The Consumption of Magic (Tales From Verania 3)

WE SEE YOU

YOU CANNOT ESCAPE

I STILL THINK YOU’RE DEAR BUT YOU KNOW HOW IT IS

“Motherfuckers!” I screamed back at them, seriously sick of their shit.

“Shoulder!” Randall cried.

Wow, Randall sure was thoughtful in the face of so much crazy. “Thank you for being concerned! But we can worry about my shoulder later, honestly, Randall, now is not the time—”

He grabbed my face and turned me forward. “Boulder,” he hissed in my ear.

Right before the line of clouds, there was, in fact, a rather large boulder that we were heading straight toward.

“Oh shit,” I said succinctly.

I tightened my grip on the mast and made sure my feet were flat against the board. I leaned to the right, pushing down with my feet while pivoting my hips. The board slid to the right, starting to turn sideways until Randall leaned with me. The back end corrected, and we shot past the boulder, missing it by what felt like a breath.

We hit the line of clouds, the air around us wet and cold. The snow sprayed onto my face, stinging my eyes. I squinted against it, trying to make sure the path ahead was clear.

We came upon a section of the path that curved up the side of the mountain. The impact was jarring, the board briefly sailing through empty air before it slammed back onto the ground.

The pole shook violently, and the vibrations rose through my arm, jerking my body back and forth. I almost bit my tongue clean through, trying to push back the waves of pain that rolled through my injured shoulder. I felt Randall behind me, reaching around my waist to hold on to the pole right under my hands, securing me in place.

“I never knew you cared so much!” I shouted, grinning back at him as he pressed close against me.

“Trust me, that couldn’t be further from the truth,” he growled back, eyes glinting.

And that’s when it all went to shit.

I had time to think that maybe, just maybe, the gods weren’t exactly on my side. I’d been through some shit, that was a given, but here we were, sliding down the side of a mountain on a flimsy wooden board, two gigantic feathered lesbian dragons chasing after us, the greatest wizard in the known world technically spooning me and snarling in my ear.

And before I could decide if maybe I needed to make some changes in order to avoid situations like this in the future, we burst through the other side of the clouds just in time to see that the section of the mountain we were headed toward sloped up into a ramp.

Because fuck. My. Life.

“This is going to suck so hard,” I whispered fervently. Then, “Hang on to something!”

“I am hanging on to something!” Randall screamed back at me.

“Oh! Right! Well! For what it’s worth, this has been pretty cool!”

“You and I most certainly have differing definitions of cool!”

I wasn’t going to argue with that, and not because I didn’t want to.

I just didn’t have time.

There was no way to avoid it. We wouldn’t be able to move in time.

I felt Randall’s magic building behind me, and we were going to motherfucking fly—

We hit the rocky slope.

The board creaked and groaned.

There was a moment when we hit the bottom of the slope, when we stopped moving down and started moving up, that my stomach dropped right to my feet, and my bowels gave very serious consideration at just letting go right then and there.