Clover ran out, hauling a big sack. Kaiden was right behind her. I grabbed Clover’s sack and dropped it in. She climbed into the boat. Kaiden took a running start and vaulted over the edge.
Will grabbed me by the waist and lifted me into the boat.
Lute was still missing.
High above us, the lance streaked upward like a fighter jet at an air show. It was enormous, radiant with gold and white.
“Lute!” I howled.
Lute came running, dragging a huge chest. Behind him, the stone doors clanged shut and melted into the hill.
The lance turned, pointing down at Isadau standing on the apex.
Lute dropped the chest in and threw himself against the boat’s bow. The small vessel slid off the shore. He chased it, and Will grabbed him by the hand and pulled his brother in. They hit the oars.
The lance plunged down, roaring like a tornado. Flames burst from its point, and I didn’t know if it was air friction because it was solid, or magic spilling out.
Isadau watched it come.
I grabbed Sushi and wrapped my arms around her.
The lance smashed into Isadau. Flames and light exploded, turning the tiny island into a giant fireball. Water and steam geysered in the air. Heat slammed into us, and I turned my back to it. The blast wave rocked the boat.
Clover gasped.
I turned back and raised my head. The flames washed over the water and drained down, revealing Isadau unharmed at the top of the hill above the steaming river. She hadn’t even moved.
The magic lance hovered a foot from her head, stopped by some invisible force. Isadau raised her hands to the side and thrust them straight down. The steam swirled around the island, thickening, twisting, sliding, and spiraled up, solidifying into a pure white serpent with Isadau’s amber eyes.
Holy shit.
The enormous snake lunged at the lance, coiling about the shaft. The scaled body flexed.
The lance shattered. Thunder pealed. Magic slashed at me, and every hair on the back of my neck stood straight up.
A glowing sphere swirling with purple flames appeared above where the butt of the lance would have been. The flames melted, revealing a man’s silhouette inside a vertical ring of magic. Its rim sizzled with black and electric purple, like some twisted antithesis of a sun’s corona against a spray of distant stars.
The snake struck.
Damaes flicked his hand. Black orbs tore from the rim of the ring and sliced through the steam serpent. For a millisecond, its body hung in the air, severed in three pieces, and then it crashed into the river, breaking into liquid.
I wished Everard could see this. It was amazing.
Isadau was doing something complicated and pretty with her hands.
Sushi squirmed out of my arms. The Magnar brothers rowed like a well-oiled machine, putting more and more distance between us.
The ring tilted with Damaes inside it. More orbs tore from the rim, like gobs of black ink, and sped toward Isadau.
She raised her head. A circle of ruby blades flared in front of her, like a windmill made of swords. The windmill whirled, shredding the incoming projectiles.
The ring around Damaes spun, spitting a barrage of dark orbs.
Behind me Will swore.
The ruby fan of blades collapsed on itself bowing inward, toward Isadau, catching the orbs in the funnel of its blades, sparked with bright white, and sprang taut, firing a torrent of brilliant red at Damaes. The current of magic hammered the ring, breaking against an invisible wall. The impact careened the spell, shaking the Archmage inside.
“Kick his ass!” Lute yelled.
