She dashed forward, spinning her magic into a wind spell. Releasing it made the tree bend back the opposite way. She threw more magic into the spell, relaxing only when the tree fell into the woods and not out on theroad.
“It seems I won’t have a problem proving my motherwrong.”
Angelique whirled around, her magic blazing to life when she saw the familiar man standing on the road across fromher.
It was the black mage who had attacked her in Zancara—the one who had spoken ofEvariste.
He leaned against a tree, his glossy hair perfectly in place as his red eyes glowed in the shadows of the forest. When she met his gaze, he smirked—an expression that underlined his handsome features and made themcruel.
“I knew that even if you could stop me, I could still find a way to beat you.” He pushed off his tree and strolled across the dirt road. A careless gesture at the soldiers and a head tilt expressed his bottomless confidence. “And it seems Ihave.”
Oh, blast—no!Angelique loosened the magic she’d been hoarding up since she saw themage.
A gust of wind blew dust and grit into his eyes, and a tree groaned as its branches swooped low and narrowly missed whacking him in the back of the head. Angelique threw a dagger-sharp shard of ice at him, but an iridescent green shield sprouted into place, protecting him just as it had during their firstencounter.
Undeterred, Angelique moved the ground beneath his feet, turning it into mud, then flash-freezing it with ice. As he fumbled to stand, she threw a fireball at him—which was again stopped by his shieldcharm.
A twist of her hand, and water dumped over him in a thick waterfall. When it hit his shield, she dropped its temperature, turning the water into an ice glaze that encased theshield.
She could barely make out the black mage’s swearing above the racket she raised. She shook off the few raindrops that had hit her and glanced at the sky as the rain picked up from a light trickle to adownpour.
Is this hisdoing?
She felt the unpleasant whisper of his magic.Nope. But thatis.
She whirled around, looking for more shadowy weapons, then spotted the black arrows hovering over the soldiers. “No, no,no!”
She raised a magic shield over the fallen soldiers just in time to block the storm of arrows. Her magic tugged at her senses, drifting longingly toward the blackarrows.
Angelique savagely yanked her powers back and crafted her next spell.His charm will block a physical blow, but what about somethingintangible?
The spell weave was a tricky one, but Angelique finished just as the black mage crafted a massive lance out of shadows. She lobbed the spell at him, then reached out with her magic and used tree branches to snatch up the lance midair. Using the trees made them drop a bucketful of rainwater on her, plastering her hair to her skull and shocking her with the cold even though the charms on her dress kept her skirtsdry.
“Hah,” the black mage laughed when Angelique’s spell hit his face. “You still think some low-level sleep charm will work onme?”
“Not a sleep spell,” Angelique spat through gritted teeth as she wrestled to hold the lanceback.
“What—” He sneezed before he could finish his words, then scowled. “You—” More sneezes cut himoff.
Channeling her magic, Angelique pulled down the branches that cradled the shadow lance so low that the trees creaked and groaned, then she abruptly released them. The trees snapped upright, catapulting the lance faraway.
Behind her, the black mage rapidly sneezed five times in short succession. “Blast it!” He popped open a corked vial and chugged it, then tossed it aside so the vial shattered on the road—which was starting to turn soft in the rain. “A sneezing spell? That’schildish.”
“But effective.” Angelique considered tossing up a spell to shield her from the rain before realizing she didn’t have the capacity to attackanddefendandblock out the rain. If she used her core magic rather than twisting it into separate spells she could, but she wasn’t going to cross thatline.
She ignored her magic as it screamed at her and instead automatically threw up ashield.
The black club, however, hit her from behind, cracking her in theskull.
Angelique saw stars and fell to her knees, splashing mud everywhere. She tried to breathe but heard the squelching of the mage stalking closer, so she blindly shoved her fingers into the muck and shook the ground beneath his feet with a rapidly formedspell.
He swore and slipped, giving Angelique enough time to throw a healing spell on herself and stand. She staggered but was already twisting her magic in a new spell, which she tossed athim.
In midair, the spell clicked, turning into a spattering of yellow-green acidic liquid—heavily inspired by her tussle with thewyvern.
The black mage dodged the attack and zipped past her, using his shadows to form ascythe.
Angelique fumbled to strengthen the shield protecting thesoldiers.
