The Unseen Tempest (Lords of Arcadia) (19 page)

He looked at me with wide eyes, and I could see his nose twitch nervously. “If I knew where his sister was, surely. But without a destination—”

“What if you had to deliver a message to her?” I cut him off. “Can’t you just use that to find her?”

“That’s not how his magic works,” Demain said, making it sound like I was talking nonsense. Of course, I was talking to a rabbit with magical powers, which in my mind was the very definition of nonsense, so I ignored her.

“But you are a messenger. You have to have a way to find people you need to get to. Ruber has a connection to her right now. Just try to focus on it.”

The queen looked like she was going to say something, but Hawk held up a hand to stop her from interrupting.

“My friends are in trouble,” I pleaded with Milo. “I know you can find them. Can you at least try?”

He looked up at Demain, who shrugged and said, “It doesn’t matter; your magic doesn’t work that way. But if it satisfies him, you have my permission.”

I really wanted to tell her something rude, but this was not the time.

“Okay, Ruber, concentrate on your sister’s frequency,” I said, kneeling down so the rabbit could touch him. “Make a connection going both ways.”

Ruber glowed, and a high-pitched whine just barely inside my range of hearing came from him. I winced, and Milo’s far more sensitive ears flattened down as he reached out and touched the ruby gently. He closed his eyes and began to concentrate. I closed my eyes and began to pray. Milo had to be able to do it. Screw what the queen thinks; magic can do anything.

“I think I have something!” Milo said excitedly.

“What?” Demain scoffed. “It’s impossible! There is no way you can know where—”

“Shut up,” I shot at her. “Okay, Milo, keep focusing and draw your portal.

Keeping his eyes closed, he began to scoot around us, making a wide circle with his foot.

Her royal bitchiness would not let up. “Don’t do that!” she ordered. “You have no idea where it will end up. What if your destination point is solid rock or a mile up in open air?”

I gave her a dirty look. “Then it will be a really short trip, won’t it?”

Hawk added, “If you are coming with us, Your Majesty, I suggest you hurry into the circle.”

When it became clear that Milo was not going to listen to her, Demain grabbed a bag off her desk and pushed into the circle with us. She glared down at me. “No one tells me to shut up.”

I gave her a smirk. “And yet I just did. Imagine that.”

“Here we go,” Milo stated as he ended at his starting point. “Get ready.” He completed the circle, and the floor beneath us vanished as we fell into the dark tunnel that made up his transport spell. I held on to Ruber tightly as the wind rushed past us faster and faster.

Milo called out, “We just left Aponiviso.”

“We’re getting closer,” Ruber announced after a few seconds.

“This is impossible!” Demain protested. “Milo could not have made a blind portal to where this sister is. His magic just doesn’t work like that.”

I could feel the smugness in Hawk’s mind as he announced, “It does now.”

Before she could answer, we shot out of the portal like high-speed ammo….

And fell directly into hell.

Chapter 9

“It is interesting to note that nearly all cultures

across the realms have a version of hell in their

belief system. Even those people who do not believe

in heaven believe in hell.”

Moses Ravenclaw

High Priest of the First Sucrose Church

The Willows

P
EOPLE
HAVE
many versions of hell.

Some believe it to be a place of eternal punishment for sins committed in their mortal lives. Others believe it is a place where evil dwells, waiting for the light to fade so the darkness can rule again. Others have defined hell as an extradimensional space that is ruled by a family of creatures collectively known as demons. There are many ideas of what hell could be.

For Ater, hell was kissing Kor.

It wasn’t the kiss itself; that was fine. But the little things…. The way Kor tilted his head to the side, just like Pullus did. It made a romantic action more urgent than it normally was, the same way Pullus would grab him when they had a second to steal a kiss. But the thing that made kissing Kor unbearable was the way Kor smelled.

He smelled just like his brother.

The storm of memories that came flooding back to Ater was almost overwhelming. The dark elf thought he had buried those emotions deep enough that he didn’t have to acknowledge them, but as he felt his stomach clench in protest, he knew there was no escaping them. With every ounce of control he possessed, Ater swallowed back the wave of grief that threatened to shatter him and leave them vulnerable.

They both stood there for a couple of seconds, their lips pressed together while the directeur watched. Ater was about to pull away when he felt Kor bite his bottom lip lightly, then lick over the bite to soothe it. The move so startled the assassin that he almost didn’t feel the other elf squeeze his right shoulder. Just once. Warning.

As soon as Kor’s lips left his, he spun to the right.

The directeur barely had time to register that Ater was moving before his knee buckled backward, dislocated by the dark elf’s kick. He tried to scream out in pain, but the hand over his mouth stopped him cold. All he could see as he reeled backward onto his throne was the burning intensity in Ater’s eyes. He wondered if this was the moment of his death. He watched one of his guards fall over from a blow upside his head from the other elf’s bow, while the second guard tried to draw his weapon. The elf drew his empty bowstring back mere inches from the guard’s face. As he did, an arrow made of magical energy appeared.

“
Verglas
,” he said, and the guard was entombed in ice.

Never taking his eyes off of his target, Ater said to Kor, “Bar the door. We need some privacy.”

The elf nodded and slid the wooden crossbeam across the door.

“Now,” Ater growled, putting his knife up to the man’s throat. “Shall I show you what I consider entertainment?”

The directeur said nothing. All he could think, over and over, was “This is where I’m going to die.”

O
NE
SECOND
I was falling through Milo’s tunnel; the next I was in hell.

How do you know it’s hell, Kane?

Thanks for asking.

I knew it was hell because I was surrounded by fire, and there was a twenty-foot-tall devil leering at me with a hideous grin on its face. Now, you can say what you want about what hell is or isn’t, but me? I take the fire and devil thing as a mortal lock.

