Shatter the Earth (Cassandra Palmer 10)

My power swirled around us, far stronger than Mircea’s spell, because it wasn’t borrowed, it was mine. But, for a second, we still didn’t go anywhere. He whirled us out of the way of a spear, then through the legs of another assailant, while I wrestled with my power, pouring everything I had into strengthening the connection between us.

I could feel it, reaching for me as desperately as I was for it, like familiar fingers grabbing for the hand of a drowning woman. I almost had it, but then we moved again. Upward this time, jumping onto one of our assailant’s boots, because anything was better than being on the churning ground right now!

Although not by much.

The other sentinels converged on the one we were using as a perch, uncaring that they were attacking another of their number so long as we died, too. Rock cracked, massive limbs flailed, a head the size of a large house came crashing down to splinter against the ground. And my spell finally caught.

Only my power couldn’t seem to shift the two of us the normal way from this far out. What it could do was to pull us along at record speed back toward the portal. The glittering rope gave a yank and we went flying, speeding through the air like Clark and Lois, if Clark and Lois were screaming and being chased by several dozen huge stone soldiers who weren’t giving up.

But neither was my power, which sent us zipping between legs and under reaching hands, and then through a forest of spears, rock shards and billowing dust, with Faerie doing what it always did and trying to kill us. But not quite succeeding before we tumbled, bloody and filthy and half crazed—at least I was—back through the portal. Only to abruptly remember—

That it was over open air.

“Shit!” I yelled, and shifted—at the same time that Mircea did. The two shifts, which must have been in opposite directions, counteracted each other, and we went nowhere. Except straight down, because gravity doesn’t care about magic.

We plummeted, I screamed again, because I do not intend to die with dignity, and Mircea snagged a small tree. It was part of a patch of firs poking out of the cliffside and did not seem to have a great root system, because it immediately toppled over along with us. But it bought me a couple of seconds to get my shit together, and I finally managed to shift us to the river bank, far below.

Or close enough.

We fell the last six feet or so, because judging distance under those circumstances is not easy. But six feet beats sixty, or whatever the hell. I hit down hard on top of Mircea, rolled off, and then just lay there, gasping and panting and staring at the relentlessly cheerful blue sky.

One where a tiny swirl of storm clouds moved overhead, looking about the size of my fist, before suddenly contracting even more.

And winking out altogether, while a master vampire stood on the riverbank and screamed his rage at the sky.

Chapter Three

“She didn’t die, Mircea!” My hand hit the desktop in Mircea’s beautiful study, possibly a little harder than necessary, but nothing else was getting through. “I can’t rescue someone who didn’t die!”

“Didn’t die where and when we thought,” he corrected. “But the fey—”

“Don’t try it.” I crossed my arms so I wouldn’t be tempted to hit anything—or anyone—else. “Those were Svarestri warriors. The Black Fey don’t steal human women.”

“Well, they damned well stole this one!” Mircea snarled, and flung the heavy whiskey glass he’d been holding across the room.

I heard a yelp and a crash, and vaguely registered that a servant had come in at exactly the wrong moment holding a tea tray, which had just been knocked out of his hands. I didn’t care. I didn’t need tea. I needed a bottle of Glenfiddich or a six-week vacation, but neither was on offer so I returned to the point at hand.

“You need to accept this,” I told Mircea flatly.

“Accept what?” he demanded. “That the damned fey kidnapped her—"

“For the second time, they didn’t—”

“—took her away and did God knows what with her? Murderous bastards, every single one, especially those bastard Svarestri! We have to help her—”

“Okay, that’s it!” I had been trying to be the voice of reason, but I’d officially had enough, not to mention that it wasn’t working anyway. If he wanted a shouting match, he’d get one.

“That’s it when we get her back!” Mircea told me savagely.

“That’s it when I say it is!” I snapped back, furious. “You almost got us both killed, and for what? An entire line of Pythias told you the same thing! No! No, we’re not going to take you back in time; no, we’re not going to help you rescue your wife. No, no, no! But the great Mircea Basarab always knows what’s right, doesn’t he? He always knows better than anyone, including people who can see the goddamned future!”

“And I was right! She’s in danger—”

“You were not right! She lived—”

“We don’t know that. We only know that Vlad didn’t kill her—”

“And you think the Svarestri did?” I stared at him, wondering which of us was crazy, him or me. Because somebody wasn’t making sense here. “If they wanted her dead, they could have just left her where she was! Your crazy brother was about to take care of that for them! They took her away, meaning that they wanted something from her—”