Ensnared (Sorcery and Science Book 5) (18 page)

“Yes, I’m familiar with the type,” she said, cracking a smile.

Jason crocked a snowy eyebrow at her.
“No. Not like these Phantoms. Follow my lead. Both of you,” he added with a harsh sidelong look at Cameron.

Yeah, because it was all his fault that people were always trying to capture him. And it had nothing to do with the Selpe bounty on his head. Or that he was the rogue son of Elitia’s high king.

“Of course,” Cameron said, knowing there was no reason to provoke this particular Phantom.

The castle gates creaked open, and the head Phantom guard motioned them to follow him inside.

* * *

526AX August 22, Ice Palace

Snow swirled in on their heels, dusting a helping of white crystals across the cavernous hallway before the Phantoms could shove the double doors shut behind them. Reaching over five meters high and made of thick wooden slabs, the doors looked anything but lightweight. Add the barrage of a brewing blizzard, and it wasn’t all that surprising that it took four Elitions to close them. And four Phantoms at that, Cameron reminded himself.

As they followed the leader of the guards down the hall, ice crunched and cracked beneath their boots. It was warm enough in the hallway that the crystals had slowly begun to melt, forcing Cameron to watch his step carefully, lest he slip and fall hard on his rear end in front of their hosts. He doubted such a fumble would endear him to them. Jason had said they respected demonstrations of strength, not clumsiness.

“Just out of curiosity, Jason, how many of them did you defeat last time?” Cameron whispered to him.

“Five.”

“All Phantoms?”

“Yes.”

“All at once?”

Jason nodded.

“Wow.” The words popped lightly out of Cameron’s mouth. “And what started the fight?”

“They challenged my claim of being the Elite Phantom.”

Oh. Not good.

“I provided a demonstration.”

Of course he had. Telling the Elite Phantom he was not the Elite Phantom was about as smart as cutting your own head off. Cameron scrunched his face up, trying to imagine how one would even pull off such an idiotic maneuver.

“I trust you didn’t kill any friends of our would-be hosts?” Isis spoke up softly.

Jason favored her with an inscrutable eyebrow twitch.

“Ok, ok.” She held up her hands. “Just making sure. You do have a penchant for running in knives flying, Jason.”

“And for incinerating your enemies with your smoldering stare,” added Cameron.

Jason glared at them both.

“Yeah, that one,” Cameron said, nodding. He used the motion to look away. Jason’s stare sure was disconcerting, even though Cameron was mostly sort of sure he wouldn’t kill him.

“As it appears you two are not taking this seriously, I think it best that I do the talking when we get to the great hall,” Jason declared, his eyes cold.

“What did we do wrong now?” Cameron asked Isis.

“Tried to lighten the mood?” she suggested, shrugging.

“Silence,” Jason directed them as another set of double doors opened in their path.

These were made of black-brown wood, each engraved with white markings—three snowflakes over a castle fortress, the emblem of Everlast. The great hall was three times higher than the voluminous hallway they’d just walked down, extending upward as high as the castle itself. Sparkling chutes of sunshine poured through a grid of slim windows sprinkled along the outer walls. Even as they stood there, Cameron noticed the light was fading, succumbing to the night and the force of the mounting storm outside.

Air whistled past his ears as a torch flamed up on the wall behind them. Cameron nearly jumped out of his boots at the sensation. No one stood beside the torch. This was Phantom power at work.

The flames of the two torches on either side of the first puffed into existence. They were followed in turn by the next two. And the next. All the way down the sides of the chamber. With the birth of each new flame, a breeze brushed across Cameron’s skin, until the hairs on his head stood up rigid as icicles. The faint blended scent of gas and burning wood that had accompanied the first flame grew with the lighting of each new torch. By the time they were all lit—all those hundreds—the smell was almost suffocating.

Jason was staring straight ahead, so Cameron directed his eyes that way too. Three wide wood steps led up to a raised platform, where a woman sat with her legs swung over the arm of a…throne was the most fitting word for the chair of twisted wood, Cameron supposed. It had been fashioned from the most gnarled of branches from a dozen different tree species, in colors ranging from speckled white to near black. A scarlet red cloak draped over her legs, rippling over the edge of the throne like a bloody waterfall. It was complemented by the thick braid of black hair—darker than night itself, with a tendency toward indigo—that coiled out from her snow-white, fur-trimmed hood and down over her shoulder. With her startling electric blue eyes and skin as pale as the tundra on her doorstep, she really did look like the queen of winter.

