Ensnared (Sorcery and Science Book 5) (14 page)

“The Book of Prophecy,” Cameron began.

“Is gone,” he cut in.
What was the matter with the both of them?

Isis motioned him forward. Aware of the seconds slipping by, Jason ascended the steps to the podium and looked into the fire. There lay the Book of Prophecy, its pages slowly melting away. But that’s not what Isis and Cameron were staring at. Their eyes were fixed on the flaming letters, hovering just above the open book.

“The Shroud,” Jason read.

“An echo of Nemesis’s spell,” said Isis.

“The Recovery Scrolls are destroyed. Everett threw the Book of Prophecy into the fire before she could finish,” Jason said.

“Apparently not.” Cameron nodded toward Isis. “Isis pulled the remnants from the fire with her mind.”

“How much Phantom Accentuating Serum did you take?” he asked her, his mind racing.

She hiccuped. “Enough.”

He pointed toward the fire, where the words were already dissolving. “So, this means Terra is
—
”

“At the Shroud,” she finished for him.

Jason pushed that to the back of his mind, saving it for later. He wouldn’t be getting anywhere close to Terra if they didn’t get out of there.

“We’ll have to run,” he told them. “Back to Eclipse.”

Isis shook her head. “The nearest portal is too far away. And it doesn’t take us to Eclipse.”

“Not that one. We’ll take the portal loop.”

She didn’t ask him how he would find the nearly invisible portal while running full speed through the woods, and Jason appreciated that. It’s not like they had any better option anyway.

“Cameron, do you have the other two books and the stones?” Jason asked him.

Cameron tapped his backpack.

“Good, then let’s go. Isis, can you carry Everett? I’ll distract the Crescent Order. Head for Lake
Yvonne, and
I’ll catch up with you there.”

“No,” she said. “You take Everett. I will distract them.”

“Isis, there are twelve highly-skilled assassins waiting outside,” he said sharply.

“And what am I? A helpless lamb?”

Jason reached for patience—and missed. “No,” he growled. “But they fight to kill. So unless you’ve been keeping even more secrets from me, you are ill-equipped to take on a dozen assassins.”

She flinched but did not stand down. “You’ve expended too much power already. We have no choice. I must deal with the assassins.”

He wiped the trickle of blood from his nose. “No way.” It was suicide. And she’d been through too much already.

“Yes way.” She jumped down the stairs, heading for the exit. “Or would you rather argue with me about this until they come inside?”

Cursing himself for wasting his energy on Nemesis, Jason caught up with her. Cameron jogged to Isis’s other side. Ahead, blue-green light shone in from the temple’s open door.

“I’ll go first,” she told them, pausing before the threshold. “Follow ten seconds later. Run for the lake and don’t look back.”

Jason set his hand on hers, and a spark rippled across his arm, electrifying every nerve in his body. The blue fire in Isis’s eyes intensified, going molten. Jason felt his own eyes darken in response. He stared at her coldly, waiting for her to blink. She did not.

“This is so weird. Just like having two Jasons,” Cameron commented in a whisper.

“Or two Phantoms. It must be the serum,” Jason said. “She’s reacting just as a Phantom would.”

He intensified his stare, the obsidian ice burning his eyes. Still, she did not blink. It was infuriating.

“Isis,” he warned. Baiting a Phantom was unwise. And most especially the Elite Phantom.

She allowed her lids to drop and shook herself. “Sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”

Phantom power had come over her, a power so potent that he could still feel the burn of its taste on his tongue. Never before had he felt such raw energy from another Phantom, and Isis wasn’t even a Phantom. Certainly no serum should have been able to do
that
to her.

Isis took a deep breath and stepped outside. Jason heard the whistle of flying arrows and knives, followed by a tsunami of power that nearly knocked him off his feet. Isis had directed the burst outward, toward the assassins, but some had seeped back. Jason adjusted his hold on Everett in preparation to sprint. Behind him, Cameron pushed himself back up to his feet.

