Well I’ll be damned. Destien wasn’t with Evram on the last jaunt to Costa Rica threatening Brook because he has at least one (1) single moral. Either Evram didn’t tell him and he found out, or he objected so Evram went without him. That’s why Destien was guarding her this time.
A break between them? Maybe not so unreasonable—Destien was never as close to Evram as another protegee would have been, given my presence, and the hole it would have left.
And that Destien has all his family power to fall back on and never needed Evram like I did, which is, in retrospect, possibly the reason Evram kept me as long as he did: The only other candidate powerful enough to do his work for him didn’t need to.
Brook offers airily, “He made sure I was more comfortable the second time around. Didn’t free me, though.”
Destien frowns at her, andthatof all things makes me consider this. Brook isn’t starry-eyed about him but still feels comfortable mouthing off to him.
Another pulse hits my wall of waves, this one harder. Oof.
“And if I beat Evram and keep all this world’s magic back from High Earth,” I ask, “will you still feel the same?”
Destien glares at me. “If a grand magus of High Earth with an angel-powered wand can’t beat a Low Earth upstart, we don’t deserve it.”
Well, that’s unexpected.
Not sure Destien’s position will still be quite so radical once he starts feeling the cost—though probably he really doesn’t believe I can actually win. But if I do, and anyone in High Earth believes he helped—
“If anyone asks,” I say, “you were reminding me of the potential threat in order to support the grand magus while not doing him the disrespect of helping him materially, since he shouldn’t need it.”
Destien nods once, an affirmation.
“And if you do hurt her, you will regret it.”
He glares. “Fuck you.”
Got to love a nice universe-transcending swear.
I’m not sorry. I look at Brook. “You okay with this?”
She gives me two thumbs up. “I’m good. Go punch the old dude in the balls. He’s an asshole.”
Truer words. “It will be my pleasure.”
“That wand is no joke, Sierra,” Destien cautions.
Now Destien isworriedfor me? This is getting too weird.
But a warning coming from him of all people does give me pause, even as another bolt from Evram shatters my wall of water like glass cracking.
“I’m getting that.” I turn back to the grand magus.
He’s flying in the air, radiating magic like an angel, towering before me, the vision of the power I wanted, of what I wanted tobe, for so long.
Farther above us, I see streaks of light and dark as Nariel and Koshiel crash together and separate, tiny explosions of magic in my senses as their fight surrounds us faster than I can see.
Compared to that, what is the grand magus?
“You may have all the small power of this world at your disposal,” Evram tells me, “but with this wand, it won’t matter.”
A small-minded old man who’s made his living stealing the power of others.
“It’s too bad you couldn’t convince Koshiel to do your fighting for you too,” I tell him. “Because then you might have actually had a chance.”
And with that, we’re off in truth.
With Destien freeing me from the need to stand my ground, I propel myself backwards into deeper water, and where my feet touch, the surface of the water firms beneath them.
