Eye of the Tempest (29 page)

Instead, I concentrated on her people. After all, if they were putting all their power into shielding Phaedra, they couldn’t be shielding themselves very well.

I let rip a maniacal cackle as I saw my mage balls buckle Kaya and Kaori’s weakened shields, and then felt them scramble to pump their magic back into their own shields at the expense of Phaedra’s. In response, the little Alfar’s blood-red eyes grew wide, and Blondie responded with an even fiercer barrage. I kept the pressure on the harpies, which did weaken Phaedra. But the two bird-women were too experienced and were still able to send some power to Phaedra. Plus, Graeme was completely free to act as Phaedra’s personal shield generator.

Strategizing as I stepped closer to Blondie, I kept lobbing mage balls at the harpies, even as I switched the majority of my firepower to Graeme. Because I was no match for the incubus yet, offensively, that shouldn’t have made much difference. But I wasn’t really trying to get to Graeme. I wanted his girlfriend.

Just like I thought she’d do, Kaya (or Kaori—I still had no idea which was which) went all squishy at the sight of her boyfriend getting attacked and threw some extra strength at Graeme. That meant Phaedra was one minion down. And when I turned all my force away from the harpies and blasted at Graeme full strength, I soon felt Graeme’s girlfriend further decrease her own shields. I kept blasting at Graeme, letting her think I’d forgotten about her and her sister in favor of bigger prey, until she dropped her shields entirely. Leaving her easy pickings.

Keeping smaller mage balls firing on Graeme while I created a bigger mage ball behind me, I waited till Kaya (or Kaori) took a sympathetic step toward her boyfriend. Unprotected by anything—even the edges of her sister’s shields—she fell like a nerd for a hot chick dressed as Harlequin when my mage ball hit. Her sister cried out while her lovable beau barely even cast a glance in her direction.

Why
do
women date assholes?
I wondered, as the ambulant harpy withdrew all of her shields from Phaedra in order to beef up her own. Then she retreated to kneel next to her sister, healing her as she did so.

Not wanting either harpy back in the game quickly, I transferred all my firepower back to them. As some of my shots were either deflected or went wide, they lit up the back wall of the cavern. That’s when I saw it. On the far side from us, about twenty paces behind where Phaedra’s people were making their stand, there was what looked like the entrance to a very small tunnel.

“I see a tunnel!” I shouted at Blondie, above the din of our magics.

“Where?” she asked.

“Other side of the cave. Behind the bad guys.”

“Of course,” she replied, doing a very fancy mage ball that split into three at the last second, blasting at the harpies, Phaedra, and Graeme simultaneously.

“We need to get over there!” I said, as I thought up ways to get Phaedra and her group to reverse their position.

“Nope,
you
need to get over there,” was the Original’s only response, as she blocked a wave of fire with which Phaedra was trying to incinerate us.

“Huh?” I inquired, stupidly.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” she began. I sighed.

This can’t be good
.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

You know how you asked me if I was telling you everything?” Blondie asked. My skin prickled at her words, but Phaedra had moved a few steps closer in the seconds Blondie and I had talked. The Original went back to pummeling the Alfar, a fierce look on her face, and I waited patiently for her to drop whatever bomb she had waiting for me. Meanwhile, I kept lobbing random missiles at Graeme, just to keep him on his toes.

And then I felt my ass buzz. I had no idea what it was, till I realized I’d stashed my phone in my back pocket before leaving Anyan’s.

How the hell is it still working?
I thought, marveling at the modern cell phone.
And who the fuck is calling me?

I pulled out the phone with one hand, as I sent mage balls with the other. It was Ryu. He’d left a voice message.

“Hi babe,” he said, using his “cryptic casual” tone I knew so well from his dealings with the Alfar. “Did some checking up on that issue you called me about. Didn’t get anything from anyone Anyan hadn’t already talked to, so I dug deeper. Found a very old contact—someone who’s been around forever. She told me she never knew your subject personally, but that she knew
of
her. She didn’t have too much to say, but she did say one thing that makes me nervous. Turns out your girl has a nickname. It’s ‘Oathbreaker.’ ” At Ryu’s words, my heart dropped.

Has she betrayed us?
I wondered, stepping away from Blondie carefully.

“So I’d watch my step,” continued Ryu’s incongruously friendly voice. “Be in touch if you need anything. I’ll keep asking around.”

I moved a little farther away from the Original, carefully erecting my shields between us. Meanwhile, Blondie had pushed Phaedra back to her starting point, when Blondie turned just a little bit toward me, still keeping one eye on our enemies.

“Like I said,” she started, and then realized I’d backed away and put up my shields. “Jane?”

“Oathbreaker?” was my only reply.

Blondie sighed. “Oh, don’t freak out. I’m not working for Jarl. Any oathbreaking I did was a long time ago,” she explained, taking a step toward me even as she scoured the ground in front of Phaedra’s lot with a wall of fire.

I backed up another step to maintain my distance, lobbing a missile at Graeme as he tried to move away from Phaedra.

“Shit, this is ridiculous. Hold on a second.” With that, Blondie unleashed a crescendo of magic that wasn’t physical. It was the mental magic she’d used before, on Fugwat.

