Cillian held his breath.He knew Alise possessed the ruthlessness to do it.Certainly she had good reason and no one in the Convocation would blame her, much less hold her criminally responsible.Disgraced or not, Alise outranked Tyrna.Any actions she took against a House Elal minion would be considered private business.Her father might take exception, but only Lord Elal outranked Alise at this point.A reprimand or punishment, if he even bothered for a border-minion like Tyrna, would be between Alise and her father.No one in the Convocation begrudged wizards exercising their power.Unfortunately.
Though only seconds ticked by, the moment seemed as airless as the bubble around Tyrna’s head.Alise dispersed the suffocating elementals with barely a flick of her finger.She didn’t even need to do that much, but Cillian knew she’d done it so Feny could see and be reassured.“Merely unconscious.”
Feny collapsed sobbing over his mistress’s prostrate form.The carriage lurched unevenly into motion, hurtling across the border as Alise calmly walked to catch up.Belatedly, Cillian remembered he was meant to be coming up with a distraction, not watching the goings on with avid curiosity.Still, he breathed a sigh of relief that Alise had found a non-lethal solution.Within the hard shell she’d built over the years to protect herself from a childhood of neglect and outright abuse, somehow a tender heart had survived—and the Alise he knew and loved might not survive if she lost her ability to feel compassion.
With her back to the carriage, Alise faced the border from the other side.Transparent to the naked eye, though Cillian saw it easily enough with his wizard senses, the magical barrier stretched high into the sky.Only Elal wizards knew how high it went, though some scholars speculated it formed a full dome over the entirety of Elal lands.And, according to the books Cillian had studied, it also reached well below soil level.No tunneling under or diving from above.
Beyond the barrier, stretched the road, beautifully paved and embedded with fire elementals to keep it free of winter ice.It disappeared where it dipped into that first hairpin curve.Cillian kept an eye on that horizon, the sounds of the baying hunters and onrushing carriages not in the least muffled by the barrier.Permeable to air, animals, and weather, the enchantment worked only to limit the passage of humans.
For the first time, Cillian wondered if the hunters counted as animals.If so, he and Alise might be in even more serious trouble.But that was a problem for the future.True, a future about three minutes away, but nevertheless…
Alise’s magic swirled in the air, so thick he almost imagined he could see the crimson petals of roses and red-wine currents.Alise perceived magic that way, as colors, an unusual synesthesia.Most magic-sensitives registered magic—not something human senses had evolved to detect—as a smell or feeling.
…and he was falling into his bad habit of thinking about scholarly topics when under stress instead of coming up with a distraction.Although, maybe he’d get lucky and Alise would finagle the barrier before he needed to—
The hunting party rose into view, like a full blood-moon popping over the horizon with malevolent intent.Hunters led the front, a vee-shaped phalanx of the human-sized creatures that looked like a cross between a jackal and a weasel.Dark-furred, with long muzzles full of more teeth than any natural creature would have, they loped in a sinuous undulation that made Cillian feel motion sick—a sensation exacerbated by the nauseating smell of their magic, like rotten meat stewed in rancid oil.
A second vee of elemental-powered carriages followed them.Open to the sky, light and maneuverable for battle, these carriages held one person only.In each, a wizard stood, hair streaming and cloaks flapping as they goaded their air elementals to propel them ever faster.Even from a distance, their snarling anger visibly contorted their faces.
Completing the picture of relentless vengeance, a cohort of spirits swirled through the sky above them.From tiny, almost invisible elementals to fully shaped monsters composed of air and mist—but fully capable of delivering physical injury, Cillian knew from experience—they boiled like a storm in the wake of the rapidly approaching entourage.
It would take them less than a minute to close the distance on the straightaway.
Feny leapt to his feet, waving his arms.“Stop them,” he cried, pointing.“Murderers!”
“Ungrateful wretch,” Alise snarled, and he could hardly blame her.“I need another minute or two, Cillian.”She tossed the words over her shoulder, no hint of concern, utterly trusting that he already had it handled.
So handle it.But what could he do?The freezing spell would take too long to cast.His library magic worked to index books, to search for information within a text, to preserve and archive materials using folded space, and… Hmm.
He’d never tried anything like this before, but then, since meeting Alise, Cillian had attempted any number of inventive and taxing uses of library magic.He was grateful, however, that he did retain a full reservoir of magic.
“Cillian?”Alise’s voice rose in a note of question.
“Distraction happening now,” he answered, hoping his voice carried all the confidence he certainly needed but didn’t feel.With no time to dither further, Cillian began folding the ground under the feet of the attackers.The pavement resisted his library magic, not being books at all.He felt as if he tried to roll out dough with a hammer and chisel.But it worked, kind of, barely—and enough for a distraction.The hunters stumbled, losing momentum as their taloned paws grappled at the suddenly unstable surface of the road.
Going too fast to adjust, the elemental-powered carriages barreled into the flailing hunters, plowing over them with howls and snarls of pained fury.Cillian didn’t feel too bad for the hunters—they were essentially immortal and would recover.And they had no mercy in their hearts for any living creature.The carriages were slowed somewhat by the impedance, and by the undulating surface of the road.The elementals and wizards compensated, of course, but the distraction served its purpose.
“I think I did it,” Alise said without turning around.Her magic smoothed out, flowing over the barrier.Cillian, unable to sustain the awkward pavement folding much longer, let it go.The hunters boiled around, yelping.One wizard from the side managed to navigate around the snarl, their carriage hurtling toward the barrier while they yelled inaudible threats.Feny threw himself over the still unconscious body of his wizard, covering his head with his hands.For a long, breathless moment, Cillian thought the onrushing carriage would run right over the fallen pair.Alise raised her hands, as if she could steer them.
She probably realized at the same moment he did—or maybe she’d already thought of it—that shecouldchange that disastrous trajectory.The carriage suddenly veered to the side, crashing into the sheer rock wall of the cliff.The wizard inside flew out and hit the cliff with a thud, Alise physically flinching at the impact.By then another carriage had broken free of the melee and shot towards them, this time screeching to a halt before the pile of wizard and familiar.That wizard jumped out and skirted their fellows—ignoring the beseeching Feny had extended to them—and ran at the barrier.
And crashed into it.
Sound still didn’t penetrate, but their raging expression said everything.Spirits flew at the barrier, also unable to cross.
“Got it!”Alise declared with a fist pumping in the air.She turned and flashed him a radiant grin.“Distracting very well done, librarian.”
“Well done to you,” he returned with heartfelt relief.
She ran to him and he folded her in his arms.He stood in that moment, savoring the enormity of this one thing.He would never again take for granted the sheer, simple pleasure of having her with him, having her trust, the way she melted against him, her almost delicate body like a precious bird he enfolded with utmost care.
He kept one eye open over her shoulder, though, at the enraged wizard, now joined by several others.Feeling his attention, Alise turned, her small frame riddled with tension.“Even the spirits can’t get through,” she whispered in some awe.“I may have overdone it.”
“Did you change the entire barrier?”
She gave him a wide-eyed look.“No, just this section.They’ll find a way through sooner or later.And someone—definitely my father—will be able to change it back.”
“Let’s be on our way then.”
