Taliesin Ascendant (The Children and the Blood) (44 page)

“Plan?” he called.

Ashe turned back to the chaos, not sure what to say. The concrete shelter kept the three of them from view for the moment, but the protection couldn’t last forever. Through the gaps in the debris, she could see people running for cover or cowering behind the same as magic seared the air. The far wall of the factory was already in flames and the ceiling was a shattered wreck waiting to come down. The air pressure dropped as portals flared, delivering more Taliesin or allowing frantic Merlin to escape. She flinched as a body tumbled past the gap in the shelter, charred and screaming, and somewhere nearby, she could hear a child bawling for its mother.

Trembling shook her. She couldn’t stop this. She didn’t know what to do.

By the edge of the concrete, Cornelius struck out at something she couldn’t see and then stepped back. Nathaniel rushed around his side, skidding to a stop in the shelter of the debris.

“Your majesty,” he started, relief in his eyes.

“Cover!” Cornelius barked.

The large wizard turned instantly, taking Cornelius’ place. Breathing hard, Cornelius dropped back.

His gaze caught on the staff pulsing with light in Lily’s hands. “What the…?”

Swiftly, he sank down beside the little girl, looking from the staff to her as though seeing the child for the first time.

“We need to go!” Nathaniel shouted over his shoulder, and impacts shook the shelter as though to emphasize his words.

“What is it?” Ashe asked Cornelius.

He tore his gaze from the girl. “I think… the Staff of Merlin.”

Ashe blinked, the fragment of memory finally clicking into place. She looked to Lily.

Pale and shaking, the girl nodded.

A breath escaped her. She’d only seen a handful of stories. Scraps of legends, really. And while not one of them agreed on whether the staff helped Merlin bind Taliesin, the amount of strength it reputedly gave wizards of his line was another matter entirely.

“Where did you–” she started.

Nathaniel swore and ducked back as magic struck the concrete shelter, sending dust and pebbles raining down.

She shook her head, dropping the question. It didn’t matter and there wasn’t time. Swallowing hard, she looked back at her sister. Reading her expression, Lily bit her lip, the fear in her eyes strengthening, and then hesitantly she held out the length of wood.

“Your majesty, you don’t know if–” Cornelius began.

Ashe wrapped her hand around the staff.

Her eyes went wide. Like a shadow fleeing the sun, the dark void limiting the strength of her magic rushed away. In a heartbeat, the boundary of her power became nothing more than a black line on the horizon, irrelevant and too distant to matter at all. Shivers ran over her as magic coursed from her into the staff and back again, as charged as lightning, as expansive as the sea.

And all of it utterly awaiting her command.

Carefully, her fingers closed tighter around the twisted wood. Her gaze rose to the chaos beyond their shelter as the blue-white light in the staff deepened to fiery red.

“Guard Lily,” she told Cornelius and Cole.

In her hand, the staff burst into flame.

“And stay behind me.”

She shoved to her feet and strode past Nathaniel before the large wizard could react. Outside the shelter, three Taliesin rushed toward her, magic flaring around them.

The first one’s magic vanished. She still couldn’t reach the energy in the others. Gasping as the realization hit her, she regrouped swiftly and struck out at them.

Her magic leveled the Taliesin for fifty feet around.

She kept moving.

More Taliesin came. Stripping magic from the closest, she threw it at them all, barely noticing as they fell. Others rushed her, some from each side, and they screamed as her magic mowed them down. Nathaniel and Cornelius shouted behind her, calling for the Merlin to run their way, and she looked back, burning the Taliesin who tried to intervene.

Fire pulsed from the staff, growing stronger and stronger, and the air around her rippled with the heat. At her glance, the flames snaked between the Merlin to tear down the Taliesin coming their way.

And she strode onward.

Elias and Katherine were behind her now, along with families clutching their children and wounded hanging onto life. On the wall ahead, she could see a doorway still clear despite the walkway fallen on either side and, if any Taliesin hid nearby, they remained out of sight. Turning, she looked to Elias and jerked her head at the door.

