Firedragon Rising (8 page)

Her fight wasn’t over yet, though; there was
one more monster to face. This time, she wouldn’t be caught by
surprise. And once she’d knocked Storm out, she’d snap that evil
wand of his like she originally planned, so he couldn’t use his
dark magic against her again. Then she would wake him and demand to
know what he wanted with her.

She met his glare, which glinted from the
light of his glowing wand. Her own eyes, she imagined, were also
sparking from the light of her glowing swords. This was the
moment—now, when he was still off-balance from the fight with the
monster.

Before she could make her move, though, a
flurry of brightness flashed before her. Six Sentinels—identifiable
by their Triumvirate-issued gold cloaks—were goldlighting onto the
scene.

Knowing her glowing blades would draw their
eyes, Aurelia rushed to stick them back into their sheaths, causing
the light to vanish before the Sentinels materialized. Even she
would have a hard time defeating half a dozen magical opponents.
But if they couldn’t see her, she’d have a better chance at getting
away.

A woman’s stern voice cut through the night.
“What’s going on here?”

Another flash briefly lit the darkness as
Storm tried to goldlight away, but the woman shouted a spell and
aimed her wand at him, stopping him before he could vanish. He
doubled over as though struck by a fist, then straightened.

“
Don’t test me, Sentinel.”
His voice was frightening in its calmness.

Aurelia took a tentative step back, hoping
the presence of an evil Enchanter would be more interesting to the
Sentinels than the crunch of the forest floor. She couldn’t let
them catch her and drag her back to the Triumvirate—especially when
she was so close to freedom. If they got her, they’d lock her up
for running away, then probe her mind to find out where she was
going. And once their spells dug the answer out of her and revealed
that she was trying to join the rebels, they’d kill her.

It was escape or die.

She kept her hands on the hilts of her
double swords, ready to strike again if she sensed danger
coming.

They must’ve seen the
light from the fight and heard the ruckus,
she realized.
They must’ve thought
they’d be saving the day. And that’s what they’ll tell everyone,
for sure.
She rolled her eyes, already
seeing the headlines in tomorrow morning’s newspapers. The
Sentinels would claim credit for her victory—again—and the
Triumvirs would probably praise them for their valor when they
hadn’t done a thing other than lie. That was how the Triumvirate
worked—glory went to whoever the Triumvirs favored, rather than
those who deserved it. She clenched her teeth to suppress a
snort.

You’re welcome, jerks.

“
Arrest him,” the woman
said in a steely tone.

She’d barely finished speaking before Storm
threw up his wand with a shouted incantation. Green-edged fire shot
toward the woman, who met it with a spell of blue sparks, stopping
it halfway. The other Sentinels sprang into action, throwing blasts
in Storm’s direction, but he wasn’t about to go quietly. Twisting,
he sent his magic shooting toward the others in a brilliant arc.
The Sentinels didn’t scare easy, though, and they fired back
ruthlessly. Colored light blazed from seven different wands,
wrestling for dominance over the surrounding blackness.

It was a spectacular sight, but Aurelia
wasn’t about to stay and watch. With her enemies busy fighting each
other—and apparently forgetting that she was there—she had a chance
to get away. She’d have to travel the last ten miles to the Way
Station on foot, leaving her motorbike and knapsack behind. They
were too close to the battle, and it wasn’t worth the risk of being
seen to fetch them. She could do without.

Step by tentative step, she walked backward,
allowing the shadows of the forest to swallow her. She moved
deliberately, doing her best to avoid making noise. Loud as the
Sentinel’s fight against Storm was, she didn’t want to risk
alerting them to her absence. She hoped to be long gone before the
confrontation ended.

But even if she could escape this time, she
didn’t think Tydeus Storm and his dark magic would give up so
easily. He’d been seeking her, after all, and though she didn’t
know what he wanted, she was sure it couldn’t be anything good. Not
only did he use the same magic as the monsters, but he’d said that
the Rising was his enemy. If he didn’t side with the Triumvirate
and he didn’t side with the Rising, that meant he supported the one
enemy that could unite both sides: the Lord of the Underworld. It
was the only explanation, since he used the Lord’s magic.

Aurelia reached one arm behind her, feeling
for obstacles, but kept her eyes on the fight. Though she moved
slowly, she couldn’t completely silence her boots, and her heart
leaped into her throat as a twig snapped beneath her heel. She
froze, holding her breath and half expecting someone—maybe Storm,
maybe a Sentinel—to goldlight to her location.

But bright spells
continued flaring beyond the trees; the battle was still going on,
which meant both her enemies remained distracted. She exhaled, but
relief wouldn’t come. An uncomfortable feeling gnawed at her gut as
she realized that if the Sentinels hadn’t come,
she’d
be the one fighting Storm. And
as much as she wanted to believe she could have taken him, she
might have gotten paralyzed again.

The Triumvirate was, in a
way, shielding her from
true
evil. If the Rising defeated them, would the new
leaders be able to keep back the power of the Underworld? Would
they have guardians of their own once they defeated the
Sentinels?

These were questions she’d have to ask once
she found the rebels. It already disturbed her that she was
thinking along the same lines as the Triumvirate. The
Underworld—with the dangers it presented and the fear it
inspired—was the reason they’d been able to choke off freedom,
after all. And now it was causing her to question the cause she’d
risked everything to join.

