Magic Kingdom (Dragon Born Alexandria Book 3) (32 page)

“His name is Alden,” Majestic continued. “And he is the greatest mage who has ever lived. The Grim Reaper is the name given to him by lesser people who could never hope to understand his greatness, his magnificence.” Her eyes drifted up in adoration. Yuck.

“These people are as bad as the Convictionites,” Alex commented to Marek.

“Indeed.”

“I hate to break it to you, Bride of Death,” Alex said as she felt the last thread of Eva’s spell close over the room. “But this is over.”

Alex stole a glance at Eva and Dal. Eva was puffing and sweating. Blood was dripping from her hand. She’d torn off a piece of her shirt and was binding her wound. For the time being, Dal’s barrier was holding against the ghosts. Logan was helping by taking a beating to fight the ghosts. One-by-one he was knocking them back to the spirit realm.

Alex met Majestic’s dark eyes. “Your power has just run out.”

A sly smile curled the necromancer’s lips. “Not quite yet.”

Green fire blasted toward Logan. Alex tackled him, knocking them both out of the way. They jumped to their feet.

“She can still use the green fire,” Alex said.

Logan watched the stream of flames retreat back into Majestic. “Her glass must not be empty yet.”

“Care to help me empty it?”

Logan arched an eyebrow at her. “Being reckless again?”

“Of course.”

“Then let’s be reckless together.”

Side-by-side, they ran straight for Majestic. Marek, Tony, and Callum closed in behind them. All of the necromancer’s guards were down. The ghosts were gone too.

“Let’s drain her,” Alex declared to her team.

They circled around, attacking from all directions, darting forward and retreating to avoid Majestic’s flames. Majestic’s bursts of green fire became shorter. She was conserving.

The necromancer lifted her hands, raising her fallen guards from the dead. “Kill them,” she barked.

Even as Tony and Callum peeled away to face the undead soldiers, Majestic summoned a fresh batch of ghosts. They swarmed Logan, pulling him away. Now it was just Alex and Marek.

“You cannot win, not against me,” Majestic told them, triumph in her pale blue eyes.

“You people always say that,” Alex shot back. “And yet you’re always wrong.”

If only she were as confident as she pretended to be. The commandos’ fight with the undead guards was not going well. And Logan was loaded down with a shimmering blanket of ghosts. Eva was leaning against the wall, sweat pouring down her clenched face. How much longer would she be able to hold the spell? Marek’s gaze flickered to her, his face hardening in determination. His dragon roared, then dropped into a steep dive right for Majestic.

Majestic’s head snapped up, her eyes glaring at the dragon. She shot it with a thick stream of green flames. The dragon exploded, its magic disintegrating into a cloud of red smoke. Marek passed out.

Alex kept running. Marek had done that to drain Majestic of her borrowed magic. How much more could she possibly have? Her cup must be almost empty by now. At the wall, Eva’s body was quaking as she tried to hold onto the binding spell.

We have to take Majestic out before Eva can’t keep it up any longer,
Alex told Nova.

Yes,
her dragon agreed and released a ball of fire.

Majestic evaded it, laughing darkness. “Let me show you what real fire is.”

She pivoted around toward Logan. Throwing back her arms, she wound up her magic for the release. Alex knew what she was going to do. She knew it with every fiber of her magic, which buzzed as Majestic prepared to strike.

Alex ran, pushing herself faster than she’d ever moved. The room flashed by. Time had slowed to almost nothing. But only almost.

As Majestic unleashed a raging river of green fire, Alex screeched to a stop between her and Logan, pushing out her magic. Flames exploded out of her. Purple smacked against green, consuming it. Dragon fire.

“What was that?” Majestic demanded, staring at the cloud of purple-green smoke hanging in the air between them.

“That was the end,” Alex told her.

Majestic pushed out her hands, but this time the green fire did not come. Her borrowed magic had finally run out.

“Alden told us about you,” she gasped. “You’re the other d—”

The word died on her lips, severed by Logan slitting her throat. Her eyes widened, then she fell down, dead.

The undead all dropped. Eva heaved out a deep breath, then slouched against the wall, her spell dissipating. Majestic’s barrier around the building dissolved, the aftershock scorching the magic from the air. Alex coughed.

“Eva,” Marek croaked out, stumbling to his feet. He lumbered over to her, his heavy arms embracing her.

Tony looked at Alex with wary eyes. “What was that?”