“Get them out of here!” she yelled.

He rushed past, and she could feel the air pressure plummet as magic spun to life in the doorway.

People flooded by her, but she paid no attention. Smoke poured through the shattered ceiling, veiling the distance but not disguising it entirely, and across the warzone the factory had become, she could see the Taliesin regrouping. The blonde-haired Blood was still standing, the man with the ponytail at her side, and in a doorway near them both, a portal began to form.

Her heart pounding in rhythm to the seconds slipping by, she adjusted her grip on the staff and let her shields grow stronger.

“Your majesty!”

At the sound of Elias’ voice, she glanced back.

“Go!” he shouted at her.

She looked at the portal and then saw Lily. Clinging to Cole, the girl shook her head at Cornelius as he tried to pull her away.

Elias followed her gaze. “I’ll get him out of here,” he yelled. “Just go!”

Magic ripped through the air behind her, smashing hard into her shields and she stumbled. By the wall, she saw Cornelius’ eyes go wide. She turned, and her blood went cold.

On the other side of the factory, Brogan stood by a portal. Another man emerged behind him, his cold gaze sweeping the wreckage and then catching on the Merlin by the far wall.

Magic roared to life around him, dragging at hers and stronger than Brogan’s had ever been.

“Go!” Ashe cried.

Cornelius grabbed Lily and disappeared into the darkness. Elias vanished with Katherine in tow.

Cole froze, his eyes on the Blood with a look somewhere between loss and horror.

Ashe raced at him, drawing everything she had through the staff. In the air behind her, she could feel the strike coming, and as she flung herself at the young man, she poured her magic into the strongest shield she could form.

She slammed into Cole, wrapped the shield around them both, and yanked him with her into the portal.

*****

Blackness. The air screamed with magic, buffeting her shields and howling with rage. She couldn’t feel Cole in her grip and every flash of light was like a physical blow. Her magic fragmented around her, shredded by the forces whirling through the portal and disintegrating with each heartbeat.

And then she was through.

Grass slipping beneath her feet, she stumbled to a stop and looked around frantically as the magic surrounding her died.

Cole stared at her.

“You…” he began, and then swallowed again, his face bloodlessly white. “What…”

She gasped, relief hitting her almost as hard as the portal had. Struggling to breathe, she choked on a smile and closed her eyes, trying to stay standing. Swallowing hard, she blinked and then looked up at the place where they now stood.

Dozens of Merlin were staring at them.

Scattered around a grassy lawn, the wizards said nothing. Wounded lay among them, shadowed by massive oak trees. Tending to them with the portly nurse Ermengarde hovering nearby, Katherine cast glances at her, while Elias, Gavin and Nathaniel stood several feet away, their faces stunned.

“Are you alright?” Elias asked, looking between her and Cole.

She didn’t answer, scanning the crowd as panic started to rise.

“Ashley?”

She turned at the sound of the little girl’s voice. From the wooden steps of a dilapidated mobile home, Lily leapt the distance to the ground and dashed toward her. Still seated on the stairway, Cornelius hesitated before starting to rise.

The girl skidded to a stop, staring at Ashe’s hands with her eyes widening in alarm.

Ashe looked down.

Black as charcoal, the staff lay lifeless in her grip. Carefully, her fingers shifted position, easing from the charred wood.

The staff crumbled to dust.

Her brow furrowed as her gaze rose to Elias.

“Too much,” Cornelius said.

She looked over at him. A few yards away, he had stopped, as though unwilling or unable to bring himself closer. Caution in their eyes, Nathaniel and Elias watched him, making certain he stayed that way.

Cornelius’ gaze moved between her and Cole. “To shield a cripple through a portal,” he said, and his brow rose and fell before he looked away.

“What?” Cole said, his voice still rough with shock.

