Shadowstorm (Sorcery and Science Book 6) (11 page)

“The Selpes?” Everett asked grimly.

“Perhaps. Whoever they are, they don’t feel Elition.”

Cameron met her eyes curiously. She knew what he was thinking. Resonance was more like something a Phantom would pick up on. Lana had told them that Silver wanted to explore why she, Cameron, and Jason all seemed to demonstrate some abilities of the other two—and of the three of them, most especially Terra. She’d very nearly been classified as a Triad because of it.

“That doesn’t look good,” Everett declared as they passed into an open area in the labyrinth.

Free of hedges, it was a large room with a polished floor of light beige tiles. But the tiles were far from ordinary. They were unstable, swinging panels that would swallow up anyone who dared cross the floor to the cabinet of locked drawers set upon a raised platform in the center of the room. There was a way across, Terra decided as she spotted a path of stable tiles, scattered amidst the turbulent panels. But the floor was not the only danger that stood in their way.

Terra caught the subtle reflection off the nearly invisible wires intertwined across the room like an intricate spider’s web. They were meant to entangle and unbalance the hopeful intruder, sending them tumbling onto the unstable floor panels. No, not just tumbling. Terra noticed that some of the transparent strands were tripwires to traps unknown—though she hardly expected they would release a happy, hopping bunny whose greatest wish in life was to present them each with a kiss.

This room, too, was a labyrinth. A labyrinth of perilous missteps and deadly ends.

“What do you think?” Cameron asked her.

“That I wish I weren’t a rogue.”

Everett’s lip twitched with amusement. “Do you think this room only attacks rogue Elitions?”
 

“No, of course not. I only meant that were I not a rogue, I could have just marched up to the castle and asked Ariella’s parents, the king and queen of Zephyr, to deactivate the traps so I could recover the artifact.”

“You’re a rogue because you ran away from the Selpes. If you hadn’t done that, you’d still be their effective prisoner,” he pointed out.

“I know that.” Though, actually, she’d been running away from Aaron Selpe as much as from the Selpes themselves.

“You wouldn’t even be here with us, chasing phantoms of Xenen artifacts across the world,” he continued. “You would be…”

“Ducking into closets to hide from Aaron Selpe?” she offered.

He chuckled. “More like breaking the bastard’s arms.”

“You’re right,” she agreed to his great amusement. “Not about breaking his arms. I’d go for the legs, so he couldn’t get up to chase after me.” She tried to laugh but wasn’t really in the mood. “You’re right that I’ve made my choice, and now I have to live with the consequences.” She looked at Cameron. “The good and the bad.”

He offered her a reassuring smile.

“But it still stings,” she said. “Ariella is my kindred. And this is her home kingdom.”

“Do you think she’ll mind terribly our breaking into her family’s vault?”

“She’d probably help us do it if I asked,” replied Terra. “But that’s not what I meant. I just think it would be nice if seeing my friends didn’t put them in danger.”

Everett wrapped an arm around her shoulder and gave her a tight squeeze. “You have friends here too, Terra.”

Nodding in agreement, Cameron moved in to hug her from the other side. “You’re not alone.”

“Thanks,” she told them, wiping away a tear. She patted her hands against her legs and stared out at the maze of traps. “I’ll take the lead. Follow one by one. Step only where I step. Move precisely as I do.”

She lifted her leg, sliding it through a gap in the web, then set her foot upon the first stable panel. From there, she squatted deep into her knees and pointed her foot sideways, lunging onto the next stable panel. Keeping low, she tucked in her trailing foot and stood up straight through the narrow channel between the wires. As she navigated the web in this fashion, she heard Everett mimic her motions one step behind her. And Cameron followed behind him.

Minutes later, Terra set down safely on the central platform. Breathing out a sigh of relief, she looked back out across the room. Everett was balancing well as he contorted his body through the odd-shaped exit to where she was waiting. The complex positions of the daily Rising of the Sun dance at Eclipse had prepared him well for this obstacle course. Cameron arrived on the platform shortly after, spry as a cat.

