Page 55 of Dark Bringer (Lord of Everfell #1)

Cathrynne

S he was grateful beyond measure to find Kal alive, but the girl wasn’t alone.

Levi Bottas—the dead consul’s bumbling aide—knelt in the grass before her. Kal held a pistol at her side, its barrel pointed down. She stared at them blankly and seemed to be in shock.

“I didn’t intend to kill you on the rooftop, Morningstar,” Levi called out as Gavriel strode up. “Only to scare you off.”

Everything about him was different. His voice, his gaze, the set of his shoulders. Even kneeling—and, apparently, shot—he gave off natural confidence and charisma. Bottas was a phantom, Cathrynne realized. And they were all his cat’s paws.

“Then you don’t know me at all,” Gavriel replied icily.

Levi winced in pain. “No,” he agreed with a touch of weariness. “It was a mistake. One of many.”

“You lured Casolaba up to the spire,” Gavriel said. “Why?”

He laughed softly. “You never met the man, but I promise you, he deserved it. Working for him was like stepping on a slug in bare feet. Slimy, unpleasant, and hard to scrape the ooze off. He wanted me to kill everyone who knew about the kaldurite.” Levi’s blue eyes flicked to Kal, then back to Gavriel.

“I knew that when I refused, he’d simply add me to his death list and get someone else to do it. ”

The amiable mask slipped and something darker crossed his face.

“So I made the first move. I told him I had a buyer willing to pay a king’s ransom for the stones, but he was an eccentric fellow and wanted to meet at the top of the dome.

Casolaba would have followed me into the jaws of a blue emperor for the right price. ”

“But really . . .” Cathrynne put in. “ Impaled ?”

“A little present for everyone he screwed over in his long and shitty career.” Levi’s smirk died as he turned to Kal. “Come with me,” he said in a low urgent voice. “I’ll keep you safe, I swear. They just want to use you.”

“ You just want to use me!” she retorted.

“No. I could have taken you by force, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t do that to you, Kal?—”

“Shut up,” Lara snapped. “You’re not going anywhere and neither is she.”

Levi gave her an amused smile. “Whatever you say.”

One hand was pressed to his shoulder to stanch the wound. There was something wrong with his blood, Cathrynne realized. Something very, very wrong. It looked silver in the moonlight.

“What are you?” she asked.

Levi Bottas looked down, a lock of dark hair falling across his face.

“Answer her,” Gavriel snapped.

He made a guttural sound of pain. The lamps along the pathway flickered.

“What in Minerva’s name . . .” Lara said slowly.

Levi lifted his head. His eyes glowed an unearthly blue, as if they held pure ley.

He gained his feet in one graceful motion.

Cathrynne unleashed a blast of projective magic an instant before Lara did the same.

Their combined spell struck Levi with enough force to level a building, but he merely staggered back a step.

Then he began to grow . Taller, wider, muscles bulging in thick cords along his arms and neck.

“What’s happening?” Kal squeaked, scrambling back.

When his massive shoulders caught in the branches of an oak tree, forcing him to duck his head, Gavriel voiced what they were all thinking. “Run!”

Cathrynne’s cracked ribs protested, but she gritted her teeth and took off.

Lara and Kal ran ahead, but Gavriel slowed his pace to stay at her side.

They ran between a pair of buildings as the giant who called himself Levi Bottas stomped through the grounds, bellowing Kal’s name.

Cathrynne hoped it was an illusion until she glanced back and saw one hand swipe at a roof, sending slate tiles cascading down.

They ran until they reached a stone fountain filled with wet leaves. Everyone crouched behind it, fighting to catch their breath.

“What by the three gods is he?” Gavriel panted, looking grim.

Kal hunched her shoulders as everyone looked at her. “I have no idea! I thought he was human.”

“How long have you known him?” Cathrynne asked.

“Not long. A few weeks.” She glanced sidelong at Lara. “He promised to help me get out of Arjevica.”

Lara snorted. “You should have come to me. I could have protected you?—”

“Yeah, everyone keeps saying that,” Kal snapped. “But I don’t want your protection. I just want to be left alone!”

Lara opened her mouth to argue but Cathrynne cut in. “So you shot him?”

Kal looked on the edge of tears. “I didn’t want to, but I found out he was lying. Just using me to get the stones.” She swallowed. “I only shot him once. I’m not even sure where I hit him. I wasn’t aiming to kill. Then I saw his blood. It’s silver . What does it mean?”

“I’ve never seen that before,” Cathrynne said quietly. “Have any of you?”

The others shook their heads.

“We need to get out of here,” Lara said. “I’ll force us to the chapter house.”

Kal’s face hardened. “No.”

“Be reasonable,” Lara hissed. “We’re trying to help you!”

Her gaze unfocused. Cathrynne sensed the stones in her bracelet lighting up.

Some projective, others receptive. The hair on her arms rose as Lara expertly braided the flows together.

Liminal spaces opened where they made contact with each other, like tiny wormholes.

A box began to form, and now she could see that the outlines of it were made of violet liminal ley.

Lara was forcing them all, whether Kal liked it or not.

Except that when she tried to extend the box to include the young woman from Pota Pras, the whole construction popped like a soap bubble. Lara looked astonished.

“That’s never happened before,” she muttered. “What’s going on?”

Cathrynne noticed that Kal had one hand jammed in her coat pocket. She’d assumed it was the gun, but now she realized that Kal must be clutching a lump of kaldurite. Which meant she couldn’t be forced—not against her will.

If she told Lara, the argument would get ugly. Better to handle the situation another way.

“There’s no time,” Cathrynne said urgently. “Levi needs to be contained before he hurts a student or staff member. I’ll stay here with Kal while you gather more witches to deal with him.”

