Guardians of the Boundary (The Conjurors Series Book 3) (31 page)

His eyes had an almost maniacal
gleam as he battled her. He was clearly hand-picked by Reaper, because Valerie
didn’t think she’d ever fought anyone who was this close to being her equal
with a sword until now.

Valerie’s magic was strong and
her aim true, and it wasn’t long before he was on the defensive. Disbelief
marred his almost handsome face, followed by resignation. Valerie slashed at
him, and he dropped his weapon and fell to his knees, baring his chest. She
came within a hair’s breadth of slashing him open and ending his life from the sheer
momentum of her thrust.

Instead, she diverted Pathos’s
path and slammed it into his sword. It shattered like the spear she’d destroyed
before it. It was chilling to realize how close she had come to taking this
man’s life. Like the Fractus at the Black Castle and Reaper himself, her enemy
wanted her to slay him. A shiver ran through Valerie as she tried to guess why
Reaper wanted her to kill someone so badly. Her instincts told her that it was
more than a desire to kill her.

Valerie pinched a
nerve in her enemy’s neck, and he fell limply to the ground. He wasn’t a
threat, at least for now. His body had barely stopped moving before she was set
upon yet again.

The next two hours were a blur,
and Valerie disarmed and disabled enemy after enemy. As the battle progressed,
she and her friends gravitated together so that they were fighting in a circle,
covering each other’s backs. Around them, Fractus, People of the Woods, and
Conjurors fell. Some of them didn’t get up.

Valerie refused to consider now,
in the middle of battle, how many were dead. The People of the Woods had a
contingent dedicated to rescuing the wounded and drawing them away from the
worst of the fighting.

Cyrus left the battle to work
with them, helping the wounded that had been touched by the black weapons by injecting
them with some of his light. He didn’t give all of his power to any one person,
and no one knew if small amounts of light would help anyone heal.

During a slight pause in the
fighting, Valerie saw Cyrus dragging an unconscious Conjuror away from the
battle. He stopped to infuse him with light. Valerie saw a bright flash, and
then Cyrus collapsed on the ground. Valerie raced to help him, but before she
could make it to his side, she saw Thai sling Cyrus over his shoulder and take him
to the relative safety of a group of the People of the Woods who were
protecting the wounded.

Thai gave her a reassuring nod,
but it took all of Valerie’s inner strength not to leave the battle behind to
make sure of Cyrus’s safety herself. But too many people were depending on her
to divert her attention now.

Valerie’s gaze traveled to the
battle on the ground, which appeared to be going better than the one in the
trees. The Fractus had been beaten back, and those who remained were glancing
behind them as if they were considering making a run for it. But a few rallied
around a determined Mira, including Hoel and Lyonesse, and Valerie also caught
a glimpse of Ani gathering a group of Fractus around her. They all had dark
weapons, and those in her army who hadn’t been equipped with weapons from the
People of the Woods were no match for them. It was clear that the fight
wouldn’t be over for anyone soon.

Juniper was deep in combat with
Claremont, and the two furiously sparred with each other, fighting with more
skill and speed than Valerie had ever guessed they possessed. An unlucky branch
hit Claremont in the head, giving Juniper the moment he needed to raise his
arms and unleash his power. He had the ability to bind his enemy’s magic, and
Claremont turned red with frustration as her grip loosened on her weapon.

Skye and the other Grand Masters
were in a tight knot near the base of the tree that led up to Arbor Aurum,
their faces gray from expending so much magic.

Around her, in Arbor Aurum, Thai
fought back-to-back with Kanti, and they made an effective team. Kanti used her
power as a diversionary tactic, and Thai cut their enemies down. When a Fractus
was too powerful for Thai to take on alone, Kanti whipped out her staff and
helped him finish off the opponent.

The Fractus gave Henry and the
Empaths a wide berth, and Valerie suspected that was because the Empaths were
messing with their minds and deliberately keeping the fray from hitting their
ranks. However, when any of the Fractus got too close, Oberon personally took
them down, often with lightning he called with his magic, but sometimes with powerful
blows from his own staff, which was twice as large as Kanti’s.

The number of Fractus pouring
through the portals in the sky had slowed, and Valerie began to hope that
Reaper was running out of warriors to send. She had yet to see him in person,
and not knowing where he was made her anxious. Whatever he was up to, she
needed to be the one to find and stop him.

Henry’s mind touched hers with
an image of Elden fighting desperately with a group of the People of the Woods
against a pack of Fractus. They were considerably distanced from the heart of
the fighting, which was where Valerie was.

She raced along the path that
Henry sent to her mind toward Elden, already guessing why he was apart from the
fighting. He was protecting the Byway, and she had no doubt that the Fractus
had found him. After twenty minutes of running at her maximum speed, she saw
Elden and about a dozen warriors from the People of the Woods. They were
fending off more than twenty Fractus, and the fight had an air of desperation.

