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Chapter Eleven

R oderick:

T he plane ride to Minnesota was a tense, harried trip. There were numerous medicine wheels around the country, but the one in central Minnesota had recent activity. It felt too easy, which meant it was a trap.

We focused every source of information we had on figuring out what Blackstone might do next.

Avie was in contact with the Inquisitor General’s office, and Jan spoke to Dad and the Mage Council’s staff.

Conall made calls to the Shifter Assembly, and Ignatius reached out to the Elven Conclave.

A minute later, Darius motioned to his brother Eldwin, and along with Hro, they found a quiet corner of the plane to contact the Society of Guardians.

That left me, my younger brother and his mate, and Elspeth with nothing to do and no one important enough to contact. I tentatively reached out to Cinaed, but he was focused on his own mission and I didn’t want to disturb him.

Owen popped up for the fourth time and I grabbed his arm. “Sit down, Owen.” His eyes brimmed with anger, but I didn’t back down. “I’m in charge of this mission, and even I can’t help with this stage of the plan. Trust that there will be plenty of chances to help when the time comes.”

Defiance stared at me for another second before he backed down. “Fine.”

I gently pushed him in the direction of the seat opposite me. “I want to do something too, but let those best suited to the task handle it. Right now, it’s those with the right connections. When it comes to a fight, you and Lysandor are at the top of my list.”

“You’re right.” He settled back in the seat. “I’m not good at feeling useless.”

The real issue was Owen had always been the best of his class and didn’t like being a substitute instead of a starter. “Welcome to my world. I’m not the oldest, smartest, most talented, or best mage in the family. You at least might be the strongest mage on this plane.”

“Might?” He puffed out his chest. “You think you can beat me?”

He was teasing, but behind the humor was a hint of truth. “No, but I don’t like your odds against Darius.”

“Oh.” He glanced at the back of the plane where Darius and the others sat. “I forgot he’s the O.G. Bart.”

Avie stood and saved me from responding to Owen. “Did you learn anything useful?” I asked her.

“Useful is a relative term,” she said, looking around the plane. “Let’s wait for the others so I don’t have to repeat myself.”

With the exception of Ignatius, the others joined us before Avie could sit. The silence stretched for a few minutes, and I was ready to suggest we start without him when he rose from his seat.

“Sorry that took so long,” Ignatius said as he joined us. “The ard ri loves to talk.”

“Must be an elven trait,” Hro said. “I recall a time?—”

“We don’t need to revisit this topic.” Eldwin stared at his mate. “Last time, the debate lasted nearly two years.”

I watched the guardians and wondered if this was how Cinaed and I would be in a thousand years. “Avie, why don’t you go first?”

“Yes, little brother,” she said with only a hint of annoyance.

Like Owen, she was adjusting to not being the top dog.

“About a hundred and twenty-five years ago, a man named Iacob Negru from Romania offered to help an Anishinaabetribe in Minnesota create a sacred place for their people on the new lands the United States Government gave them.

His reason for doing this was to help right an injustice done to these people.

As far as we know, he had no direct connection to the tribe.

The recipients constructed a new medicine wheel in the heart of their reservation.

“This was the first of several wheels he and other Romanians with the last name Negru helped create on newly established lands. There is no record of the wheels being used, but they were activated.” She nodded to Ignatius.

“The ard ri told me the shaman of the tribes would spend days filling the circles,” he said. “In recent months, someone has been tinkering with the magic in this wheel. Never a lot at a time, and it wasn’t the current shaman who made the changes.”

“How could he tell?” Jan asked.

“Pure earth magic has a different feel than magic we wield through our mage stones,” Ignatius replied.

“Unless the shaman abandoned centuries of tradition, they couldn’t have been responsible for what the elves felt.

The Conclave is sending teams of mages to investigate other sites we’ve identified. ”

“Is it possible to use one or more of these to destroy the Great Ward?” Elspeth asked. “The stone circles were massive and contained a lot of magic.”

“Under normal circumstances, no,” Darius said.

“Even at the height of their power, stone circles didn’t have the strength to destroy the Great Ward.

Blackstone, however, has accumulated an enormous amount of dark magic.