Time stood still, and it was like we were standing alone in an entirely dark space—so dark it was as if we were surrounded by black ink.

“How did you do that?” I breathed. “Did you… freeze time?”

“This isn’t
Charmed
,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I just put us all in our own little black boxes. Unfortunately, I have to be in one, too, or I’d just leave them there as we went on our merry way. But that’s not the point.”

“No,” I said. “It’s not. The point is you telling me why you’re called Oathbreaker.”

“I know. And I’ll get to that. I’ve got a lot to tell you.”

“So start,” I snapped. I’d had more than enough of her secrets.

“The thing is, I know more about what’s under Rockabill than I’ve let on. And so do you.”

“Huh?” I said, confused by this turn of events. Unlike her, everything I knew I had spilled.

“The creature and you have a connection. It’s watched you, since you were little. It’s known you all your life.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Your dreams,” she said. “After you were attacked. You need to remember them.”

Her words held power, and I felt her mind nudge mine. And with that, I remembered
everything
.

“Oh my gods,” I said. “The creature… I was the creature.”

“And that’s not the first time,” she prompted, again.

Suddenly, I knew she was right. I’d often been the creature in my dreams—as a child, growing up, when I was in the hospital.

“And it’s been with you, too,” Blondie said, reacting to the expression of recognition on my face.

I looked at her, my eyes wide. “How do you
know
all this?”

She returned my gaze, her expression conciliatory. “That’s what I haven’t been honest about,” she replied. “It’s been talking with me. We’ve been… I guess you could say, working together.”

“What?” I demanded. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Because it didn’t want you to know,” she said, her voice soothing but her words anything but. “It’s got plans for you… I was just facilitating those plans. You’ll understand when you talk to it.”

“What are you
talking
about?” I demanded, furious. “How can you stand there and tell me that you’ve been manipulating this whole situation and expect me to trust you? And what the hell do you mean
talk
to it? And how do you even
know
this thing, anyway?”

Her smile, at that, was grim.

“I told you you’d soon be touching that tat,” she said. Then she pulled the neck of her shirt down and tipped her head to the side so that the large black bull’s horn gleamed at me.

I blinked, my mind racing. “So this has to do with the Schism?” I asked, remembering she’d connected the Schism and that particular tat when we’d rolled around together in the second cavern.

“Yes,” she said, beckoning me with her free hand to come touch the ink decorating her graceful neck.

I moved forward slowly, and then stretched out a finger to make contact with her dark-stained flesh…

I was so full of rage, and hurt, and a desire to see ourselves freed of those that hated us. I thought of everyone I had lost: my own sister, killed by our own clan because she shared my blood; so many of my friends, picked off one by one when they were weak because the humans feared us; my people, so powerful and yet forced to live as animals by those we had the strength to control, had we but the will
…

And so I raised the horn, channeling my power… It ripped through me, the pain agonizing. Yet even more agonizing was feeling what the horn was doing—not strengthening us, as I’d thought it would, but
changing
us. Its magic warped by time, it created of us what it would, focusing certain powers of each individual until they were utterly different than what they had been. Only I remain untouched… I knew instantly I would never live down what I had done. The oaths I had broken to my people, to our magic
…

“Oathbreaker,” I breathed.

“Yes,” she acknowledged. “I’m the one who changed us. I used a power beyond my control because I was like Jarl—I wanted humans to die. For us to rule. And I was punished for my hubris.”

“But what does the creature have to do with this?” I wanted to ask her so many questions, but I was also aware we still had things to do, and that somewhere in the darkness, Phaedra was still waiting.

“It will explain. It wants to talk.”

“That’s what I have to do? Go… talk to it?”

“Yes. It’s already opening up to you, in your dreams. It likes you, in its way.”

“Why?” I asked, totally confused.

She shrugged. “Who knows? But it sees something in you. It’s chosen you.”

I felt my skin grow clammy with fear.

“What the hell do you mean, it’s chosen me?” I demanded.

“It’s always been aware of you, as it slept. It always thought you’d be important. When it woke, it called me to follow you—to recruit you. You would have gotten dragged in eventually, but it saw more in you than just a foot soldier.”

I frowned. “Go on.”

“It’s always wanted you. But when you were attacked—which it had nothing to do with, by the way—it communed with you even more deeply. Became even more certain it wanted you.”

“For what? What the hell would it want me for?”

“The creature has been watching us, Jane. It knows what’s going on. The reason I really followed you is because it told me to, because it wants to take a side. It wants to take our side, and it’s ready to choose a champion. That champion is you.”

I blinked at her. Then I couldn’t help it.

I laughed.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, between slightly hysterical, choked giggles. “
You
are the champion!”

“It could never be me, babydoll,” she said, sadly. “I’m the cause of all this mess.”

Rather selfishly, I was too focused on my own panic to acknowledge her sadness.

“You do recognize that this is
absurd
?” I asked, my voice rising shrilly. Panic was setting in, not least because Blondie hadn’t yet cracked a smile. “I’m not a warrior! I’m a selkie! A
half
-selkie! I’m not a champion!”