Terra walked around the cabinet, her finger tracing over the rows of drawers on each side. “Cameron?”

He caught her arm, using his other hand to point to a drawer identical to all the others. “There.”

The three of them closed in. Terra pulled out the drawer. Its inside was cushioned in a layer of dark velvet, and atop the fabric sat another Xenen artifact—and beside that, an Elition sand slate.

“I’m sensing a pattern here,” Everett said as he secured the two pieces inside his slim sling pack.

“No doubt,” agreed Cameron. “Terra, what are you doing?”

Terra looked up from rummaging through another drawer. She didn’t even know why she’d chosen to look inside it. Just a feeling perhaps.

“Um, nothing,” she said, feeling guilty.

Everett peered into the drawer, and his eyes grew wide at the collection of shimmering-smooth platinum and vibrant blue diamonds inside. He whistled. “Those are a larger part of the Selpe imperial jewels. Do you have any idea how much those are worth?”

“A lot?” she said.

“A whole lot and then some,” he confirmed, reaching toward a wide bracelet with suspended emerald-cut blue diamonds. He stopped and looked around with a frown. “But what are they doing here?”

“Perhaps the Selpes are storing them here for safekeeping,” Cameron suggested.

“Hmm. There’s a story behind this, I’m sure.” Everett crossed his arms. “But I can’t quite remember. All I do remember is that Ambrose Selpe put most of the imperial jewels away years ago. No one has seen them in a very long time.”

“Well, then no one will miss them,” Terra decided, snatching up a necklace that easily weighed more than a hundred normal necklaces put together.

“Wait,” Everett said, catching her hand before she could put it into his pack.

She glared at him. No one was going to take this away from her.

“My bag’s too full. We should wear the jewelry out.” He slipped a few rings onto his fingers. “That’s the best way to bring them back through the web without losing anything.”

Terra nodded and lifted the necklace over her head, tucking it under her jacket. Together, she and Everett quickly emptied the contents of the drawer.

“You’re looting,” Cameron told them, watching them with a critical eye. “From the Selpes.”

“Actually, from Aaron Selpe,” Terra said with a wicked grin. “The imperial jewels belong to the emperor. And there’s no one I’d rather steal from.”

Everett nodded in vigorous agreement.

“Are you two out of your minds?” Cameron demanded. “As though the Selpes don’t already have enough reasons to hunt you down.”

Everett pretended to drill into Cameron’s ear with his finger, then peered inside. “Jason Chanz, are you hiding in there?”

Terra bit down on her lip to keep from snorting.

Cameron swatted Everett’s hand away. “You think this is funny?”

“Yes,” Everett chuckled.

Terra handed Cameron a necklace that weighed only half as much as the one she was wearing. “Look, Aaron already has half of his army—the half not busy setting up bases close to the Avans—on the hunt for me, so it’s not like pilfering a few trinkets could make things any worse for me. On the other hand, we could really use the money selling this jewelry would give us. And since we’re here anyway…” Terra looked at a crown, contemplating how best to secure it. “…we might as well take advantage of the opportunity that has arisen.” She set the crown down on her head, and pulled the hood of her jacket up over it, tugging the drawstrings tightly closed.

“Enchanting,” Everett snickered.

Terra responded with a practiced bow. “Why, thank you.” Following another impulse, she slid open a small drawer. Inside the drawer was a folded piece of paper, and inside that was a recipe for just what she needed to get the bounty hunters out of her hair for good.

“What’s that?” Cameron asked as she tucked the paper into her jacket pocket.

“Hey, you! Stop!” a voice shouted out.

Terra whipped around. Six Selpe soldiers stood at the edge of the room of traps, their guns drawn.

“They’ve come for Emperor Selpe’s jewels,” one man said.

“Isn’t that Terra Cross?” another asked, pointing at her.