“I’ve never seen purple fire,” Callum said. “And it stopped Majestic’s green fire.”

“I thought nothing could stop the green fire,” Marek said.

“According to the book, nothing can,” Eva said.

The authors of the book obviously hadn’t taken the Dragon Born into account.

“Books can be wrong,” Logan stated.

“But the purple fire—” Marek began.

“Not now,” Logan cut him off in a voice that brokered no argument. He turned, his nose lifted as though he’d smelled something.

“What is it?” Alex asked.

Magic popped in the room that had been scorched of magic, and then Zinnia was suddenly standing in their midst. She looked at the dead necromancer, her lips lifting in triumph. Alex caught that vicious, calculating spark in Zinnia’s eyes.

Naomi wasn’t here yet. What had happened to her? Alex had to stall.

“Zinnia,” she called out to the Convictionite. “You missed the party.” Her words echoed off the walls.

That dangerous gleam in Zinnia’s eyes sparked brighter. She pulled out the cursed vampire blade and declared, “No dear, the party is just getting started.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Turnabout

STILL HOLDING THE cursed knife, Zinnia stepped toward Majestic’s body. Behind her, the commandos quietly began to move.

“If you want me to kill Margery Kensington, then by all means, keep moving,” her sharp voice cracked, and the commandos stopped.

The scorched air was clearing, letting magic back in. Alex could feel Naomi in the building, heading their way. She had to keep Zinnia’s attention on her so Naomi could get in and steal the cloak. Now that Zinnia was here—and apparently had eyes in the back of her head—Alex realized how hopeless this mission was. Naomi would never be able to get close enough to Zinnia to steal the cloak off her back. But they had to try.

It wasn’t helping matters that Alex was feeling pretty conflicted about this whole thing.

You don’t want to save the person who hired an assassin to hunt you down,
Nova observed.
The person who is the reason your father is dead.

But I must,
Alex insisted, as much to herself as to Nova.
Margery is our ally. We need her. And she’s Marek’s mother. We’ve had this discussion before.

No, we haven’t. We’ve debated whether you should kill her. Now we’re debating whether you should save her from being killed. Those are two different things.

You think I should let her die,
Alex said.

I am more draconian than you.

Alex didn’t laugh at the silly joke. Not this time.
Seriously.

Nova sighed.
I didn’t say you should let her die. I just said that killing her and letting her die are two very different things.

Are they really so different? I am fighting my dark side, the side that destroys anything that stands in my way. I can’t give into that, not if I don’t want to end up like the Evil Alex from my nightmares. The dragon fire. I was able to use it again. I have this feeling it’s linked to my darker side, that only Evil Alex can truly wield it. It is a weapon with a single purpose: to destroy life. How can that be good?

You didn’t destroy anyone when you used it just now,
Nova replied calmly.
You saved Logan by stopping the green fire.

Luck, nothing more. If the green fire had been normal magic, my dragon flames would have eaten right through it. Nova, I’m falling into darkness. I can’t let that happen. I must fight it. In my visions, I kill my sister. We need to stay on the good path. I need to do what’s right. And we will start by stopping Zinnia and saving Marek’s mother.

Zinnia was picking at Majestic’s body, looking for the Ornaments. Behind her, Naomi slipped into the room. Alex had to give Naomi time to grab that cloak.

She stepped forward. “Zinnia,” she said loudly, drawing the Convictionite’s attention to her. She knew Zinnia’s type. She was arrogant and would want to take some time to bask in her victory. Alex just hoped that was enough to give Naomi her chance.

“What are you going to do with the artifacts?” she demanded.

Zinnia smiled. “You’ll see.”

“Ah, so you don’t really have a plan beyond keeping them away from Majestic.” Alex yawned. “How anticlimactic.”

Zinnia’s smile turned savage. “I
do
have a plan,” she insisted.

Alex bit back a laugh.

“I can’t understand what Logan possibly sees in you,” Zinnia growled, standing. It looked like she’d found the other Ornaments. “I have a grand plan and it’s nothing as ostentatious as leading an army of dead like Majestic wanted to do. Honestly, the woman had no finesse. No subtlety. She was all brute force. Burning through buildings. Legions of the dead. Exploding corpses.” Zinnia turned up her nose. “No subtlety. No style.”

“And you have style?”

Zinnia curled one of her bouncy red locks around her finger in girlish delight. “I have much better plans for the Ornaments of the Dead. Nothing as crude as an undead army.”