“Jason Chanz. You have returned.” Her voice, melodious and potent, echoed through the hall as she stood.

“All rise for Her Majesty Queen Gale, sovereign of Everlast and queen of Phantoms,” the head guard boomed out.

Cameron wanted to point out to the man that his address was excessive, as everyone in the room was already standing, but he didn’t think Jason would appreciate the comment. His emotionless face had hardened, the Elite Phantom in him likely irked at the line ‘queen of Phantoms’. He looked up at the queen, his eyes turning obsidian as she returned the unblinking stare, hers phasing to an even more intense blue. Isis’s eyes took on a dark look of their own as she watched the exchange.

Jason waited until the female Phantom—an oddity in itself—looked away before he inclined his chin in a subtle acknowledgement. “Queen Gale.”

She descended the first stair, her red cloak kissing the floor as she moved. “I wonder…” she began, taking the next stair. “…what it is that has brought you back here.” She stepped down the final stair, walking forward until her nose was almost flush with Jason’s. He didn’t even flinch.

Queen Gale was no small woman. She and Jason stood eye-to-eye in height, two sets of unblinking, penetrating Phantom eyes. It was kind of creepy actually.

Isis cleared her throat loudly. Queen Gale kept her eyes locked on Jason for a few long seconds before disengaging to assess his companions. The hint of a sneer that graced her full lips told Cameron she wasn’t impressed with what she saw. The queen was good-looking, but that disparaging smile completely turned him off to her.

“Last time we met, you did not keep such…interesting company,” she said, turning a far brighter smile on Jason. “I was under the impression that you always work alone.”

“Mostly. Not always.”

“Of course, of course. But surely any mission you take on is far too dangerous to bring children along. These two appear to be such fragile creatures, not up to the sort of rigorous activity a Phantom relishes. Would it not have been better to leave them behind?”

Isis glared at the queen with unfettered abhorrence. It was so unlike her. Cameron had seen her happy and he had seen her sad, but he had never seen her borderline murderous. Until now. If looks could kill, by now Isis would have boiled and then burned the queen to a crisp for good measure. Cameron felt an acidic tingle in the air and quickly closed his hand around Isis’s.

Queen Gale was trying to provoke them into an outburst. She wanted them to take the first misstep. She wasn’t even being subtle about it. And usually Isis would have been the level head pointing this out, reminding them all to remain calm. Queen Gale must have really gotten under her skin.

“My mission necessitates their assistance,” Jason said, shifting his body so that he stood as a wall—physical and visual—between the two women.

“Tell me of this mission,” the queen prompted in a fierce purr.

“I cannot say,” he replied. “I ask only that we be allowed to stay for the night and then use your portal to Winter’s Gate tomorrow morning.”

Cameron hadn’t known of this portal, and a quick glance at Isis told him she hadn’t either.

“I agree.” Smiling widely, she added, “On one condition.”

Still holding to her hand, Cameron felt Isis tense up.

“You agree to a duel with me. If you win, you and your traveling companions will be our guests for the night, and we will lead you to our portal in the morning.” She held up a finger, and her smile grew. “But if I win, your companions must go, and you will be my guest here for the next month.”

“Jason, I don’t think—” Isis began.

He pressed a finger to her lips, silencing her protest. “Agreed,” he told the queen.

Queen Gale clapped her hands once and smirked at Isis. “Excellent. You may select one blade.” Her eyes slid over the armory of weapons strapped to him—or perhaps more likely, as Cameron was starting to think, the muscular body that had been sculpted by an endless barrage of training sessions, clearly defined by the skintight fabric of the coldsuit. For only the ten millionth time, Cameron found himself wishing he were Jason.

“Jason, this is a bad idea,” Isis told him as he turned to hand her the leather straps of knives he’d peeled off his body.

He selected his weapon—a Wing knife with a sapphire-studded hilt and a blade about as long as his forearm—then draped the last weapon belt over her arm. “Do you think I will lose?”

