Fated

Battle mages have a frightening amount of destructive power. Mages fighting a duel spend most of their energy preventing the other from landing a solid hit. It’s very rare for a mage to hit an opponent with all his strength, but when it happens, it’s always fatal. One spell from a battle mage can shred a human body like tissue paper.

The effect of three of those spells hitting at the same time doesn’t bear thinking about.

I won’t try and describe what it looked like. All I’ll say is that it was over very fast.

Then Onyx and Rachel and Cinder turned their attention to each other, and I dived behind the pedestal as the room lit up with death and fire. ‘Luna! Luna!’

Luna was leaning against the pedestal, her eyes fluttering. Griff’s stone chains still locked her ankles to the pedestal, her right arm was twisted at a horrible angle, and her face was dead white. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she said, her voice faltering. ‘It’s different, I—’

From the other side of the pedestal I could hear the roar of flame and the flat, deadly wham of Onyx’s force magic. ‘It’s okay. Don’t move.’ I looked around, trying to figure out some way to get Luna out of here. ‘We need to—’

I only had a second’s warning. I dived sideways off the dais, rolling, just as something swept through the spot I’d left with a swoosh of air. As fast as she had struck, Thirteen was gone. I came to my feet and slipped one hand in my pocket, tense, waiting.

Fewer than a hundred feet away a furious battle was raging as Rachel and Cinder hammered Onyx with all of their power, trying to break down his shields and kill him, but I couldn’t spare the time to look. I stood on the open stone, and it was Thirteen I was watching for, waiting to see how she would come at me – from the left or from the right or straight above. I couldn’t see her, but I could see into the futures where she killed me, and I could see how to move to make sure that didn’t happen. Not yet … not yet …

… now.

As Thirteen swept in I pivoted, and her claws missed my throat by inches. I kept turning, and as Thirteen flashed past next to me my hand flung a handful of glittering dust over her.

Thousands of the glowing grains of light fell to the floor and winked out, but hundreds more covered the air elemental and clung to her. Thirteen darted away, trying to shake the stuff off, but it had stuck. She was visible now, an outline of glittering particles in the shape of a woman. ‘What’s the matter, Thirteen?’ I asked. ‘Shy?’

Thirteen made a final effort to rid herself of the dust, then gave up. As she looked at me her invisibility faded and the lines of her body came into view beneath the dust. Pale white eyes looked at me, and she began to glide forward.

I backed away, a nasty feeling in my stomach. I could reveal Thirteen, but I had nothing that could harm her. ‘Listen,’ I began, ‘maybe we got off on the wrong foot. The truth is, I actually really like air elementals.’

Thirteen kept advancing, and I kept backing away. Thirteen was pushing me back in a tightening spiral, coming closer and closer to the pedestal. I could feel Luna slumped against the base, fighting to stay conscious, the battle still raging behind me. ‘You want the fateweaver, right?’ I said. ‘You need us to get it. If we’re dead, you can’t take it back to Levistus.’

Thirteen didn’t answer, and with a sudden chill I realised that she wasn’t listening to me because she couldn’t. She’d been made to follow orders and nothing else, and right now her orders were to kill me. Thirteen was getting closer and closer. ‘Wait—’ I said urgently, and Thirteen sprang, claws reaching for my throat.

Something flashed across my field of vision and hit Thirteen in mid-leap, knocking her sideways. I caught one glimpse of Starbreeze’s face, then the two air elementals were rolling away in a blur of motion and slashing claws.

I stared after them for a moment, then turned back. ‘Luna!’

Luna had managed to pull herself up against the pedestal, her crippled arm cradled in her lap. Her head was right next to the three receptacles for the cube, and the force barrier holding the fateweaver glowed silently above her, casting a faint white halo around her hair. ‘Go away,’ she managed.

I crouched down next to her. ‘Luna—’

‘Go away,’ Luna said. Her eyes were cloudy with pain, but her voice was clear. ‘Not you as well.’

‘Put the cube in one of the holders.’

‘I don’t know which, Alex, just go, I—’

‘Close your eyes and guess.’

Luna stared at me. Her eyes were clear again – I think the sheer craziness of what I was saying had shocked her lucid. ‘Alex?’ she said carefully as the battle raged around us. ‘This isn’t a good time for making jokes.’

From the far side of the room, there was a hollow boom and Cinder came flying through the air. He slammed into one of the pillars with the crack of breaking bone and hit the floor. A moment later Onyx appeared. His eyes had gone pitch black and wisps of darkness trailed from his hands as he turned on Rachel. Rachel faced him, and there was no fear in her eyes; beneath her mask, her lips were curled in a silent snarl. From the other side, Starbreeze and Thirteen were a whirlwind of deadly motion.

Two mages, two elementals, two battles; as soon as Onyx or Thirteen won, we were finished. ‘Don’t choose,’ I said to Luna, raising my voice over the sounds of battle. ‘Leave it up to luck.’

‘I don’t—’ Luna began, then stopped. Her eyes went wide as she understood.

From behind, I heard Starbreeze give a yelp of pain. ‘Alex! Hurts!’

Luna took a deep breath, then pulled herself to her knees, gasping slightly as her right arm shifted. My hands itched to help her but I stood my ground. Carefully Luna drew out the crystal, closed her eyes as the sounds of battle raged all around us, then reached out blindly.

The crystal slotted neatly into the leftmost holder.

There was no fanfare this time. The crystal pulsed, and the force field over the fateweaver pulsed with it. Then