Lives of Kings (30 page)

As I forced my feet forward and pushed the barrier, the earth beneath my feet slid. At first I was happy to gain ground. Then the whole volcano shook.

We stood, staring at each other, frozen, as we waited.

For long seconds, nothing. Then more rumbling. It took me a full minute to realize this wasn't an ordinary earthquake. It wasn't stopping. And as I was able to focus on something other than the rain, I realized the other mountains were moving, too. Crumbling.

I hoped against all odds that my actions wouldn't result in someone's death. But I had no other way.

In the rain I couldn't see Seth, Michael, Moira, or the girl. And I didn't have time to look around. I stepped forward again, and the earth slid more. The rumbling continued.

When the Godelan saw I was moving closer and their magic wasn't reaching me, they tried to sidestep my defences. The rain cut into my skin as I chanced the lethal nature of it to turn the razor-sharp droplets around and point them back at my enemies. I felt my arms getting heavy. Their eyes widened.

I was probably the last to realize what I was doing. The water wasn't just changing direction — it was grouping together into a long blade. I waited until it was adequately impressive and then sent it at them. They both ducked, sending earth flying in my direction. Thanks to the rain, thick mud clung to me and knocked me backward.

I gasped for air and sputtered as dirt filled my mouth and nostrils. I looked up just in time to see Stone running toward me.

The earth shook. The sky blackened, but it wasn't from the girl's storm. Something was sending thick smoke into the sky.

As I watched his grey eyes rejoice at being able to reach me, I exhaled in the way Kian had taught me, and disappeared. Well, I didn't really disappear. I didn't know how to do that. But I sank into the earth enough so that Stone, at least for a second, couldn't find me. I held my breath, staving off claustrophobia and trying not to panic.

Counting to ten, I gathered my magic close to me, ready to surprise him. At ten, I tried to burst through the ground and sent a wave of magic. It bounced back at me, hitting me hard in the ribs and taking in the breath I needed hurt like a knife cutting into my side.

I opened my eyes.

Stone must have sensed me. He grinned, grabbing me by the hair and arm and dragging me toward the edge of the volcano. I resisted as much as possible, but in a few steps we reached the fire. I dug my heels in more than ever, but his magic uprooted me and sent me sprawling forward.

My hands hit the hot coals as I reached out to try to stop myself from stumbling into the centre of the fire ring. Even in the rain, it burned bright.

I screamed as I felt the heat sink into my skin. Regardless of my penchant for fire, this was something else. It permeated my magic, wounding me in a way that made me helpless.

I could feel someone coming up behind me. Quickly. Vibrations in the earth told me to move. Turn around. But I couldn't. I just stared at my red and blistering palms, shaking from the pain.

Stone tried to kick me in the middle of my back to send me straight into the fire, but I managed to turn in time. Slightly. He ended up landing a hard kick on my shoulder blade.

I yelled again, but got up. If there was one thing I knew, it was that I couldn't end up in the ring of fire. If they didn't know how to kill me or didn't think they could, they'd have no trouble stealing my magic like they tried to do in England. And that would be even worse for everyone else.

“You should never have come here!” Stone roared.

Even over the din of the moving mountains and falling rain, his voice was frightening. I didn't think he meant Peru — he was talking about the present. Whatever the case, I wanted to agree with him.

“You did this to me!” I yelled back at him. “To all of us! You're why the world is like this!”

Something hit me on the back of my head. I nearly collapsed when someone caught me and held me close, wrapping me in thick arms so that I couldn't move. My skin crawled. I had forgotten about Donald. He dragged me closer to Stone as I writhed in his hold. I was close to tears when I was brought face to face with the scariest Godel of all.

Stone's eyes mimicked the darkness of the sky and its potential dangers.

“We will give the world a second chance,” he told me.

Then, just as I was scrambling for ideas, he reached out and took my neck. I struggled, but his fist began to close and my breathing was constricted. I gasped for air. My palms, badly burned, throbbed.

It gave me the only idea I had.

