The red current died, exhausted. The ring around Damaes flared with purple and shed a copy of itself. The second ring expanded around the first and copied itself. Again, again . . . Three, four . . . eight.
“The Scream of Undensos. That fucker is actually trying to kill her.” I clenched the side of the boat with my free hand.
The rings rotated, some faster, some slower, each glowing with furious purple.
Isadau stared at the spell above her.
The rings snapped still. Purple lightning streaked forward from their rims, merging into a single ball of magic in front of Damaes. The Archmage raised his hand.
Isadau waited, defiant.
Damaes paused. The spell crackled in front of him. He was giving her time to escape.
Move, Isadau. Move, damn you.
She stood still.
The lightning popped, expanded into a circle, and tore a hole in the fabric of existence. Darkness churned inside the ring, primordial, terrifying, alien, so terrible that I didn’t want to look straight at it.
Isadau tilted her head.
The darkness tore out of the spell in a horrifying beam, searing the air with a deafening hiss and smashed into Isadau. The top of the hill disintegrated. It didn’t catch fire. It didn’t break. It just became nothing.
She was dead. That was an eighth-circle spell. It didn’t just kill, it undid the very matter we were made of. She couldn’t possibly—
The beam vanished. Isadau floated above the ground, her form translucent and glowing slightly.
The Fade! She had achieved the Fade!
I screamed and clapped my hands.
Isadau solidified. A fountain of bright red sparks burst from her, twisting into a glowing red flower. The flame-bloom—her signature spell.
The flower expanded. Fire and magic surged toward Damaes, wrapping him in a curtain of red. He fired back with an icy-blue meteor shower.
The river dragged us downstream, farther and farther. Soon we could no longer see the two mages, only the glowing explosions of light from their magic.
“Will she win?” Kaiden asked me.
“I don’t know,” I told him.
“You know everything.”
“I wish.”
“You’re asking the wrong question,” Clover told him. “Can she win?”
“Possibly.” Both Damaes and Isadau were monsters. He was more skilled, but she was beyond furious. It was anyone’s guess who would win.
“Let’s hope she does,” Lute said.
We glided into the night, our boat filled with our loot.
When Gort opened the secret door to us, the relief on his face was so obvious, it wasn’t even funny.
“See,” I told him. “Back in one piece.”
“You missed it, old man,” Lute said. “It was a show to remember.”
