A few victims later, I had my aim on someone when I sensed another form sneaking up behind me. I turned but wasn’t quite fast enough. He grabbed my arm and bent the gun away from him, forcing me to the ground. With my left hand, I managed to drag out the other gun. It was more or less smothered as his body tried to pin mine down, and I had no real target. It didn’t matter. I just sort of aimed in an upward direction and fired. He screamed and recoiled enough for me to push off and fire again with more precision.
Someone else took advantage of my distraction and grabbed me from behind. I’d stuffed the extra gun back in my pants and now struggled against him with the first gun when suddenly it grew hot in my hands. Burning hot. I yelped and dropped it, staring as it lay sizzling on the ground, glowing faintly orange.
I didn’t have to hear his voice in my ear to know who held me.
“Eugenie Markham, lovely of you to pay me a visit.”
“I’m going to kill you,” I hissed.
“Yes, yes, you told me that before, and yet, I see it’s not really working out. You should have taken me up on my earlier offer.” He barked out a command to a nearby guard who ran up to us. “Disarm her before she kills anyone else.”
With all the confusion, none of my other allies noticed what was happening. I opened my mouth and began chanting the ritual words to bring the spirits. They were currently too far out of range to simply hear me shout. Realizing what I attempted, Aeson threw me onto the ground, using his body weight to hold me while one hand covered my mouth.
“Hurry!”
The guard removed my athames and wand. For the extra gun, he wrapped his hand in the folds of his cloak to retrieve the weapon and then hastily tossed it away.
“You’re a damned nuisance-and a deadly one,” muttered Aeson. “Keeping you alive for nine months may be more trouble than it’s-ow!”
I didn’t see what happened to him but heard a thunk above me.
“You used your power to toss one rock at me?” he exclaimed, an almost comic note of incredulity in his voice.
“On the contrary,” I heard Dorian say pleasantly. “I didn’t use magic for that. I just threw it.”
Aeson tossed me toward his guard, just as flames rose up from the ground. In the darkness, the bright light hurt my eyes, forcing me to glance away. Heat rolled off that scorching orange wall, instantly heating up my skin. The guard attempted to scramble back and hold me at the same time, doing a half-assed job at both, though he still managed-just barely-to keep me restrained.
My gaze stayed on the fire’s flickering colors until I suddenly felt the ground shake. Jerking my head up as much as my restraint allowed, I saw a cloud of darkness rise above the flames. It crashed down, like the palm of one’s hand, and the fire abruptly went out, extinguished as pounds of dirt slammed it to the ground.
Without missing a beat, Dorian gestured to the spot Aeson stood on. I felt shaking again and saw the earth ripple, like a wave of water moved under the surface. It knocked Aeson off-balance, and then a storm of rock shards-much as I’d seen with the nixies-swirled around, taking aim. Still on the ground, Aeson lifted his own hands. Waves of heat blasted away the rocks, scattering them in different directions. Some of them melted, dripping back to the earth in a molten shower.
Ashes filled the air, and I could hear Aeson coughing as he stumbled to his feet. The ground trembled again, pushing him back to his knees. He supported himself with one hand and gave a shaking, raspy laugh.
“It didn’t have to come to this,” he said. “If you would have just shared her, she might already be with child.”
A shower of rocks spattered Aeson as Dorian strode forward. They weren’t razor sharp, but they looked like they hurt. The Alder King winced and shielded his face.
“I don’t share,” Dorian said flatly. The earth near Aeson coalesced into ropes of dirt, winding their way around his limbs. Score one for bondage fetishes.
“Too bad. You might have lived had you felt differently.”
Aeson suddenly burst up, breaking through the bonds of earth. As he did, fire blasted from all around him, outlining him and then shooting forward. My scream was smothered in my captor’s hand as I saw Dorian fly backward. Aeson charged forward, his hands controlling and shaping the flames into a ring around Dorian’s crouching form. The walls flared up high and thick, so hot they gleamed blue and white. I wouldn’t have thought Dorian could survive that inferno, but Aeson kept talking to him as though he were still alive.
“Too many theatrics, Dorian, and not enough strength left now to free yourself.”
I looked around desperately. There weren’t many guards left. In the distance, I saw Kiyo nail some guy pretty handily-the man’s pain-filled scream affirmed as much-but he was too far to help, just like the spirits. I realized then my guard’s hold had slackened; he was apparently transfixed by his master’s showdown. Others, just as captivated, stopped and stared.
Taking advantage of the guard’s lack of attention, I shoved my elbow back into his stomach and attempted to spring free. I didn’t really expect to achieve that goal, but it did uncover my mouth. I spoke the summoning words, and Nandi and Volusian appeared.
“Get Aes-” I began, just before the hand slammed on my mouth again. Another guard joined mine to help with the confinement.
The spirits shifted from humanoid form to something else, still vaguely anthropomorphic but more like a cloud of energy. They swooped toward Aeson, one shining and blue, the other black and silver.
He deflected them with flames while still holding the walls on Dorian. An instant later, I saw a wand in one of his hands. No. He couldn’t He spoke banishing words, and I felt the surge of power in the air as he tore open a hole to the Underworld. The form that was Nandi trembled and then exploded, disappearing in sparkles. She’d found her peace at last-and without another two years of service to me.
“Call the other one off,” snapped Aeson, “unless you want to lose him too.”
The hand on my mouth lifted. I hesitated. I had nothing to lose if Volusian won or lost. In fact, Aeson’s request likely indicated he couldn’t banish the spirit to the land of death. Gentry rarely had that kind of power anyway, so Aeson probably couldn’t do what I had been unable to do. But if he fought Volusian, it was possible he could have enough strength to break my control and enslave him as a minion. That was not an option. Better for the spirit to be destroyed than turned against me.
“Hold, Volusian.”
He retreated immediately, coalescing back into his normal shape.
Aeson returned to Dorian. The Alder King held up his hand and brought his fingers together in a fist. The burning walls contracted, resembling more of a cocoon than a cylinder now. Through the crackling of flames, I heard Dorian scream.
Helplessness choked my heart. Just like with the mud elemental. Just like with the nixies. I had no weapons and no freedom. This was exactly the kind of situation Dorian kept speaking of. The time magic would be handy. I couldn’t use it, however. My abilities included only miniscule water manipulation and out-of-control storms and their consequences.
Yet, suddenly, I didn’t care about the consequences. I wanted to summon a major storm, a storm to devastate this whole area. Maybe it’d kill my friends and me, but things didn’t really look good for us anyway. Focusing my mind on that, I tried to recall the angry tempests I’d created before.
Only…it didn’t work. Maybe it was because I’d never consciously done such a thing before. Or maybe it was because I could no longer see storms as a whole. They were pressure and charged particles and-most importantly-water. Dorian had taught me to compartmentalize the elements, and that’s all I could do now. I thought about storms, but all my mind did was reach out and touch all the water sources nearby. Damn it. Finding water did no good, not unless I could move a whole lake and douse the fire. I doubted I could command that much water, even if I had a source like that nearby.