I won’t fall into that
trap
, she thought, gritting her
teeth.
There will always be supernaturals,
and the Triumvirate’s counting on that to keep themselves in power.
But they’re not the only ones who can protect people.
She was living proof of that. So was Williams,
with his shielding spells and knowledge of monster weaknesses. And
there had to be more; the rebels had been around for
twenty years
, after
all.

The Rising was her one
hope against both evil magic in the form of Tydeus Storm and evil
power in the form of the Triumvirate. They stood for the
freedom
—not power and
control, not dark magic and the Underworld. That meant they were
only ones on her side, who cared about and were willing to fight
for the same things she yearned for. She had to reach them before
her enemies caught up to her.

Spurred by that thought, she bolted through
the blackness.

AN ENTIRE ERA MUST HAVE
passed since the last time Aurelia had seen daylight, and yet
dawn was nowhere on the horizon. She had no idea how long she’d
been walking through the wilderness, clinging to the edges of the
ancient road that would lead her to the Way Station, but it felt
like forever.

She had to be getting close now. The last
road sign—which she’d nearly missed because it had fallen to the
ground and been covered in weeds—told her so. On Williams’ map, the
sign had been so close to the Way Station, it looked like you could
cross the span in two steps. In real life, considering the scale of
that piece of paper, she probably had about a mile to go.

A mile is
nothing
, she thought, picking up her pace
as she ran through the darkness. Stupid things like aching feet and
sore muscles hardly mattered when there was a big picture to
consider.
Freedom,
she reminded herself. No more fighting for a government that
looked down on her, or fearing that one wrong word could destroy
her life. The Rising was within reach, and she wondered how long
she’d have to wait at the Way Station before Williams could get a
message to his rebel pals telling them to meet her
there.

She hadn’t seen any sign of the Triumvirate
since her encounter with Storm, but she knew better than to believe
that she’d gotten away. They were hunting her still, and she
couldn’t rest until she’d made it to the safe house. So she kept
moving as fast as she could without wearing herself out.

She’d been running forever, it seemed, and
despite the cold air, heat radiated from her body. Since the
knapsack was gone, she’d strapped her swords to her back. They felt
almost like a shield, since they were all she had to protect
herself from any threats, and she was so used to having weapons
there that their presence were as familiar as the shirt on her
back. Though that made her somewhat glad to have ditched the bulky
bag, she wished she could’ve kept the bottle inside. Her throat
itched, demanding water, and she swallowed hard in an attempt to
silence it.

Suddenly a chill—icier, even, than the
winter wind—wafted through the air, and she stopped abruptly.
Something dangerous was coming, and the slight tremor in the ground
beneath her confirmed it. Another freezing gust blasted toward her,
causing the trees to shake and their bare branches to rattle.
Beneath the gale, she heard a woman’s faint voice calling,
“Hellooooo, little giiiiirl...”

A
specter
. Its voice seemed to have come
from all directions at once. Shuddering, Aurelia seized her swords
and held them out to her sides, swinging them quickly in hopes that
the silver blades would force the spirit to back off. There wasn’t
anything else she could do to fight a spirit. Fear pricked at her,
but she swatted it away. Specters fed on fear, drawing strength
from its energy. She wouldn’t give it that advantage.

“
Helloooooo,” the specter
said again, and this time its tone carried a cruel
laugh.

Aurelia looked around wildly, searching the
dark and hoping she wouldn’t find anything. The more visible a
specter was, the more power it wielded, which meant the weakest
were as transparent as the wind while the most powerful looked
almost solid. As long as this specter wasn’t strong enough to
materialize, she stood a chance of escaping before it hurled her
into a tree, or heaved a boulder at her head, or found some other
way to kill her. Dread clawed at her insides, and she fought to
keep it down.

Then an abrupt,
resounding
crack
shot through the night, and she sensed something huge coming
at her. Realizing it was a falling tree, she leaped out of the way
just before the trunk crashed into the ground. The snapping of
branches peppered the air like gunfire, and she ducked as one came
barreling toward her.

As she sprang back up, her eyes caught a
horrifying sight: A faintly glowing, translucent woman in a blue
dress that hung in tatters from her skeletal figure, which was
loosely covered in torn, gray skin. Her face was so distorted that
Aurelia wondered how it had ever been human at all. One eye looked
as if someone had grabbed it and its surrounding flesh, yanked it
down next to the nostrils, and then filled the resulting space with
an enormous gray boil. The lips appeared to have crumbled away,
leaving a ragged hole around the eternal grin of a skull’s
teeth.

But she didn’t have time to take in any more
details; she had to strike first, or she might not get another
chance. Whipping one blade before her, she launched herself at the
specter, slashing through its ghostly shape. A piercing wail rang
out as the specter’s form splintered, but Aurelia knew it wouldn’t
take long for the spirit to rematerialize. She raced in the other
direction, leaping over the fallen tree. Though she hated running
away, the specter was something she couldn’t fight. She could spend
the rest of the night swinging her blades and forcing it back, but
it would always return, and all she’d do was wear herself out. If
that happened, she’d be vulnerable, and the specter could throw her
around like a ragdoll until nothing was left of Aurelia but crushed
bones and pulp.

Her best bet was to make it across the
enchanted barrier around the Way Station; the specter wouldn’t be
able to follow. She just had to get there. She had to be close
enough now.

She hoped.

“
Stop, girl!” The
specter’s shrill voice landed in her ears like a double punch,
harsh and startling.