She hesitated. “Portals, um, kill… people like you.”

Cole blinked and then looked back. She followed his gaze. The front wall of the shed behind them was blackened. The doorway itself had shattered, its fragments littering the grass.

“Oh,” he said.

Covering her discomfort, she turned away.

“Are you okay?” Elias repeated.

Ashe nodded.

“What was that?” he asked.

She looked down at the dust in her palm and then carefully let it fall to the ground.

“The Staff of Merlin,” she told him, watching the cinders coat the grass.

Silence fell.

“What do we do now?” Lily asked.

Ashe pulled her gaze from the dust. Around her, the other wizards were gathering closer, and in the distance, the skyline of Croftsburg was fading into the twilight.

She drew a breath. “We run.”

He was in a taxi, and that in itself was bizarre. For someone who’d just survived yet another wizard battle, the normalcy of a cab ride was ludicrously surreal.

“Thanks, buddy,” Mud said to the driver cheerfully as they pulled to a stop.

The cab driver regarded the little man in the rearview mirror and said nothing, clearly just waiting for Mud and his silent companion to let him get on to less smelly fares.

Shoving open the door, Mud clambered from the car and then waited impatiently on the curb. “Well?” he scoffed. “Pay the guy.”

Halfway out of the seat, Harris paused. Beyond his residual incredulity for the sheer state of his own life, he felt a flicker of annoyance at the little man. Grimacing, he pulled out his wallet and then passed a few bills through the grate.

“Sorry,” he said to the cab driver, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on what for. Mud, maybe. Or the world.

Without another word, he climbed from the taxi. The driver pulled away, disappearing back into traffic almost immediately.

“On we go,” Mud announced.

Shuffling eagerly across the pavement, the laundry lump waddled off.

Harris hesitated.

The sidewalk had seen a better day, but it looked stellar compared to the building it ran beside. Shattered glass glittered like diamonds beneath the remnants of two-story windows and crunched under the feet of passersby. In the lobby, a row of bodies lay against one marble wall, covered with what could only be curtains taken from elsewhere inside. The front desk had been pulverized, as had the far wall, and through the mess, a few people moved, as though searching for where to begin in the odious task of cleaning up the destruction.

And on the street, pedestrians strolled past as though they couldn’t see any of it at all.

Numbly, he followed, his feet crunching across the glass as he crossed the threshold of what had been a window. Up ahead, Mud bounced along, ogling the bodies and shuddering sensationally at the ruined walls.

Harris looked back. On the sidewalk, a hotdog vendor rolled by, barely noticing as his cart jostled over the debris. A young couple followed, holding hands and smiling as they crossed the street.

We’re so blind, he thought. We just see what we want to see, believe what we want to believe, and ignore whatever doesn’t fit in our world.

Even when the truth is right in front of our eyes.

“You coming?” Mud called.

For a moment, Harris didn’t move. His brow furrowed distantly, discomfort stirring in him as he watched the ordinary people walking along the pavement.

And then he turned, following the little man deeper into the building as he struggled to leave the troubling thought behind.

###

Want to know what happens next?

Read the third and final book of The Children and the Blood trilogy

Merlin’s Children

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Other titles

The Awakened Fate series
(published under the name Skye Malone)

The Children and the Blood trilogy

About the author

Megan Joel Peterson lives somewhere between the cornfields of Illinois and fantasy worlds filled with magic and wizards. She has a degree in English Literature from the University of Illinois, and has worked a little bit of everywhere over the years. Now she spends her days and nights creating new stories, and thinks writing is the best job for which she ever could have asked.

Connect with Megan:

Website:
www.meganjoelpeterson.com

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Acknowledgements

I am so grateful to the many people in my life who have supported me in the creation of this series.

To all of my friends and family, thank you for your encouragement and your belief in me throughout the years.

To Neil Peterson, thank you for beta-reading again. Your comments and thoughts, as always, are so appreciated.