The Arcane - Excerpt
The candles flickered, making shadows dance wildly across the cold stone walls of the chamber. Roseline looked up and felt the eyes of the rest of the coven upon her, waiting, judging. Well, all eyes except those of her best friend, Ashley, who was sneaking her a thumbs-up. She looked back down quickly, hiding her smile. Leave it to Ashley to make her smile, even at the most stressful moments. In fact, Ashley had talked her into bringing this ritual to the coven in the first place, in spite of Roseline’s less than stellar success rate with spells.
It was a mark of the coven’s desperation to find out what was behind all of the recent psychic chaos that they were willing to have Roseline lead the circle and try this spell. But it was her ritual, handed down through her family. It was also like nothing they’d seen before, so they had all agreed she had to be the one to perform it—though they clearly hadn’t been happy about it. One little explosion and they got all bent out of shape.
Roseline took a deep breath and gathered her energy for the final incantation. Please, oh please let this work, she thought, and spoke. “Addo ut scientia ego peto.” Silence.
***********
Two more stars flew past him as he ran, slicing through his shoulder and rib cage. They would have shredded his wing had he not fortuitously moved it at just that moment. He ducked behind the building, breathing through the pain, the icy burn evidence of the poison on the throwing stars. Guess they want to be thorough, he thought wryly as he tried to get a fix on their location. Running footsteps echoed from both sides of him. Intent on escaping through the back before the footsteps reached him, he ducked farther back between two buildings. Dead end. Shit. He would have preferred to stay and fight, but he was badly outnumbered, and if he lost here... He banished the thought. Never think about defeat, he reminded himself.
The footsteps from the right reached the corner he hid behind and he lunged forward, swinging his heavy sword, hoping to catch them by surprise. His sword met his opponent’s with a clang and they froze, facing each other. “Danyel?” His younger brother lowered his sword with an oath.
“Adame! I have been looking for you everywhere. We heard a rumor the assassins were sent out again.” He looked at the blood seeping into his brother’s clothes. “I see you already know this.”
“You always did have a knack for stating the obvious.”
Their youngest brother chose that moment to pop around the corner. “They’re coming this way... Oh good, you found him. Can we get out that way?” he asked, pointing to the back of the alley.
Adame shook his head. “It’s a dead end. How many are there?”
“At least six, more likely eight.”
“Fuck.” Adame looked around for another way out, but the walls were too smooth to climb and too close together to even unfurl their wings, much less fly. “We’ll have to fight it out. At least the alley will keep them from surrounding us or attacking all at once. We might be able to take them, even outnumbered.” His brothers lined up between him and the mouth of the alley. He drew breath to protest when Danyel cut him off.
“Don’t even try. You are the important one here. You have to survive!”
The enemy chose that moment to come around the corner, and discussion time had run out. A curious buzzing filled Adame’s ears, drowning out the sound of clashing metal. He shook his head, trying to clear it as everything around him started to blur and the buzzing spread over his whole body. Must be some wicked poison, he thought as his legs gave out and he collapsed. He heard Danyel shout his name, and then everything wrenched sideways...
