Steel Victory (Steel Empire Book 1) (17 page)

Lorus spoke first. “The owner of the movie theatre is a werebear. He certainly won’t let them hold a meeting there.”

“And I can talk to the principal of the high school,” Lena said. “Convince him not to let them move there. If he argues, I can get Sethri to order him not to since the school is public property and under the command of this council. They’re not going to get the auditorium at the university while I have anything to say about it. Those are the first places they’ll try to arrange, so that will delay them at least a day or two.”

Max made a few notes on his pad. “Speaking of Sethri, you really think he’s solidly on our side? The only reason I didn’t invite him tonight was because I wasn’t sure how you all would feel about it. His is an elected position.”

“I’ve known the man for decades,” Lena said. “He firmly believes in the tenets Limani was founded on, of freedom and justice.”

Victory had also known Alexander Sethri since he was first elected to the council almost forty years ago. He had been there the longest after her. “I’ll second that.”

“I’ll be sure to invite him next time, then,” Max said. “That takes care of the preliminary problem the blasted Humanists have presented us with, that stupid meeting. Now what are we going to do about the Romans?”

Toria dragged one of the couch cushions onto the ground, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders to sit against the couch. Zerandan sat cross-legged on the carpet a few feet in front of her with his cane resting on his lap. Something told her it wasn’t just a simple cane—maybe it was the emerald orb that appeared, replacing the original wooden handle. A neat trick, one she filed away under the mental folder labeled “Things to experiment with later.”

“Are you comfortable, child?” Zerandan rubbed his hands together and rolled up his shirt cuffs.

“I was more concerned for you, sir,” Toria said, pulling the warm blanket tighter around her shoulders.

“I’m not so old that I can’t sit on a floor,” he said. “I’ve barely topped two thousand!”

She wasn’t going to give him the reward of shock. “That would surprise me more except that you’re about the same age as my grandfather. Sorry.”

“Ah, the cynicism of youth,” Zerandan said. “Let’s get started, shall we? I’ll shield around us both, and you can drop yours underneath. If it’s magic itself you’ve acquired an allergy to, at least you’ll only sense mine.” He surveyed Max’s study. “You know our host better than I. Is there anything in particular nearby that I should be worried about?”

Toria pointed to the bookcases on either side of the larger window overlooking the training room. “There are some magic books there, and a few charms and talismans in the box on the second shelf. Everything really powerful is in a safe that’s already warded and shielded under the desk, but I don’t think those will be a problem.”

“I suppose I’ll have to take your word on that,” Zerandan said.

“You have to,” Toria said. “I helped to shield and ward it.”

“A good reason indeed.” Zerandan rolled the cane over his knees, wrapping his fingers around the emerald orb. “Ready, child? Give me to the count of ten heartbeats after I drop my hand, then release your shields.”

This was it. “Okay.”

Zerandan closed his eyes and lifted his right hand, reminding Toria of her father pretending to direct orchestras from the stereo. Like a conductor, his hand dropped, and Toria counted.

At four heartbeats, she almost jolted out of her concentration by the white shimmer that began to distort the room around them. By seven, it encased them in a wide dome Toria knew continued into a full sphere below the floor of Max’s office.

Eight brought Toria back on task, and she laid a mental finger on the invisible button in her head she hadn’t used in years, the one that brought all of her protections down in one fell swoop. Kane was the only other person with access to that switch, and he helped her craft many of the protections around it.

At nine, she braced herself.

On ten, she pressed the cartoon red button labeled “Off” in her head.

The light from the shimmering white shield exploded around her, and Toria closed her eyes against the double brilliance of the physical and magical sight of Zerandan’s power. Her shields protected her from every spark of magic in the world being visible to her sensitive mind, and she no longer had that shelter to hide behind.

She risked a peek, keeping her eyelids cracked to prevent the light of the shield from blinding her. To her shock, she could even see echoes of other colors from the bookshelves behind Zerandan’s shields, the magical items it contained shining through.