Because she can’t control the dead like Majestic could,
Nova quipped.

“I will use the Ornaments to communicate with spirits, to use them as spies,” Zinnia said with a proud tilt to her chin.

People with supernatural blood became ghosts when they died. Humans, on the other hand, became spirits. The big difference was ghosts could travel freely between earth and the spirit realm, while spirits couldn’t. They were trapped inside the spirit realm.

“You can’t let her do it,” Eva said. “The Ornaments of the Dead will allow her to free spirits from the spirit realm. She would have the spirit of every human who has ever hated supernaturals at her beck and call. She could give them the power to take solid form like some ghosts can do.”

“And with that power, she will set all of those spirits against the world’s supernaturals,” Alex said.

A cruel smile twisted Zinnia’s lips. “A beautiful plan, don’t you think?”

“I think it is a dark and wicked plan, born from an evil, depraved soul,” said Alex.

Naomi was close, just a few steps from Zinnia.

“Just what I’d expect from the likes of you,” Alex told the Convictionite.

“That’s rich coming from—” Zinnia spun around, glaring at Naomi. “Who’s this?”

Alex didn’t wait. She summoned a gust of wind. The magic snapped against Zinnia’s chest, knocking open the clasp of the Midnight Cape. Alex waved her hand, blowing the cloak toward Naomi, who jumped up and pulled it around herself. She vanished from sight.

Zinnia turned on Alex, her expression murderous. She lashed out with her cursed knife. Alex jumped back. Zinnia spun around, launching the knife at Logan. Alex sighed with relief when he caught it.

Zinnia grabbed Majestic’s sword, the one called Asunder. Alex threw up her own sword, but the blade shattered when it clashed against Zinnia’s, broken by Asunder’s magic. Sneering, Zinnia swung her sword again. Alex knocked her back with wind magic, following it up quickly with a lightning bolt as Zinnia still hung in the air. Zinnia landed, looking frazzled but still fighting.

Logan collapsed. Alex blasted Zinnia across the room, then ran to him, her mouth dropping when she saw a familiar dark shadow spreading across his skin from his hand. The curse. His body’s magic was fighting it, but the curse was winning.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you.” Zinnia’s voice cracked through the hollow room. “You don’t need to cut someone to spread the curse. He just needs to touch any part of the knife, even the hilt. Unless you’re wearing these,” she said, wiggling her black-scaled fingers. She was wearing the Dragon Skin gloves. “They protect against death from curses and magic.”

So that’s why magic wasn’t doing much against her.

Alex stood as Dal kneeled beside Logan. She circled around, forcing Zinnia to turn to keep her in her sight.

“You claim to care about Logan and yet you sentence him to death,” Alex said.

Zinnia laughed. “You underestimate him. I am not hurting him. I’m just removing him from the fight. He is strong. He will survive until you are all dead. Then I will cure him and bring him back to where he belongs.”

“If you cared for him, you wouldn’t play with his life like this.”

“You understand nothing of my love for him. Nothing,” Zinnia spat. “In fact, you don’t know him at all. Your mere months are nothing compared to our long years. We are meant to be together.”

“Does he know that?” Alex said.

“He will.”

“You are insane, not to mention pathetic,” Alex told her. “And, by the way, I’ve brought along my own healer this time.”

Logan rose to his feet beside Dal, the curse washed from his body. Zinnia spun around. Her eyes narrowed in anger. She lifted her hand, winding up her magic to unleash on Dal. Alex ran between them.

“Back for more?” Zinnia asked, her voice mocking. She swung her sword.

Alex lifted her hand, hitting Zinnia with a glowing ball of wind and fire and lightning. As the sword flew from Zinnia’s hand, Alex charged her. She grabbed her hands. Even as Zinnia tried to shake her loose, Alex hung on. She slammed her magic against Zinnia’s, splitting open her defenses, breaking the magic on the gloves. Zinnia swung her fist, crashing it against Alex’s head. Alex stumbled back. Zinnia pushed forward, rage roaring in her eyes.

Lightning ripped through the ceiling, slamming down on her. Zinnia fell. She got up, but a second lightning bolt knocked her back down. Alex turned to find Marek standing behind her, gold magic crackling on his hands. When Zinnia tried to get up yet again, he hit her with a net of lightning tendrils. They flashed and sizzled, swallowing her body. With her magic defenses broken, the lightning hit her hard. She shook, her legs kicking uselessly against the ground.