Taking that fire and pain from my hands, I used magic to weave a kind of fishing line and bring it into my arms. The burning spread. This wasn't my magic — it had the same effect as regular fire. Between trying to breathe and trying to scream, I was in a lot of pain.

When it reached Donald, he screamed and let me go. I would have fallen forward if Stone didn't have me by my throat. I kept the fire quickly moving from my arms, to my shoulders, and into my neck, until I felt like one, big, hot coal.

Stone gasped and took his hand away.

As soon as he did, I tried to push him with a wall of power mixing the wind and rain, but I wasn't steady on my feet yet. The force sent me backward into Donald and we both toppled to the ground. I rolled away quickly but not fast enough.

By the time I looked up again, Stone balanced a ball full of fire near his fist. He looked ready to send it flying at my head with the force of a hundred cannons.

Something hit him from behind and he crumpled. Moira stood behind him holding a thick branch. As our eyes widened at each other, both in shock, she bolted. Someone grabbed me from behind. Donald held me again and lifted me up until I was on my feet, where I wobbled like a rag doll. He pulled me by the hair toward the fire, and before I could do anything, he had pushed me through the fire and I stood in the middle of the ring.

I scrambled to get out, frozen in fear. Donald stood just outside, holding a vial of some red liquid. My stomach dropped to my feet.

“I don't care what happens to you,” he yelled at me over the rain, his face contorting in rage. “Or where you go. I need you dead.”

He shook the vial at me menacingly. “Got this from your boyfriend before we killed him.”

I gritted my teeth. The edge of the fire ring was a cliff, which led into the wide and ashy mouth of a volcano — nowhere to go.

At least this wasn't the one erupting. Dark smoke still filled the sky, but it came from one of the other mountains that still rumbled in the distance. Ash began to fall, and it distracted Donald long enough for me to gather some magic to myself.

It was hard. The fire acted like a curtain between my magic and me. It was like trying to get power through a sieve. I didn't have enough to do anything to the Godel. Instead I focused on the vial in his hand.

Pushing through everything I had, I sent it toward him. I could feel the magic crawl through the space inside the fire ring as if it travelled through molasses. I held my breath until I saw the little glass bottle pop out of Donald's hand as he looked up at the sky and wiped ash from his face. It smashed on the ground, the thick blood absorbed into the dry earth in seconds.

He looked surprised and then turned to me, angrier than ever. Forgetting himself, he ran at me, crossing the fire into the ring without even noticing. As he came toward me, bigger and physically stronger, suddenly all those drills Kian had made us run made sense.

This was the exact drill. A bigger, heavier, stronger opponent is running toward you. He will attack you. How do you make the fight end as quickly as you can?

I brought myself back to those moments in New York, in London, in Oregon, and everywhere else we had been where I hated Kian for his stupid drills.

As Donald ran toward me, his jaw set and his brows knitted together, his deep-set eyes looked like two shining rubies reflecting the fire. His hairless head was smeared with grey from the ash. I waited until the last possible moment before side-stepping, punching as hard as I could into where I assumed his liver was, hooking his arm and pushing my weight into him just as his feet were light on the ground. He toppled over, and I took the opportunity to run out of the ring.

Now his magic was practically gone in the magic of the fire, and his back was to the volcano. I stood outside the ring, looking in, preparing myself.

He didn't falter. Donald stood slowly, coughing on the ash, and casually dusted himself off. Standing in the centre of the ring, he crossed his arms and looked at me smugly.

“What are you going to do?” he said tauntingly. “You don't know the magic to take mine from me. And you can't kill me.”

I took half a second to look around. Stone was busy fighting off the weather that had accumulated around him — the girl had done a great job, and Michael had managed to set her free. Meanwhile, Michael tried to get Seth loose and fought off Magician as he did so. Moira was gone.

The tide was turned. We were actually winning.

“Yes, I can,” I told him. “Moira forgot to mention the most important part. The stone says we can't kill anyone from our own land.”