If he adds that to a medicine wheel, it would have greater strength than any stone circle. ”

“Question.” Owen raised his hand but quickly pulled it down. “If the wheels were created using earth magic, how could they be used to destroy something the earth is supporting?”

“In theory, they cannot,” Eldwin said. “If, however, one could distort the magic in the wheels, something we don’t know can be done, it is possible to create an event strong enough to bring down the Great Ward. This is especially true if it doesn’t directly attack the Ward.”

Most things were possible with the right spell or tool. “Given Blackstone has prepared for this moment for centuries, I’d expect he’s found a way.”

“How?” Lysandor asked. “Earth magic will fight against corruption.”

“It’s as Eldwin suggested—creating a pool of energy isn’t itself evil,” Owen said. “It’s like building a dam to store water. If you attached a hose at the base, you’d be able to generate destructive pressure.”

“Or if you destroy the dam, the energy released would be catastrophic,” Hro added.

Except that wasn’t the purpose of a stone circle or medicine wheel. “What if that’s not his plan?” I looked at Elspeth. “What is the purpose of the circles?”

“To banish demons and guard the land,” she answered.

“Or to trap them and hold them until they could be expelled.” I countered.

“Why would you trap a demon when you could kill it or send it back?” Conall asked.

“Because if you have one inside the circle, the energy generated from its death would be massive,” Jan caught on to where I was going. “Could they summon a demon inside a medicine wheel?”

“Yes,” Darius said. “During the Demon War, some mages would use the stone circles to summon powerful demons. Once they had enslaved what they’d called, they’d send it out to kill lesser demons.”

“That sounds stupid,” Lysandor said.

“Oh, it was,” Darius said, shaking his head. “It worked a few times, but once the demons caught on to the scheme, they adapted and quickly killed whoever had summoned them the moment they arrived.”

Blackstone’s family had been infamous for summoning demons, so some of those stupid mages had been his ancestors.

He’d also surely known this history when making his plans.

“Blackstone’s already raised two powerful demons who died minutes after they were summoned.

His targets will believe he plans to kill them and prepare for that possibility. ”

“Which means he’ll plan something else,” Avie said. “The question is what?”

Different thoughts zipped around my head, each as likely as the others.

Bart’s fight with the demon prince had been a close call.

There was no way Blackstone would’ve based all his plans on Bart winning.

The only way his actions made sense was if he won either way.

“Heads I win, tails you lose,” I whispered.

“What was that?” Eldwin asked.

“I’ve been bothered since Bart’s fight on campus,” I said.

“A meticulous planner such as Blackstone would’ve never left his plans to rely on an outcome so much in doubt.

Yes, Bart is powerful, but this was a demon prince.

The only way his actions make sense is if he didn’t care if Bart won or lost.”

“That’s logical,” Avie said. “What do we make of it?”

I had no good answer. Blackstone had a specific plan he was following, and we were flailing trying to guess his next moves. I looked at Darius and Ignatius. “If Bart had lost, could Blackstone have used that outcome to destroy the Great Ward or destroy the mage world?”

Neither responded right away, and I assumed they were discussing their answer.

After about thirty seconds, Darius drew a deep breath.

“That’s a complicated answer. The short answer is no, he couldn’t.

Not directly at least. Even if the demon had killed Bart, he wouldn’t have been able to extinguish the Great Ward.

The harder part is figuring out what glyphs Blackstone used to summon the Demon Prince. ”

“We’ve studied them extensively, and they weren’t standard summoning markings,” Ignatius added.

“Most likely the summoning circle was built to contain the demon so Blackstone could kill it for its power. The containment elements in the glyph were far more complex than needed for a simple summoning.”

“Only a fool would try to bend a Demon Prince to his will,” Eldwin interjected. “Surely that wasn’t his intention.”

“Correct, which rules out trying to use the demon to kill as many of us as possible,” Darius said.

“The entire episode was likely designed to kill Bart, who Blackstone rightly sees as a powerful foe. As a secondary purpose, Blackstone probably intended this as a way to harvest magical power. The death of a being as powerful as a Demon Prince releases extraordinary energy.”

“Bart killing the demon prince reduced the amount of magic Blackstone collected,” Ignatius added. “He got a considerable amount, but not nearly as much as if he’d killed the demon instead of Bart.”