyman assured him.

Beck nodded self-consciously and took a deep breath. It had seemed so real.

The kindness of the guard reminded him of Titus. The young Cyman he befriended in the Demon War spoke openly of the Cymans’ desperate quest for freedom and the torture they had to endure in Nordik. They viewed the Demon War as a chance at liberation from their evil oppressors and, for the survivors, that desire was realized.

“I do not suppose I could talk you into letting me go?” Beck asked with a shaky voice.

Another guard standing at the cavern entrance glanced his way, but the Cyman he addressed said nothing.

Feeling stronger, his curiosity got the better of him. “Tell me, Cyman, why you remain here on the island with Avalon Ravener instead of back with your own people in Nordik?”

The guard straightened. “What did you say?”

“Your people were freed at the end of the war, and they returned to your home. Why are you still here?”

“You are lyin’, earthshifter.”

Beck shook his head. “I am not, and I give you my word that if I live, I will personally escort you to a stronghold called Northfort in northern Iserlohn where you will be able to secure passage back to Nordik.” Beck waited while the Cyman processed the information. “I do not even propose that you free me. All I ask is that when my friend arrives that you do not intervene. Allow him to fight the black witch without interference.”

Beck did not know what the Cyman’s answer would have been because Avalon sauntered into the main chamber in the form of the dark-haired girl. She stood directly in front of him and looked into his eyes. “Oh, dear. There it is again, earthshifter. That look of hope.” She shook her head as if he were a willful child that had deliberately disobeyed her. She looked over her shoulder. “Cyrus, you will whip this man twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. Without fail! Do you understand?”

The Cyman nodded. “Yes, Mistress.”

She turned back to him. “I have decided to leave for Bardot immediately after all. Before I go, I will cast an invisibility spell around the cave to make it impossible for your bodyshifter friend to find you until I return. If you must hope for anything, Prince Beck, hope that you were not lying to me when you said that The Protetor was in your office at the Academy.” Her cruel glare cut through him. “If it is not there, your wife will not survive my visit.”

Beck swallowed and said softly, “There is no need to travel to Bardot. I have The Protetor with me.”

Her dead eyes narrowed into razor sharp pinpoints. “Where?”

“In the back pocket of my trousers.”

She gestured to the Cyman called Cyrus, and the guard strode to him and turned his body on the chains to gain access to his pocket. Shooting pain flooded into his limbs and he gritted his teeth against the agony.

“I ‘ave it, Mistress,” the guard said and pulled out the small book.

“Bring it here,” she ordered.

She ripped the book from Cyrus’ outstretched hand and flipped through the pages. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“No.”

“There is nothing here! The pages are blank.”

“The book is bespelled and only I have the ability to read the pages.”

She glowered at him with an expression of such loathing that even the Cyman’s shrank back from her. She let out a primal scream. “You think you are so clever,” she spit at him, dribble flying from her mouth. “You are a pathetic, disgusting excuse for a man. Look at you, hanging there like a side of meat. Helpless! And, weak! How are you going to feel when I string up your wife the same way you are right now? I promise you this, earthshifter, I will not stop to eat or sleep or even blink an eye until she is dead! Are you feeling clever now, Prince Beck?”

Beck struggled wildly, but in vain, against his bonds. She was still going to travel to Bardot and kill his family! He screamed at her in fury, and she grabbed the whip from her guard and flicked the lethal tip toward his face. It struck him in the cheek and a line of blood dripped from the wound.

The time had come.

Lifting his hands in a summons, the mountain of rock Avalon called Farout Falls began to tremble. He would die his way, not hers!

Avalon shrieked as she tried to maintain her balance under the shifting floor beneath her.

All of a sudden, the Cyman who was on guard at the cave entrance flew back onto the ground with a groan.

“Hope I am not late.”

Beck whipped his head toward the entrance. Brighter than all of the angels from the Demon War combined, stood his smiling, silver-haired savior.