And I’d never believed those Bible people when they told me I was going to end up here.

“Shield!” Ruber commanded as we materialized.

“You shouldn’t have come,” a ragged voice called from near my feet.

Ferra was lying there, parts of her melted away.

Now this is the time when other teenage adventurers would spring into action. I’m sure Dorothy and Alice and even Harry would have something to do, but me? Nope. I took one look at my friend half melted on the floor, staring up at me, and I did the only thing I could think of.

I closed my eyes and screamed like an air-raid siren going off.

I had no thought, no plan, just stark freaking terror mixed with just a touch of insanity. Because my friend was melted and not burnt, and frankly, sports fans, I was so sick of magic I could puke. It was cathartic, just screaming at the top of my lungs and letting it all go. I could feel all my rage and fear and everything just fly out of me.

I was not expecting to hear a thundering crash in front of me as the room shook around us.

When I opened my eyes, the devil thing was embedded into the far wall, cracked stone all around him where he obviously had flown into it. I was shocked as hell and looked to Hawk to see if he knew what had happened.

Demain and Hawk were looking at me, jaws open.

“I know, right?” I said, thinking they were shocked by the devil thing, which I could now see was some kind of a robot. Well, the top half of a robot.

“What in the Nine Realms—” Demain began to sputter when the robot pulled its way free of the wall.

“No take Diablo!” it screamed as it fell to the ground. “No hurt Diablo!” it screamed again. Two circles in the center of its palms began to glow red. He brought them together like he was going clap, and the air around his hands burst into flame. I covered my ears as his hands collided, the fire engulfing them entirely.

And then the fire began to move upward, forming what looked like a blade.

“Oh crap,” I said, stumbling back. “He formed Blazing Sword.”

Demain was still looking at me weirdly, but Hawk wasn’t.

“Ruber, shield them!” he called out, summoning Truheart. Compared to the twenty-foot-tall flaming thing Diablo was holding, Truheart looked outclassed, although I didn’t want to admit it. “Milo, open a portal to get us out of here. Caerus, where are you?”

The sapphire came flying from the other side of the room. I could see Molly running behind her.

“I need to know how to stall that thing,” Hawk called out like there wasn’t a giant devil robot moving toward him.

“It’s a siege weapon,” Molly answered him. “It’s designed to take down armies! We don’t have—” She saw Ferra lying under Ruber’s shield and let out a shriek.

That was when I realized I sounded like a clockwork girl when I screamed.

She ran over to Ferra but hesitated to touch her, since she looked like an action figure that had been half melted. Ferra croaked something to her not to worry, but I didn’t catch it because I was too busy losing it.

“I can’t!” Milo replied, panicked. “Something’s blocking me from forming a portal out.”

Hawk’s expression went grim. “Then we fight.”

Before I could stop him, he went charging toward Diablo, and I had a feeling not all of us were going to get out of this alive.

Like Pullus.

I was frozen in panic, not sure what to do first. I wanted to run but had nowhere to go. I wanted to help Hawk but had no idea how to fight a mechademon, which is what it would have been called if it were a monster in Power Rangers. I wanted to make Ferra better but had no idea how to heal a melted ice girl. I was just a mess.

Demain just stood there taking the whole scene in.

“Help them!” I cried to her.

She looked over to me in that slow, casual way evil queens seem to possess. “Why don’t you?”

“Me?” I sputtered. “What the hell do you want me to do? Challenge it to show tunes trivia?”

She arched that damned eyebrow, and I asked myself how Captain Kirk never slugged Spock when he gave him one of those. “You really have no idea, do you?”

“Now is not the time, Your Majesty,” Ruber said, concentrating on the shield.

“Oh?” Demain said with the fakest surprised look on her face I had ever seen. “I’m sorry, were you trying to keep it a secret from him?”

That stopped me for a second. “What’s a secret?”

“Please drop it,” Ruber asked, sounding more than a little upset.

I looked up at Ruber. “Wait, are you keeping something from me?”

He said nothing, which was pretty much a big old yes coming from him.

“What secret?” I asked Demain.

She gave me a smile that was pure wickedness. “If I help your friends and tell you, you will then be in my debt.” I could see the gleam in her eye. “Agreed?”

“Do not do this, Kane,” Ruber pleaded.

I looked over at Hawk, trying his best to dodge Diablo’s attacks and knowing he couldn’t take that thing. He had been keeping something from me; they all had. I looked back at her and nodded. She held out her pinky. “You want me to pinky swear?”

She nodded. “It’s an oath where I come from.”

I hooked mine around hers. “It’s a game where I’m from.”

A surge of power went through me, and I knew we had a binding agreement.

“Very well, then, let me help your friends first,” she said, striding out of the shield toward Diablo. “Step aside, boy. This fight is over,” she ordered Hawk.

Hawk looked over at her and was about to bitch her out when he saw her put a hand on her sword. Instead, he fell back quickly, telling Caerus to follow him.

She drew the blade, and I could feel the power coming from it across the room. As she held the blade up high, the story came flooding from Hawk’s mind. There was once a great dragon called Vorpal who protected Aponiviso from all threats. So great was its power that no one dared move against the realm as long as the beast prowled its territory. After years and years of unchallenged dominance, the silver dragon’s ego began to swell. It rankled at the thought of humans ruling the lands that rightfully belonged to it, so it attacked the capital.

All seemed lost since there were no weapons that could stand against Vorpal’s power. The royal archmage knew his spells were useless against the dragon’s protection and an outright attack would be suicide. Instead of focusing on defeating the creature, the archmage devised a way to magically bind it. After much study, he found a way to trap the dragon’s essence in a blade, trapping Vorpal’s soul within an obsidian sword. At first it was enraged to be brought down by a human, and the sword was locked away in case the dragon found a way to free itself.