The golden sheen had almost faded
from Elden’s skin, and Valerie guessed that he’d been nicked by one of the
black weapons. With a battle cry, Valerie launched herself into the fray. Her
earlier exhaustion vanished, and she tapped into the well of magic that she
built within her every day. She silently thanked Oberon for his training as she
slashed her way through the Fractus toward Elden.

Even with her help, Valerie
could see that this wasn’t a fight that they would win.

“We have to destroy the Byway,”
she shouted to Elden, but he didn’t stop fighting to answer.

Oberon appeared in the corner of
her vision, and she had never been more grateful to see him. He fought by her
side, and they moved as fast as their magic would allow. From the stories she’d
heard, she thought that her fighting ability came from her mother, but seeing
her father in battle made her realize that she could just as easily take after
her father.

Despite their best efforts,
Valerie saw Elden drop to the ground with a grunt, and the Fractus made it past
the last line of defense. The Byway was exposed, lying innocently on the ground
where one of the People of the Woods must have dropped it in battle. Valerie
ducked beneath the blow of a mace and pushed past a Fractus slashing at her
with a long, curved knife.

She’d made it to the Byway and
even had it in her grasp when a change in the atmosphere let her know that she
didn’t need to wonder where Reaper was any longer. He was standing right behind
her.

Valerie instinctively ducked and
rolled, holding the Byway close to her body for protection. In one smooth move,
she rose up to her feet, spinning around to meet Reaper’s scythe with Pathos’s
blade.

She put every ounce of her force
and magic into the blow, but Reaper’s weapon didn’t shatter, as others had when
she’d hit them that hard. Maybe Pathos needed another infusion of light, or
maybe Reaper’s weapon was stronger than the others she’d encountered that day,
but she knew in her gut that it was one weapon that even Pathos wouldn’t be
able to destroy. She’d have to disarm him instead.

It was only after a few minutes
of fighting that Valerie realized that Reaper wasn’t giving her his full
attention. He kept her at bay as if she were an annoying gnat, but his focus
seemed to be elsewhere. Even the Byway, which she’d shoved into her jacket,
didn’t hold his gaze.

Right before her world turned
upside down, she understood who Reaper was interested in—Oberon. Valerie and
her father stumbled as Reaper used his power to shift their perspectives. Up
was suddenly down, and left was right. The effect was dizzying. Reaper grabbed
Oberon in a headlock and raised an arm.

A portal appeared in the air and
Reaper yanked Oberon through. Valerie leapt with every ounce of strength in her
body and followed Reaper and Oberon through the portal. There was no way she
was letting Reaper disappear with her father again. The last time that had
happened, Oberon had been very lucky to escape.

The three tumbled into the throne
room of the Black Castle. Valerie wasn’t yet on her feet when Reaper attacked
her father.

“I’m sorry it has to come to
this, old friend,” Reaper said, the fierce set of his features in sharp
contrast to his mild words. “It’s time for you to die, like your wife. Do you
know she begged for her life before I killed her?”

“Lies. You may have killed her
body, but her spirit was stronger than you are capable of comprehending. She’d
die before she bowed down to you,” Oberon spit out.

“And die she did,” Reaper said.
“Ready to join her?”

Oberon’s face was thunderous as
he dodged the first blow from Reaper’s scythe.

Valerie tried to fight by her
father’s side, but Reaper kept reorienting the room. She would turn left only
to find herself moving to the right and trip as she crashed into objects that
appeared where she least expected them.

With the part of her mind that
wasn’t focused on orienting herself, she questioned why Reaper didn’t use his
magic to dissolve them both, like he’d done when he killed Midnight.

It was possible that his powers
were weakened. The last time she’d been in this room, she’d activated a strange
orb that was hidden behind one of the stones in the wall. Azra said it would
dampen the powers of any Fractus within a certain radius.

But if Reaper’s powers had
deteriorated, Valerie couldn’t tell from watching him wield his scythe, his
lips compressed in determination. A trickle of sweat dripped down Valerie’s
back, and she couldn’t stop the picture of herself as a hamster running in its
wheel, getting nowhere.

Stopping her frantic attempts to
move to her father’s side, she forced herself to remain still. She breathed as
Gideon had taught her, and reached out with her magic instead of her physical
senses. With all of the speed she could muster, Valerie lashed out with Pathos.

She thrust upward, hitting
Reaper’s scythe squarely. Her blow caught him by surprise, and it slid up,
almost out of Reaper’s grasp. His blade came close to tearing her open in the
process, but instead, it ripped her jacket and sliced through the delicate
flower inside as if it were nothing.

At the touch of the scythe, the Byway
disintegrated into dust. Valerie knew that Elden and the People of the Woods
might never believe that she hadn’t purposely sacrificed the flower, but she
didn’t care. Unless Reaper could summon enough power to activate Earth’s Byway
on its own, Earth was safe from an army of Fractus. Now she and her father had
to escape.

