The Consumption of Magic (Tales From Verania 3)

I took in a—)

—great, gasping breath.

“Sam,” Randall said, and even though he couldn’t know what I was thinking of, couldn’t know the memory that ran through me like lightning, the tone of voice suggested he knew something. Randall was powerful, but he wasn’t omniscient. But the problem was that he was eerily prescient, and that didn’t bode well for me.

“I got it,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m here.”

His gaze lingered on me for a moment longer, searching for what, I didn’t know. Somehow I was able to look him directly in the eye, not allowing myself to be the first to turn away. My skin crawled, but I held his gaze because he didn’t expect me to.

It only lasted a moment longer. He looked back at Morgan, who was sweating profusely. “Compress,” he said again.

I squeezed Morgan’s shoulder, glad for the distraction. There were more important things to focus on, and maybe if I was lucky, Randall would forget all about it by the time we were done.

Granted, I was never lucky about stuff like that, but at least it’d give me some time to make something up. I could bullshit with the best of them. It was a talent I’d picked up a long, long time ago, and it had helped me out of more situations than I cared to remember.

But that didn’t matter right now.

Now was about my mentor, and the fact that he was about to do something I didn’t think was possible.

Morgan compressed.

At first, nothing happened.

Then the fire began to writhe frantically like it knew something was coming. It whipped back and forth, and those little pulses of light became larger and larger, the ripples shooting across the surface until the outlines of the bubble became evident. I almost moved forward to touch it, wanting to feel the strength of it under my fingertips, but Morgan grunted, and I stayed by his side.

The arcane symbols were more pronounced, and even though I recognized some of them, I couldn’t make out what they meant. They were combined in ways that made no sense to me. This was a level of magic far beyond my comprehension, and the best I could do was to push into Morgan, the green and gold mingling and twisting through him. It felt… odd in a way it’d never felt before. It was like we were surging—

There was a loud crack, and the bubble shrank by half, compressing the fire inside of it.

Morgan’s shoulder tensed under my hand.

He closed his fingers further.

The bubble shrank again, the sound harsh and grating.

The fire had no place to move.

I had to squint my eyes against the brightness of it. The heat.

Another crack and it looked like the brightest star in the night sky, small and oh-so far away.

I pushed.

I felt Randall do the same.

Morgan closed his hands into fists.

The room shook around us, the ground tilting beneath us, and then—

The light burst, a shock wave knocking us off our feet.

That most certainly did not feel good against the bruises that already covered my body. “Gods,” I muttered without opening my eyes. “I am spending far too much time on my back recently.”

“You slut,” a voice said from the other side of the room. “You told me that Ryan was a big fat bottom. Why are you on your back? You know reverse cowgirl is racist.”

“You told him what?” Ryan growled.

I sighed as I opened my eyes. “I was drunk.”