They shot out of the temple, darting between trees and fallen assassins who were just beginning to stir. Jason pumped his legs faster, setting a new pace. He could hear Cameron’s stunted breaths not far behind him. Good, he was managing to keep up. As they cleared the edge of the woods, a second wave barreled out, causing the evergreen needles to shudder. Jason skirted the lake, his eyes looking for the tiny flicker, the smallest shift in the landscape that signaled the door of the portal. He and Terra had once hopped along the portals in this loop, but that was long ago. Jason hoped he could still find the way in.

Wind swept his shoulder, and then Isis was there, running beside him. Her eyes still burned, but the flame in them was going down. She had used up most of her borrowed Phantom power and soon she’d crash. They would need to find the portal before then. He’d not yet regained enough power to carry two people, especially not with a band of assassins on his heels.

A knife flew over his head. There was no time to look back, but Jason could sense a single Elition behind them. The Phantom. He had the strongest resistance to the energy Isis had been throwing around. Two more Elitions broke through the forest. Inside, more were stirring.

They were running out of time.

“Isis,” Jason said.

She understood the question. “Sorry. I’m dry. The best I can throw at them right now is a joke.”

“No need.”

He’d spotted the sliver in the air and broke off toward it. Isis and Cameron matched his stride. When they were within five steps of the portal, Jason clasped his hand around Isis. She snatched a hold of Cameron, and Jason pulled them through the portal.

They tumbled out into the center of Eclipse. Jason felt the remaining drops of residual magic drip out of the portal loop, and the whole thing snapped shut behind him like a rubber band. A flare of energy hit him, soaking through his pores. His heart beat faster and faster, burning as his body greedily lapped up the power.
Ancient power
, he thought to himself as the last of it pulsed into him, knocking him off balance. He stumbled, and his face hit the ground.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

~
Broken ~

526AX August 21, Eclipse

AS EVERETT REGAINED consciousness, the first thought that came to his mind was a silent plea for narcotics. He didn’t need to open his eyes to know that Nemesis had torn him up real bad; he could feel it with every piercing thump of his pulse. Besides the leg he couldn’t move—hopefully only because it was clamped inside a cast
—
both his abdomen and chest felt like they were very slowly being eaten alive by flames. Someone had slopped warm goo across the entire front side of his body, which under the circumstances was doing a pretty decent job of combating the flesh-on-fire feeling. Only every other second did he think about ramming his head through the wall just to end the pain, a morbid fantasy he was thwarted from fulfilling by his utter inability to sit up.

“He’s waking up,” a smooth, even voice said over him.

Everett recognized it as belonging to Silver, the healer of Eclipse. His spirits lifted instantly. He was not awakening to find himself inside some dank hovel. With Silver there, he knew he was in capable hands. Though Jason probably had the knowledge to tend to his wounds, the assassin was more familiar with tearing bodies to pieces than he was with putting them back together. Everett shuddered.

The thought of Cameron patching him up unsettled him even more. The kid had enough good intentions to saturate the world twice over, but he couldn’t grasp the purpose of things like disinfectants and clean bandages—basically irrelevant to Elitions but pretty damn important to infection-prone humans. Cameron had once offered to treat one of Everett’s knife wounds with a torn strip of shirt soaked in rum. So, no to him as doctor. No and no again.

Isis was probably the only one of Everett’s three travel companions that he’d want anywhere near his wounds. During their travels together, she had often tended to his injuries. For over a year, she’d worked for the Selpes as a bodyguard, which granted her an understanding of human physiology uncommon amongst Elitions. His body’s inability to instantly seal deep lacerations elicited neither perplexed looks nor snide comments from her.

“Is he healed?” Jason’s voice asked.

“His bones have been set and his cuts sterilized and wrapped. As for healed, that will take time,” replied Silver.

“How long?”

Silver paused before answering. Everett could hear the smile on his lips when he said, “Why, Jason Chanz, is it possible you’re not nearly as heartless as you carry on?”

“I assure you I am every bit as heartless as I carry on,” he said cooly.

“I see.”

Silver didn’t sound convinced. Everett was. Very few people were important enough to Jason to elicit an emotional response from the assassin. Everett was sure he didn’t have the honor of making that very short list.

“I ask because I’ve planned this job with him on the team. I need to know if I must alter these plans.”