A man in front—the leader—nodded. “It surely is.” He smirked at her. “Emperor Selpe will be pleased when we return both his jewels and his empress to him.”

“I do
not
belong to that man,” she growled under her breath.

One of the soldiers ventured forward, completely unaware of both the web and the trick panels. His ankle caught against a wire, and he staggered forward. When his foot hit the unstable floor panel, he slipped. In his desperate scramble to steady himself, he bounced off the web, making the surrounding section vibrate. That set off one of the hidden tripwires. Flames erupted from below, spilling through the loose panels, spinning them around.

Definitely not happy, hopping bunnies.

The Selpes backed up against the labyrinth wall, ignoring the screams of their fallen comrade. Not one of them looked prepared to tackle the traps, but it would only be a matter of time before the shock wore off and they remembered that they were carrying guns—at which point, they’d start shooting into the middle of the room.

“Let’s go. Back across the room and out through the maze,” Terra decided. She snatched the necklace from Cameron’s hands and slipped it over his head. “Cameron, you can bring us back through, right?”

He nodded and proceeded to tackle the motions through the web in reverse order. He moved quickly, his body perfectly in tune with the memory. Terra and then Everett followed. They were moving away from the Selpes, who were still standing dumbstruck and motionless at the other end of the room. As Everett cleared the web, one of the soldiers snapped out of his daze. He nudged his comrades, and together the five soldiers proceeded to unload the entirety of their ammunition. Terra pulled Everett around the corner of the labyrinth, and together with Cameron they disappeared into the greenery. After a while, the Selpes stopped shooting, and Terra heard them take off into the maze as well.

“The Selpes have moved in here now too. It would be great if you could retrace our steps to the entrance before our paths cross,” she told Cameron.

“Oh, no pressure,” Cameron grumbled. He darted left, then quickly switched to right instead.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

~
Links ~

527AX January 10, Red Woods

“I’M DISAPPOINTED ACTUALLY,” Terra declared later as they sat around a fire inside the Red Woods. “It was hardly a challenge.”

“Which part?” Everett asked her. “The labyrinth, the web of wires, the plummeting-to-your-death tiles, or the tripwires to a fiery demise?” He wiped the lip of his flask down with his shirt and offered it to her.

She shook her head with a grin. Everett was tickled that she still recalled that night long ago and far away when they’d gone through exactly the same motions.

“All of the above. I was expecting something a bit more thrilling,” she said.

“Well, if you want a thrill…” He allowed his voice to drift off, then held the flask out to her once more.

“That’s not so much a thrill as an episode for madness,” she told him, crinkling her nose up.

He had to give that to her. The smell wafting up from the open flask certainly was potent.

Cameron swiped the flask from Everett’s hand and took a long gulp. “Nothing to it.” He sneezed. “Nothing at all.”

Everett decided to forego commenting on the sneeze.

“That’s easy for you to say, Cameron,” Terra said. “To a Prior, alcohol is a balancing agent, no different than water.”

“Not exactly like water.” Cameron returned the flask to Everett, then turned to Terra. “Are you going to tell us about the super secret paper you swiped from the Treasury?”

“It’s not really super secret, though it is the only copy in existence. It’s a recipe for a serum. A Triad serum.”

“A serum for a Triad or a serum that will make you a Triad?”

“Make me a Triad,” she said. “Or at least temporarily give me full power over the Triad abilities.”

“I’ve read about this Triad serum,” Cameron said, frowning. “As far as I recall, no one knows if it even works. Accentuating multiple abilities is far more complex than accentuating one. And accentuating one is hard enough; it often doesn’t even work.”

“This Triad serum will work. I know it will.”

“What are you going to do if the serum works?” Cameron asked her.

A sly smile curled her lips. “You’ll see.”

“Is this one of those telling-the-future things?” Everett asked, retracting the wince. He should have been used to the magic by now. He just wasn’t. Not when it came to prophecies. He was in control of his destiny. He repeated that assertion a few times in his head for good measure.