Steel Victory (Steel Empire Book 1) (4 page)

BOOK: Steel Victory (Steel Empire Book 1)
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Toria picked up another small blade from the counter—a broken throwing knife, this time. “I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to bond the silver alloy to the steel of a blade.”

“Magic?”

“Of course.” Toria held the beaker out to Kane. “And I’ve gotten used to working with the extra magical properties the silver gives me. It takes too much concentration to pour the alloy on the blade and get it to cover evenly at the same time. So you pour, and I’ll spread.”

Uncertainty clouded his face. “If you think so.”

Her fascination with mixing chemistry and magic always left him a bit puzzled, similar to the way his own passion for literature made no sense to her. “You’ll be fine, hon,” she said. “Help me set up the containment spell, and then pour when I tell you to.”

He grasped the beaker between thumb and forefinger and looked unsure how tight to hold the glass. She gave him an encouraging smile, and he relaxed. He would trust her. He always would.

What she and Kane formed was unique in Limani—a warrior-mage pair. Before Kane, Toria was just a regular mage. A bit precocious for her age, but nothing special. Before Toria, Kane had zero magical ability, despite both of his parents being mages. But when they first grasped hands at age twelve, their energies meshed with such completeness that the jolt of power even activated Kane’s latent magical ability. Together, their power was so stable that they had control over their abilities that most mages took decades to achieve. Some bonded mages took advantage of that control to expand the reaches of their power, becoming legends in magical circles. Toria and Kane, on the other hand, had decided on the more traditional road of warrior-mages after bonding, focusing their extra time on martial arts, swordplay, and tactics and apprenticing themselves to Limani’s Mercenary Guild.

With Kane helping her, she could place the load of the containment spell on him and concentrate on spreading the alloy. She shouldn’t have juggled both magical processes at the same time. Her lapse of mental control over the containment circle had resulted in the earlier thunder as her power echoed through her affinity element of storm. She didn’t have enough concentration for the circle while doing two other things requiring such physical dexterity.

They locked gazes. Toria nudged the mental switch in her head that allowed the world around her to flare into real color. Every time she used her magesight to illuminate the world, she wondered how mundane humans could stand such bland surroundings. But now her silver vials glowed, and the beaker Kane held gained more depth of light and shadow than seemed possible. The knife in her open palms shimmered with electricity, the result of a charm she placed on all of their weapons to protect them from rust.

Kane overshadowed every other magical object in the room. His fluid emerald aura enveloped him, shimmering over his deep brown skin and representing the powers of earth he aligned with. While both of them were mages, and all mages could affect the magical power inherent in the world to an extent, Kane’s true talents lay in growth and healing.

She tuned out her own familiar aura by habit but knew Kane saw her body encased in a delicate crystalline structure glinting deep violet, deceptive in its strength. The power of her own element of storm reacted with the leftover electrical charge in the room, and she smiled when the hair on their arms stood on end. Her alignment with storm allowed her to manipulate the power that flowed through all people and objects, from the electrical power of a storm or a wall outlet to the bioelectricity in all living beings.

Other mages aligned with air, water, and fire, rounding out the so-called circle of planetary life. Warrior-mages could come in any combination of the five elements, but Toria and Kane counted themselves lucky that storm and earth worked so complementarily with each other.

Toria’s personal shields fractured, then spread out to form the framework of a globe around them, using the chalk circle on the floor as a guide. Kane’s fluid aura expanded to flow in and around the prismatic shapes of her shield.

A small sigh escaped her lips, and Toria recognized the matching look of contentment on Kane’s face. She felt Kane pour more of his energies into the shield and took the weight of powering her half of it. She remained connected to the energy, but now it was Kane’s responsibility to maintain the containment spell. When they shared magic, they were as close as two hemispheres of a brain, working in harmony to accomplish one goal.

She paused for Kane to regain his own internal equilibrium. He opened his eyes and held up the beaker. “Ready?”

Toria grasped the knife’s hilt, holding the blade horizontal. Kane tipped the beaker, and her thick silver formula oozed toward the edge of the glass.

Her entire being centered upon the point where liquid would meet metal. Toria felt her perception shift in a way she had not expected. Her vision tunneled, and the blade of the dagger magnified hundreds of times in her sight, more precise than a microscope. But it had depth, not the flat look of a sample smashed between two glass slides. The blade wavered in her hands, making the world appear as though it shook in a violent earthquake. A wave of dizziness passed over her.