Valerie followed up with another
powerful blow to Reaper’s scythe. His grip was still loose on his weapon, and
the force of the impact sent it flying across the room. It was an incredible
advantage, but Valerie was distracted from immediately following up with
another attack by the satisfied grin on Reaper’s face. He’d lost the Byway and now
his weapon—why was he so confident, as if he’d gotten exactly what he wanted?

She followed his gaze and saw
Oberon on the ground. A deep gash ran from his shoulder to his hip. Surviving
such a wound from a regular weapon was unlikely, even if a Healer were nearby.
But it had been done with Reaper’s scythe, and Valerie knew that her father
would be lost in a matter of moments.

“Turn around and fight,” Oberon
commanded her, his eyes still holding the fierce glow of battle. There was no
tenderness in his voice, and Valerie knew it was on purpose, so that she’d hold
herself together. His tactic didn’t work.

Valerie dropped Pathos and threw
herself on top of her father, calling on her power as a vivicus.

“Daughter, no,” Oberon said, but
already the strength was fading from his voice. “It’s what he wants.”

“I won’t lose you. I won’t!”
Valerie said.

More magic than she’d ever
summoned in her life crashed through her, her power mounting with her
desperation. She’d drown in it, lose her mind like Darling had, or die in it,
if it would save her father. Without Henry’s help to stem the tide, that was a
real possibility, but she didn’t care.

Once her power had fully welled
in her, she sent it hurtling into Oberon, and she hardly noticed the pain that
exploded from every molecule of her body. It should have hit him with a force
that lit him up, but it didn’t. Instead, something diverted the flow of her
magic to another location. Now that her power was gushing out of her in a
torrent, there was little she could do to direct it or control it.

She was helpless. Oberon
struggled to rise only to collapse back down on the ground. It took all of the
effort Valerie could muster to turn her head. She saw her power flowing past
Reaper. His body was taut with strain as he guided her magic into a dark void
behind him. The sustained effort of redirecting the flow drained his face of
color, and he swayed on his feet.

Valerie frantically tried to
stem the flow of her magic, or aim it at her father as she’d intended, but it
was like trying to fight a rip current that was tugging her under water. She’d
never been more powerless in her life, even when she’d been human.

Shapes moved in the blackness
behind Reaper, and Valerie could make out the shadowy form of someone standing
there, his hair blown back, struggling to remain standing.

Then something that the man was
holding lit up brightly—a key. The light from the key illuminated the man
holding it. Zunya’s yellow eyes bored into hers, and she couldn’t look away.

“Earth’s Byway,” Oberon whispered.
“Reaper is channeling both of our powers to activate it.”

Reaper was opening the portal
between the worlds. He’d never needed the Globe’s Byway. Maybe he didn’t even
know how to activate it. He just needed enough magic to power the one on Earth from
the Globe. By stealing Oberon’s magic with his scythe and channeling Valerie’s
vivicus power, he had what he needed.

Oberon’s words brought Valerie’s
focus back. “You must let your power go, Daughter. You must let me go.”

The thought of giving up on saving
her father’s life was unfathomable, even though she knew that she’d expended
most of her power already, and there wasn’t enough left to save him, even if
she could redirect it.

“Knowing you are alive will
bring my final moments comfort,” Oberon said. It was the first thing he’d ever
asked of her. And the last.

Valerie shut her eyes, and stopping
the flow of her power was as easy as turning off a light switch. She couldn’t
understand why it had ever been difficult for her before. Maybe because hope
powered her vivicus magic, and right now, she didn’t have any.

Her magic stopped, and Reaper collapsed,
unconscious. Whatever he’d done had drained him of his power, at least for
awhile. The void behind him collapsed, and Valerie worried that the portal
between the worlds was open now. When she met her father’s eyes, she knew the
answer. The damage had been done.

“I failed everyone on Earth,”
she whispered. “I failed you.”

Oberon clenched her hand with
his own, and she laid her head on the side of his chest that hadn’t been torn
open.

“I’d rather die with you than
watch you go,” she whispered.

“You are my daughter, and you
are made of sterner stuff than that,” Oberon said, but the power of his words
was undermined by how weak his voice sounded.

“I love you, Dad,” she said. She
forced herself not to beg him to live, because she knew he couldn’t control
that. She struggled not to let the horror and pain inside her be reflected in
her words. “Do you think you’ll find Mom in the ether?”

“I know I will. As you and Henry
will find us both one day,” he said, and the faith in his voice held back the
darkness inside her a little bit. “Tell Henry I love him more than I had the
right to.”

“I will,” she said, unable to
keep tears from clogging her voice.

“And I love you, Valerie, my daughter…”
Oberon’s voice faded, and she turned her head up in time to see his last smile.