“Even you don’t win all the time.” She paused as he began to nod, her eyes narrowing. “This is no time for jokes, Jason.”

Jason looked at Cameron, his face as blank as granite. “Who’s joking?”

“Cameron?” Isis asked.

Cameron shrugged. “I’ve never known Jason to lose.” Well, not before the fight with the band of children. “But it’s not like he ever brought me along anywhere.”

“I will not lose,” Jason assured Isis.

“If you do—”

“I won’t,” he repeated.

“But if you do, you will be stuck here for the next month, entertaining that…that harpy,” she spat out, glaring at the queen.

Clearly, her insults needed work.

Jason stepped to the side so that Isis could no longer see past him. She persisted in trying to bore a hole through him for several seconds before she turned her head up to glare into his eyes instead.

“Careful,” he warned her. “You’re playing with fire there, Isis.”

“I don’t care about your silly Phantom staring contests,” she ground through her teeth.

“Are you ready to begin, or do you want to send your child companions out of the hall first? Phantom fights can be a lot to take in for gentle minds,” Queen Gale’s voice lilted, sweetness tempered with fire.

Jason turned toward her and declared, “I’m ready.”

As the guards ushered Cameron and Isis off toward the wall, Jason and Queen Gale lifted their blades in preparation. The queen had selected a Wing knife similar to Jason’s, set with diamonds rather than sapphires. Blue and white, the two swords’ gemstones sparkled in the firelight as the fighters circled around each other like two tigers in the heated prelude to the fight. Queen Gale thrust up the hand not holding her knife, flinging her cloak high into the air. Cameron was so mesmerized by the silken ripple of waves across the crimson fabric that he nearly missed the start to the duel.

Queen Gale opened with a diagonal slash so quick it would have taken a slower opponent’s arm right off before he could even move to block. Luckily, Jason was no common fighter. The thundering clash of metal against metal meant she’d put as much power as speed into the attack. She sure didn’t waste any time warming up.

Pushing up hard with his blade, Jason threw Queen Gale off of him. He took a swift step to the side, then followed with a swing toward her shoulder. She slithered out of reach. She was quick, but Jason was quicker. As she evaded his knife, he thrust out his arm. A burst of Phantom energy, more focused and volatile than wind, split through the air and hit the queen hard in the stomach. It catapulted her back ten meters at breakneck speed, so fast she was little more than a blur. Boots ground into stone as she kicked off the back wall, the force setting off eruptions of tiny rocks and a sprinkling of fine dust. Queen Gale landed in a neat crouch, grinning at Jason as she rose. Behind her, the wall was newly decorated with twin intertwining webs of tiny fissures.

She lashed out with her own Phantom burst to hit Jason square in the chest. As the invisible energy made contact, the spasm of his muscles was eerily visible through the coldsuit. He managed to hold his ground for a split second before being tossed back. That moment of resistance slowed the burst down enough that Jason was able to use the wave to launch himself into a backward somersault, draining the last of its energy.

His feet had only just touched down when he sprinted forward in a burst of speed, closing the open space between them within a split of a second. Queen Gale was waiting for him. Her blade whistled five staccato notes as she greeted him with a series of crisp slashes. Jason dodged each one, then hopped back far enough to focus on the hand holding her knife. The metal began to glow deep red. The queen smiled and struck out at him. Jason parried and advanced with an attack sequence of his own. The strikes blended together into a continuous barrage, forcing her to hold securely onto her knife, its metal by now smoldering orange. Queen Gale gritted her teeth, stubbornly holding onto the pain. The stench of burnt flesh wafted through the hall.

Jason didn’t let up, striking faster with each successive move. The clinking chime of metal against metal crescendoed. Their swords were two intertwined streaks of unbroken silver swirls, dancing between them. Slowly, the queen’s blade glowed lighter. When it reached bright yellow, it burst from her hand and slid across the floor. Jason turned his wrist to thump her in the nose with the blunt end of his knife handle. As she stumbled back, Jason whipped around behind her and pressed the edge of his blade against her throat.

“Yield,” he said.

A stream of blood trickled down Queen Gale’s face, dripping from her broken nose. She grinned.