Everything stilled when the silver liquid touched the blade. Then a brilliant flash of pure white light left Toria blinking away shadowy negative images. Uncontrolled power surged through her. She heard the familiar sharp crack of thunder, and the world went black.

Kane shouted her name in the distance. She no longer sat on her stool, but instead found herself sprawled on the tile floor. Her left shoulder ached where she’d landed on it. Heat warmed the skin on her cheeks and forehead in marked contrast to the cool floor.

“Toria!”

Kane’s hands wrapped around her upper arms and tugged. The strange warmth got hotter, and an odd smell met her nose. Had she mixed some compounds wrong?

Her eyes shot open when all of the pieces fell together. Kane stood above her, shouting her name and attempting to haul her across the floor. She pushed herself up, banging the top of her head into Kane’s chin. They both yelped in pain.

Broken glass surrounded her, and the alloy oozed across the floor. Blue flames leapt from the silver liquid, gushing a thick white smoke toward the ceiling. The knife lay discarded nearby, the blade charred and black.

“What the hell happened?”

“You tell me!” A note of panic marked Kane’s voice. A screeching noise drowned out the rest of his words when the smoke detector kicked in.

Toria pushed herself off the floor, ignoring the complaints from her aching body and the ringing in her ears. She must have cracked her head on the floor when she fell, too. She staggered across the kitchen to grab the fire extinguisher off the wall. This was not her first incident. Kane took cover on the other side of the kitchen island when Toria pulled the pin on the extinguisher and sprayed the unnatural blue flames with thick white foam. She had done this too many times.

The fire went out fast, and Toria thanked her luck that she’d once again not burned down the small apartment building. They surveyed the mess.

“You have a habit of doing that,” Kane said, pitching his voice over the smoke detector, but calmer in the absence of fire.

She didn’t have the energy to shout back. The metal extinguisher clanged on the counter where she set it down. She rubbed her sore shoulder and hoped the noxious metallic taste in the air faded soon.

They stared at the mess of evaporating foam and scorched metal staining the tile floor. With a last disgruntled beep, the smoke detector stopped screaming. “Well, then,” Kane said. “We should probably work on this before the stains set in the tile.”

“What do you mean, ‘we’?” Toria said. “I’m pretty sure this is my project and my mess. And definitely my fault.”

“Nah.” Kane pushed up his shirtsleeves. “Once again, we forgot our power doesn’t just double when we work together.”

“Yeah. It quadruples,” Toria said. She opened a tall cupboard in the corner of the kitchen, revealing their stock of cleaning supplies. “I was so determined to get results. Are you sure it isn’t you who should be the scientist?”

“Thank gods I’m not.” He caught the roll of paper towels Toria tossed to him. “Let’s pop open all the windows after we’re done here and head out for the afternoon while the air clears.”

The cleanup went quick, a matter of mopping up foam and soot. Toria shoved the charred knife into a drawer that collected random scraps of metal. “Want to help me again tomorrow? Or do you have another date with what’s-his-name?”

“I doubt there will be more dates with Duncan,” Kane said. “Oh. There was something else that happened this morning. We were, ah, asked to leave the first restaurant we went to.”

Toria paused in her scrubbing to quirk an eyebrow at him. “Dress code?” That didn’t seem likely, when she took in Kane’s black slacks and green collared shirt.

“Nope,” Kane said. “A sign that basically said ‘no nonhumans.’ And since there was a bright flash of blue light when I walked in, I guess mages qualify. Which is ironic, since they were using magic as a detector.”

Toria stared at him. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Where was this?”

“Café Lizzette, off Main Street. We ended up at that Castillian place a few blocks down.”

“Isn’t Café Lizzette owned by Emily Fabbri?” Toria remembered the campaign posters all over downtown—Fabbri had been elected as a human representative to the city council in the last election cycle. Interesting.

“I think so. We got out of there pretty quick,” Kane said. “But I’m curious to see which mage set that charm. Up for an adventure today?”

“Definitely,” Toria said. “There aren’t that many mages in Limani, and I want to know who’s selling out.”

