The ground disappeared as we sped into the sky, the green of the Nicola Arboretum faded into obsidian with the rubber-slick wetness of so many shrikes. Here and there I caught an explosion of color, bursts of light from spells, and my heart pounded as I silently rooted for our side to win. Still, I knew that I shouldn’t be looking down. The real enemy was above us. I lifted my head.
The carrion-stalk was taller than I’d expected, well over fifteen stories, each of its accursed segments marked where the glistening black polyps writhed with grotesque activity. More of the shrikes erupted from the horrible pustules, a terrible sweetness choking the air.
One of them lashed out at me, its probing tentacle stopping just short of my cheek as I staggered and swayed in Bastion’s grasp. Or in the grasp of his magic, I should say. The shrike lost its grip and stumbled headlong to the ground, screaming, where it would doubtless horrifically survive, shamble up on its broken legs, then join the ranks of its brethren in attack. Trust the Eldest to create such twisted horrors as their underlings.
“Stop fidgeting,” Bastion yelled, lifting me so our heads were level. “This is hard enough without you squirming. Did you gain weight? It feels like you’ve been hitting the taco bar pretty hard.”
“Kiss my ass, Brandt, that’s all muscle weight.” As if. “And this is less a matter of how heavy I am and more of you being a scrawny little weakling.”
He snorted, his breath hot. “I’m doing my best given the circumstances, you actual human dumpster. You think it’s easy climbing this shit with you in tow?”
So that’s what he was doing. I could have sworn we were flying – you know, as if I even knew what proper arcane flight was supposed to feel like – but our movements were jerkier, as if we were being carried upward by the momentum of invisible limbs latching onto the outside of the stalk. He was actually climbing the thing.
“Why the hell would Thea need to build this tower in the first place?” I yelled as we neared the top of the stalk. “She could just fly if she wanted.”
“Same reason I’m basically dying here, because it’s not easy to just fly or teleport with someone else, especially not if they’re struggling.” Bastion turned his lip up. “Or husky.”
“Neither the time nor the place, you colossal ass.” Teleport? Carver could take at least three of us wherever he went. Five, the last time he did it. But he did say that he specialized in non-offensive magic. Though again: neither the time nor the place. “Look. We’re almost there.”
“Excellent,” Bastion said, his voice dropping to a murmur. “Element of surprise.”
“No,” I said. “You take me to the top then throw me at the biggest shadow you can find.”
“The hell are you talking about? You going to run out on us already, you piece of – ”
“Will you just trust me, Bastion? Come on. Just trust in Dustin.”
“God I hate you and your stupid fucking catchphrase so much. I hope she spears you in the face just as soon as I – ”
We sped across the peak of the tower, the tip of it bizarrely flat. I had no time to process the tableau as Bastion hurled me to the top of the platform, but I did catch sight of Asher strapped onto some kind of dais, vines holding him down across his chest. No ceremony this time, and no knife. All Thea had was her hand pressed against Asher’s bare skin, but whatever she was doing was enough to make him scream.
She’d ruined my life already. I wasn’t going to let her destroy another. I hollered as my body approached the platform, what I fervently hoped was something resembling a battle cry, something loud enough to attract her attention. Thea turned to us, her lips drawn back, feral teeth exposed. In one smooth movement she gathered motes of ambient light into a solid spear, then sent it rocketing towards me.
Predictable. As I sank into the shadows I heard Bastion’s yelp, then the thunder of dissipating arcane energy as the light-spear collided with one of his hastily conjured shields. He was going to give me hell for that later, but what mattered was that the gambit had worked: Thea missed, and she was disoriented, and I had all the velocity of a full fall to work with.
I zipped through the Dark Room like an arrow, or maybe the Dark Room expelled me like a bullet from a chamber. It was terrifying, exhilarating, and I emerged from Thea’s shadow with my fist drawn back.
My knuckles collided with her spine. I heard a crack as she stumbled, her hand flying off of Asher’s chest. His screaming stopped. A throbbing ache started up in my fist, but the thrill of connecting that blow made up for it. That felt good. That? That was for Mrs. Boules.
“The hell were you thinking, Graves?” Bastion was huffing as he spoke. “I – hunh.” The air left him, and he landed heavily onto the flat surface of the tower, then crumpled to his knees. The ascent had taken a lot out of him. Probably a good thing, for as long as Thea ignored him. He helped, for sure, but I could have done without Bastion’s smart mouth in such a tense situation.
And it only got tenser. Thea spat onto the ground and wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand, leaving a smear of black blood on a cheek that was far too white, the color of bleached bone. Her skin had a luminescent quality to it, and an odd sheen, like an insect’s exoskeleton. Not for the first time I thought of her as something like a firefly.
And not for the first time she did something to catch me by surprise. That first lance she threw at Bastion needed some time to generate, but the next three she launched at me appeared out of nowhere.
Javelins of light fired from her palms, so short and sharp that they looked more like daggers, or shards. Her expression twisted into a fury that I had never seen on her face, nor on any human’s. All traces of humanity had fled Thea Morgana’s corporeal body. What stood before me was so other, so alien, so – wrong.
“Again he comes meddling,” she hissed, readying another salvo of her razor-sharp missiles. I had to be careful dodging, both to make sure I avoided being hit, but also to avoid getting Bastion caught in the line of fire. I could only hope that he at least had enough juice left to throw up one last protective shield for himself.
“I thought I was all you ever wanted, Thea,” I said, taunting as well as I knew how, my eyes flitting between her and Asher still trapped on the altar. It didn’t look like he was in pain anymore, but getting him out of his restraints was a very good secondary objective to staying alive.
Thea followed my line of sight, then she straightened her posture, her hands falling to her sides, the specks of light in her palms fading. Was she letting down her offensive?
“There’s truly no reason for you to be so invested in the boy, Dustin Graves. Unless – ” She turned her head slowly towards the dais, a sharp, curved smile in the corner of her mouth. “Unless – do you feel a kinship with him? Seeing him splayed out like that, like some rack of meat?” She grinned fully. “Like a sacrifice?”
The corner of my eye twitched, and my scar flared with heat, but I understood that it wasn’t pain this time. The Dark Room wanted to burst into our reality, and Thea, whether she knew it or not, was goading it out of me.
She lifted her hand, her talons just about as long as each of her fingers, then closed it into a fist. The vines around Asher’s chest tightened, then pulsated, burning, glowing with a pale green light. He groaned, then shuddered. Then he howled.