Lara looked torn, but she gave a hard nod. She pulled off her rings and pressed them into Cathrynne’s palm. “Topaz, sunstone, and sugilite,” she said. “Set in copper and gold.”

Then she was gone, sprinting into the darkness. In the distance, Levi continued his search, his lumbering form blotting out the lamps along the pathways.

Cathrynne turned to Gavriel. “Can you fly with her to Suriel?”

He considered it, then shook his head. “I won’t leave you here alone. And two will be too much weight.”

“I can handle myself,” she assured him. “It’s the girl he wants.”

“I’m right here,” Kal said. Her chin lifted. “I am not getting toted around like a piece of luggage. In fact, I have a train ticket in my pocket and I intend to use it?—”

Cathrynne tensed as she spotted movement.

Two figures approached at a jog—Lara and Hysto.

She felt relief, followed on its heels by guilt at the way she’d treated her mother the last time they spoke.

Hysto had saved her life. Risked the wrath of the High Council that said cyphers could never see their birth mothers again. She deserved civility at least.

Yet their arrival seemed way too quick. Something wasn’t right . . .

Their faces shimmered, wavering like a heat mirage. The illusion slipped. Cathrynne felt an electric jolt of terror. It was not her sister and mother, but Markus Viktorovich and Berti Baako.

Gavriel stepped into their path. He clearly knew who they were because he looked furious. “How dare you come here?” he demanded, hands fisting. “I suggest you turn around this instant before?—”

Markus hurled him aside with a contemptuous flick of one finger. Gavriel slammed into a thick oak and fell to the earth, groaning. Cathrynne ignited a chunk of brown agate, but Markus easily deflected the attack. He unleashed another battering assault, forcing Cathrynne to duck and roll.

Everything happened so fast. A knife glinted in the moonlight.

Kal yelled. Cathrynne feared she’d been stabbed.

Then she saw that Kal’s wool coat had been slashed open, the lining hanging in flaps.

The cold shine of kaldurite stones glittered in the grass.

Kal scrabbled for the stones on hands and knees, but Berti got there first. She kicked Kal hard in the side, then grabbed her hair and dragged her back, kicking her again.

Ash’s candy-red hair materialized out of the darkness. She wore thick leather gloves. She quickly swept the kaldurite stones into a pouch.

“Those are mine!” Kal bared her teeth. “Give them back!”

Berti slapped her across the face. “Shut up!”

Markus regarded Cathrynne. The bastard didn’t look smug, of course he didn’t. He was too refined for that. Too self-righteous. No, he looked regretful, like she was a bright student who had wasted her potential and was about to get expelled.

“You should have accepted my offer when you had the chance,” he said. “Now it’s too late. But we have the girl. She’ll give us what we need.”

In the rainy night, Cathrynne’s scalp prickled. Three symbols appeared, hovering in the air, just as they had weeks before at the Nilssons’ home.

A golden key, a sailing ship, and a coffin.

A witch was about to force—either Berti or Markus, it didn’t matter who—but this time the coffin wasn’t for Mercy, it was for Kal Machena.

Cathrynne felt the painful pressure shift in her ears. She knew firsthand what the White Foxes would do to Kal once they had her alone in that house of horrors. Her fingers closed around Lara’s rings. Topaz and sunstone, projective. Sugilite, receptive.

Cathrynne had never been taught to force, that dangerous art of bending reality to create a portal, but she’d seen the witch Ninnoc do it, hurling her and Mercy from Arioch to Kota Gelangi in an eyeblink.

And she’d just watched Lara make a box—although not all the way.

Passivity and surrender were the keys to working receptive magic. The problem was that Cathrynne wasn’t good at either of those things. Her training had focused on offensive magic, which was all outward-flowing. Directing one’s will to manifest a specific outcome.

She quickly jammed the topaz ring on her left ring finger, the sugilite on the other, and tried drawing on them both simultaneously. The projective magic flowed well. But the other was like trying to push water back into a faucet. It only ran one way.

Markus’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing, Cathrynne?”

Bloody hell! It wasn’t working. Why wasn’t it working?

She was an ambi, able to use both hands for projective magic . . .

But maybe . . . maybe not for receptive?

Cathrynne tried to focus, tangentially aware that Kal was struggling with Berti Baako. Gavriel had dragged himself to standing and was delivering a series of dire threats to Markus, distracting him long enough to buy a few more seconds.

But that’s all she had. Because Ash was coming her way with a look of implacable hatred, and she had kaldurite stones so Cathrynne couldn’t touch her with ley.

She quickly switched the rings. The projective topaz was now on her right hand, the sugilite on the left.

Please, Minerva, I’m surrendering to your will.

Help me save them. She felt the topaz flare, and this time, the sugilite flowed inward, its cool, healing energy racing through her veins, through her heart and mind, reading her emotions, and then flowing back out again to join the threads of fiery topaz.

A sheen of sweat broke across her brow as she braided the opposing forces together, just as she’d seen Lara do. They fought each other tooth and nail. She feared they’d tear her apart. Perhaps tear the whole world apart.

“To me!” she cried through clenched teeth. “Hurry!”

Kal wrenched herself free of Berti’s grasp. Gavriel was near enough to take the girl in his arms, folding his wings around her.

“Stop!” Markus strode forward, his face white. “You’ll all die?—”

Cathrynne staggered to Kal and Gavriel as the lines of the box joined together. Then came a clap of silent thunder, a deep vibration that made her cracked ribs ache. Wait, a panicked voice in her head screamed. Where are we going?

The warp and weft of reality folded, and Cathrynne felt the sickening lurch of falling, again and again, through the spaces between.