“Me, too,” Kane said. “Between the vampire bans up north and the werecreature segregation in the Roman Colonies down south, we can’t afford that bullshit in Limani.”

Bullshit indeed. Toria resumed her work on the scorch marks. This was her home, and she adored Limani’s independent spirit. She and Kane might just be college students, but there were few mages in Limani, and they were the only warrior-mage pair. That gave them some pull, and she was going to pull threads and see what unraveled.

What else was she going to do on summer break beside set fires in her kitchen?

In simple black script, the sign in front of Café Lizzette read:
Humans welcome. Patronage discouraged from all others.

Toria read the sign a second time, waiting for the meaning to sink in. “But that’s . . . that’s outrageous! Isn’t that illegal?” She turned to Kane. “Please tell me it’s illegal.”

He leaned against a lamppost and shook his head. “I did some research while you were showering. It’s not. The city council was created with the idea that this sort of prejudice wouldn’t exist, so there aren’t any laws to actually combat that. Awful logic.”

Toria was about two seconds away from marching into the café. “I don’t understand. The last census showed that barely a fifth of the population was a mage, werecreature, or elven. It’s not like we’re overrunning the place.”

“To some people, even one is enough.”

“So Emily Fabbri owns this place? One of the new councilmembers?”

“Yep,” Kane said. “That’s why I’m worried.”

“Mama wasn’t happy with the election results.” They stared at the restaurant. Toria’s skin crawled at the notion of this sort of prejudice, especially since the city had almost descended into civil war less than five years ago when the werepanthers sued for fair representation on the council. She knew she’d grown up in the rather rose-tinted world of Limani, but this bordered on ridiculous. Scratch that. Insanity.

Worry for her mother also itched in the back of her skull. No one had answered at the house when she’d called, which meant they hadn’t made it home last night. She kept telling herself that the boat had been late and the three had been stranded at the docks. It wasn’t like Mikelos not to call them, though.

“That’s it,” Toria said. “This is so not cool.” She strode forward, reaching the door of the restaurant before Kane could react. A last look over her shoulder before entering revealed that Kane still leaned against the lamppost. Fair enough. He could come to the rescue if this ended in tears.

The bell above the door rang when she entered, and as Kane had reported, a shimmer of blue light washed over her. She reached out with her own magic to search for a taste of the caster. But a waitress pounced on her right away, breaking her concentration.

“Hi, I’m Paige, and I’ll be your server today. How many in your party?” She grabbed a handful of menus from a small rack before Toria could answer.

“Um, just me, thanks. Is Ms. Fabbri available?” Toria attempted to match the girl’s vapid smile and disarming look, wishing for Kane’s better acting skills. She noted the eclectic artwork on the walls. “I’m a local artist and wanted to talk to her about displaying some of my work.”

“That’s so neat! She’s in her office,” Paige said, replacing the menus. “I’m sure she would love to talk with you! Wait a sec.” The waitress swept back through the restaurant, weaving between tables.

Toria peered out the front window. Kane now lounged on a bench in front of the music shop Mikelos frequented. He slouched, but she knew her partner in and out. One eye was on the restaurant and he was ready to move at the first sign of danger.

“Can I help you?” The frosty voice prompted Toria to turn back to the dining room. A blonde in her mid-thirties glared at her.

“Ms. Fabbri?” Toria held out her hand. “My name is—”

“I know what your name is.” She ignored Toria’s attempt at politeness. “And I know who your mother is. I trust you noticed the sign on your way in?”

Straight evidence of this woman’s bigotry shook her. She meant every bit of her discrimination. Well, Toria could match that chilliness. “Your sign is what I’d like to speak with you about today, ma’am.” Her parents raised a polite girl, even if this woman didn’t deserve it.

“Good. Then you’ll realize that not only do I have nothing to talk to you about,” Ms. Fabbri said, “but that you’re also not welcome here,
mage
.” The title sounded nasty spilling from her lips.

Any thoughts of civility fled Toria’s mind. “What the hell is your problem, lady?” Her voice rose, and nearby diners were staring.

“People like you.” Fabbri’s eyes shone with fury. “Freaks who have too much power for their own good, and who lord it over normal humans!”

BOOK: Steel Victory (Steel Empire Book 1)
2.28Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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