And there it was. Assassins were nothing if not pragmatic.

“Since when is rescuing Terra Cross a ‘job’?” Silver asked.

“Since that day ten years ago when my father made me swear to protect her. Considering that those were the last words he ever spoke to me before going to his death, I figure I ought to respect his wishes.”

Silver sighed but said nothing. From listening around Eclipse, Everett had learned that Jason’s parents had once ruled the Elition kingdom of Pegasus. Then, a decade ago, they’d died. Everett knew they’d had a falling out with King River. He wasn’t sure why, but it seemed to have something to do with the Selpes. After that, the Elitions of Pegasus had fled to Eclipse or to other hidden camps deep inside Elitia.

“Terra is also your friend, Jason,” said Lana.

When he heard her voice, Everett made an effort to open his eyes and sit up. It took a few seconds for his eyes to focus, but they finally did. The rest of his body was less cooperative.

“Please remain still. Quick movements may tear your stitches,” Silver warned, setting a hand on his forehead. “Your fever has subsided. The serum I gave you must have banished the infection that was setting in.”

“That sounds…good,” rasped Everett. Unlike his voice, which sounded terrible.

“Well, I guess that answers my inquiry,” Jason said, his black eyes meeting Everett’s. “You look awful.”

Blunt as a blow to the face. Apparently, social niceties were not taught at assassin school.

“I feel worse,” Everett said.

“I will adjust my plan accordingly.”

“No need. I’ll come with you.” Everett once again tried to sit up. A stream of burning pain split across his right side, but it died down once he’d propped himself up with some pillows. That must have been Silver’s serum at work.

Jason glared at him. “No, you are a liability in your current state.”

“A liability?” protested Everett. He’d been called many vile things in his years as a mercenary. A liability was not one of them.

“And we don’t have time to wait for you to recover,” Jason finished, as though Everett had said nothing at all.

“Now just see here—”

A warm hand squeezed his arm. Lana’s hand. “Jason’s right. You need to stay here and rest. If you go out now, you’ll just get yourself killed.”

Everett thought she sounded like she actually cared what happened to him. But maybe he was just imagining things. He
had
hit his head quite hard. He looked up to meet her eyes, but she’d already turned away.

“So, new plan.” Jason looked over his shoulder. “Isis, do you think you could carry a few more blades on you?”

Everett hadn’t even realized Isis was there in the room. She stood beside the next bed, her arms extended back to lean against the wooden frame behind her. Though she had no wounds, her face looked as pained as he felt. Not long ago, he’d heard her laugh again. She must have had a relapse. Perhaps the return to Eclipse had brought her back to thoughts of why she’d come there in the first place.

Everett knew the feeling. It was how he felt every time he thought about Hope. Once the capital of the free islands of the Revs, the city now lay in ruins, destroyed by the Selpes. It had been three months since the attack, and Everett relived his guilt every day. He should have been there. Somehow. And he should have done something to stop them. It was an irrational guilt, and he knew it, yet it remained with him, unshakable.

Everett paused on the thought. Guilt. That is what he saw in Isis’s eyes, that same stubborn insistence that she could have done something to stop the Selpes when they’d taken her. Perhaps, she was asking herself why she’d not fought them all off. The poor girl. She was torturing herself.

The Selpes. Everything always seemed to come back to the damn Selpes.

“How about just one really big sword?” Isis asked with a weak smile. It didn’t reach her eyes—eyes that trembled with sadness as they looked at Jason.

“You’re far too cute to pull that look off,” Everett teased her. Or tried to anyway. It was unlikely his scratchy voice was very comforting.

“He’s right,” Jason agreed, not a hint of teasing in his monotone voice. “The look fits Ariella, but we’ll need something else for you. How are you with two swords?” His eyes panned across the length of her arms. “Perhaps, dual Versatiles, each blade about fifty centimeters in length.”

Isis nodded. “Yes, exactly that. I was first tier with dual Versatiles at Rosewater.”

The statement sounded impressive enough, and something that resembled respect flickered across Jason’s eyes before it was swallowed up by cold obsidian.

“How did you know?” she asked.

“You look like a dual swords fighter,” Everett told her.