It all paled in comparison to the brilliant aura surrounding Zerandan. She thought that Kane’s aura of earthen magic was powerful. It was nothing compared to the ancient viridian power flowing across and under Zerandan’s skin.

Her own prismatic purple shields were gone, but motes of electric energy still danced around her. Her eyes adjusted to the brilliance, and she let the sparks entrance her, keeping her distracted from the eerie “rummaging” feeling going on in her head. Zerandan’s touch was light, but she could still feel his power tracing through her, searching out the problem.

After no more than a minute, the touch receded and Zerandan gestured with his hand again. Taking that for the signal to bring her shields back up, she waited a few more seconds to be sure he was gone before rebuilding. First came the walls around her mind itself, and the blinding lights around her began to pale. Then she reconstructed her familiar crystalline shields.

Her mind once again her own, protected in mind and body from the onslaught of the world of magic around her, Toria slouched against the couch. She now realized how tense she had become. “Anything?”

“I’m sorry, child.” Zerandan’s calm had never faltered, but his eyes filled with regret. “You felt no pain just now? I kept my probe purely mental, but I was worried my shield or other items in the room might have an adverse effect on you.”

“Nope. I’m still tired, but nothing actually hurt.” She tried to look on the bright side. “So at least I’m not allergic to other magic. And I still have control over my shields.”

“Shielding is not technically active magic, because over the years it has become an innate part of you,” Zerandan said. “Like you can still feel the link between yourself and your partner.”

“Then we know the limits to all this,” Toria said. “Active attempts at magic equal horrible headaches. Got it.”

“And since you are still able to manipulate your passive magic,” Zerandan said, “then I think we can safely say you’ve been cursed.”

“You know, the Romans haven’t contacted us,” Lena said. “Did we ever really establish that this was indeed an invading force?”

“I think the attack and kidnapping made it pretty clear,” Victory said. They were going around in circles again. If possible, she thought this half of the council might be more ineffectual than the whole at making a decision on such a grand scale. Now that they had a temporary plan of action against the Humanist problem, everyone seemed reluctant to make any further commitments. She drained the last vestiges of her coffee, then set the empty mug on the floor by her feet.

“But has anyone tried to actually talk to them?” Bethany said. She caught everyone’s attention with her wild suggestion. “What if they just wanted to expand their border to the river, and they took the two because they invaded their territory. They left Toria because she never actually crossed the river.”

“What, and ransacked all of her possessions and stole her horse for the hell of it?” Genevieve said.

Victory smothered her impulse to second Genevieve’s retort. But Bethany did have an idea there. Pulling herself a few mental feet away from the emotional situation, she acknowledged it was a sound theory when looked at with a more rational and experienced mindset.

“Soldiers are soldiers,” Lorus said, speaking aloud her unvoiced thoughts.

His voice stony, Max said, “We’re lucky they didn’t do worse to Toria.”

Victory tried not to think about what a horrible experience her daughter escaped with the narrowest of margins. Soldiers were soldiers, but her daughter told her that while they took the gear from her belt, no evidence pointed to anything worse occurring while she was unconscious. Victory breathed another huge mental sigh of relief for that.

“Perhaps we should speak with the Romans?” Daliana said. “Approach them as a diplomatic group instead of potential spies?”

“At this point, it’s probably our only option,” Victory said. “Anyone else we send across the river risks the same fate as Kane and Asaron.”

“Any volunteers?” Lorus said.

Victory shot her hand up, with Max’s following immediately after hers. While what the Romans were doing across the river concerned her, the opportunity to find the location of the rest of her family interested her more. It was a good bet Max had the same idea.

“No surprises there,” Lorus said. “And you’re our best fighters if everything goes bad and you have to get out in a hurry. This should probably stay a small group.”

“We have to take Sethri with us,” Max said. “It’s only right, since he’s the real head of the council. We are representing the city. If it was just Victory and me, they would have to assume we’re a rescue mission in disguise.”