His eyes went wide for just an instant. He understood the implication, knowing full well they were foreigners in our land who had refused to leave. That was why they had declared their loyalty to the high king in the first place.

Just as quickly, however, Donald recovered his composure. “Fine,” he said. “You still can't kill me. You don't have king's blood.”

For an instant I thought he was right. My spirits sank as I imagined having to stand here, guarding him, until someone would come to help me out.

Then I remembered Kian.

I didn't say anything; I didn't want to give myself away. But as soon as Donald saw me tear off my sleeve, he knew. My clothes were covered in Kian's blood from when I had held him, his throat cut.

Donald tried to cover the few steps to the edge of the fire just as I approached from the other side. I beat him to it.

Dropping the sleeve into the fire, I had to stop suddenly or I would run right into the flames. I fell backward, trying to get away from the inferno as it rose over my head like a giant wall. I could only stare for a few seconds. No sound came from within, but when the flames died down and were ultimately extinguished, there was only a spot of dust where the Godel had stood.

With no time to think about what had just happened, I turned, suddenly anxious about having my back to the fight. The rain was easing. I couldn't see the girl anywhere.

The ground shook again and I nearly lost my balance. Magician was waking Stone. As he looked up and our eyes met, Stone began to stir. Michael must have gotten the better of him while he fought with the storm. He flung himself upright, knocking Magician aside, as I braced myself for what was sure to be a wrathful surge of power. But something else caught his attention.

He looked beyond me and his eyes widened in true fear for the first time. It was unsettling. My experience with the Godelan was that they were the enemy. But we were winning now. We were more dangerous.

My eyes followed his and I turned to see that Michael had managed to tear whatever was keeping Seth in place. Seth stood, holding Michael's head to his own, in stillness. Seth had found a way to get the names out of Michael's mind. Through the ash cutting at my throat, I smiled.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I saw Stone move, and I blocked his path instinctively, but he wasn't attacking Seth. Instead, he pushed Magician aside and grabbed the dagger in his belt. Magician was frozen, gazing with a wide-open mouth between Stone and Seth. That was when Stone raised the dagger and drove it into the side of his own head.

I cringed. There was nothing for me to do except stand and watch as his face turned into a mask of distorted pain, teeth bared, and the blood poured down his neck. I figured out what he was doing too late, when he took the knife from one ear and drove it into the other. He was deafening himself from hearing his own name. Just as the knife came out of the second ear and the blood poured freely, the mountains trembled with Seth's voice.

Born with magic by chance, I was never meant to know the names or speak them. That's why to this day, though I experienced the moment our tribe finally gained control over the Godelan after two thousand years, I can't remember the names Seth spoke.

As I stood and felt my heart burst with pride and relief, suddenly all the rules of our tribe, even the ones that had kept me from the only thing I had wanted in my past life, made sense. Seth was a king. And I revelled in his voice as he spoke aloud the only words that would save the world.

I tried to take a deep breath but choked on ash. I hadn't even noticed that the rain had been completely replaced by cinder. When the booming finally stopped, Stone unfroze and ran. I turned to run after him, or do anything to stop him, but Seth's voice held me back.

“Gwen!” he yelled. His voice broke and turned into coughs. “We need to get out of here!”

Visibility was decreasing by the second.

“But —” I began to think of all the reasons I just wanted this done with. There were many. But Seth was right.

He and Michael ran up to me, hiding their mouths and noses behind their sleeves. I tucked the bottom half of my face into my shirt.

Magician still stood nearby, unmoving. Seth walked up to him. The man was quite literally frozen, and I wondered if Seth was using his new name knowledge to test out how much control he truly had. The only things that moved were Magician's eyes, which darted from place to place.

“Walk,” Seth told him sternly.

It looked like it was the last thing he wanted to do, but he did it — straight into the fire circle he himself had built.

“You need me,” Magician sputtered. “I have more knowledge of the magic and the —”

“Enough!” Seth said, and the word silenced the man. His mouth snapped shut. “No more empty promises. You've made plenty already.”