Which they might still end up being. Victory couldn’t dismiss the option until they knew more about the whole situation. She checked her watch. Already past midnight, and she still needed real sleep at some point. “We’ll go tomorrow night, then. Leave right at sundown.”

“Armed? Unarmed?” Max deferred to Victory’s experience.

“And risk being taken along with the others? Armed, of course,” she said. “But not too blatantly. We are trying to be polite.”

“They’re the ones invading our territory,” Bethany said. “We have every right to go drive them off.”

“We’ve always been outnumbered by our neighbors,” Tristan said. “Despite the treaty nonsense about a neutral zone, we’re here on their sufferance.”

“We’ll have to see what they want and hope for the best,” Max said. “I guess that’s it for tonight.”

Victory remained curled in her corner of the couch, wrapping her arms around the pillow in her lap, while the others filed out of the room. She would rest here a few minutes while Max showed everyone out, then she could work out the details of tomorrow night’s excursion with him.

She jolted out of a light doze when a weight settled next to her on the couch. She looked forward to home and bed. It was highly unlikely she would make it back to the hospital tonight to see Mikelos. “Everyone gone?”

“Yep,” Max said. “You really think this is going to work?”

“Which part?” Victory stretched her arms above her head, feeling the pull of muscles not exercised in almost two days. “Controlling the Humanists or having a rational discussion with the Romans?”

“Right now I’m not laying bets on either,” Max said.

“Why don’t we call the British to our aid?” Victory said. “Tristan was right, Limani is the neutral zone. They’re not going to be happy about the Romans taking us over.”

“You talk like our doom is inevitable,” Max said. “No, I hadn’t thought about calling the Brits.”

Victory could already see the wheels spinning behind his eyes. “On the one hand, offering aid to us might be seen as breaking the treaty. On the other, they might do it so we can stay neutral, their own personal buffer zone.”

“Damned if we do, damned if we don’t,” Max said. “They help us, the Romans attack for the violation of the treaty. They stay out, the Romans attack anyway, and we get taken over or wiped out.”

“The only silver lining we have right now is that this can’t turn into another Wasteland,” Victory said. “Not with the world-spell still in place.”

“But we won’t be around to appreciate it if they do invade,” Max said. “We’re the government. Even if they take over the city with minimum bloodshed, we can’t be allowed to live.”

This was getting ridiculous. The new power-hungry Roman Caesar didn’t have enough to deal with on his continent, so he had to be greedy with hers. “What a mess. Fabbri couldn’t have picked a better time to stir up trouble.”

“On the positive side, she can be executed with the rest of us when we lose,” Max said.

“Fatalist. So. Pick me up tomorrow right at sundown with Sethri?”

“And we’ll head south toward the river,” Max said. “We can even use a truck instead of taking horses from the stable. Ride in style.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Victory said. “Want to go grab Toria for me? I need to take her home so both of us can get some real sleep.”

Max did not hide his appraisal of her, and she wondered how deep the bags under her eyes were. Coffee couldn’t cure all.

“Yes, that you should,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

Victory laid her head back against the side of the couch for a few seconds, then hauled herself to her own feet. They all needed rest, and the real work had only just begun.

There wasn’t much Zerandan and Toria could do after figuring out that only Toria attempting to use magic caused her pain. There was no additional affect when Zerandan cast a glamour over her or briefly levitated her over the couch. But he stayed with her, investigating the books on Max’s shelves, while Toria dozed on the couch. He did promise to research and make a few calls when he got home to try to figure out how to reverse whatever the Romans had done to her.

But that didn’t prevent her feelings of helplessness. Her sword was gone—again—and now she couldn’t even use her magic. Some warrior-mage she was. This made the rescue harder, but at least Victory had plenty of spare weapons back at the house. None could replace her rapier, but she could still be lethal against the Roman bastards who took her partner.

With her thoughts running in circles, she drifted on the verge of sleep. She came awake right away when Max entered his office. “The meeting over already?” She struggled to push herself up. She had been comfortable and warm after Zerandan tucked her blanket back around her.

“More or less,” Max said. “Ready to head home?”