“You’re wrong!” Lovelana shouted. “Making her his apprentice is what saved him! What will save us all! She’s chased Evariste back and forth across the continent, stopped rogue magic users, broken curses, and aided nearly every country on our continent! She’s fought Chosen mages and faced down black magic. More than anyone, she’d know a Chosen mage on sight, and if she says you are…I believe her!”
Angelique stared at Lovelana’s back, her shock blanketing even the churning sensation of her nausea.
She’d never imagined the other enchantress would ever stand up for her in this way.
“Lovelana, that’s enough,” Lazare grunted. “Run along like a good girl.”
“No!” Lovelana flexed her fingers and sent more of her magic into her shield. “I’m not running anymore. I’m going to stop you!”
“Fine,” Crest snapped. “You’ve made your decision.”
Angelique twitched, and Lovelana shrieked when Galendra summoned a lightning bolt. It crackled at an ear-splitting volume as it hit Lovelana’s shield.
Angelique’s ears rang, and she was half-blinded by the bolt, but she could feel the power thrumming in Galendra’s core magic as she wailed on Lovelana, hitting her pink shield again and again.
Lovelana’s pretty skirts flapped in the gale-storm winds, and she planted her silk slippers on the ground as she held her shield against the onslaught.
She needs help!
Angelique tried to stand, but her left knee gave out, and she fell with a painful crack.
The hiss of disintegrating magic drew her gaze up, where the flashing lightning was burning a hole through the shield.
Angelique opened her mouth, intending to speak a spell that would supplement Lovelana’s, but her stomach rolled, and instead, she painfully bent over in a dry heave.
The lightning flared again, but there was a crackle of magic, and a new power rippled through the streets, crawling up the side of Lovelana’s shields and shoring up the weak spots with an ice coating that was at least a foot thick.
Ice…but who?
“That’s enough out of the four of you.” Sybilla bustled past two gaping mages, pausing just long enough to settle her spectacles on the tip of her nose. “I think it’s obvious your game is up. Angelique has successfully revealed you for the traitors you are.”
The fairy godmother held a ring which she waggled at them. “And no funny business!”
Could a mere ring hold enough power in it that Sybilla could block an enchantress with it? I don’t think even Stil could make such a creation.
Sybilla paused long enough to pat Angelique’s shoulder. “Just wait a moment, dear. Lovelana needs my help.”
Angelique waved her off. Her stomach wasn’t settling, exactly, but she felt like she could at least crouch without the world swerving around her.
The lightning subsided, and Galendra took a few shuffling steps backwards.
“What are you stopping for?” Lazare demanded. “Now is our only chance!”
“B-but—”
Crest unleashed a wave of water on Lovelana and Sybilla. With his magic, the water seeped under the shield so swiftly filling the bubble that the water splashed Angelique’s shoulders as she sat on the ground.
Angelique groaned as she stood, but with a twist of her magic, she summoned a dagger from the pile she had abandoned and flung it at Crest.
The handsome enchanter yelped and staggered backwards. His concentration broken, the water collapsed and flowed out from under the shield.
Her vision was a little hazy, but Angelique staggered forward and twisted her magic. It danced at her fingertips, silvery and cold, then wiggled through the ice shield Sybilla had created with her magic ring and Lovelana’s shield, sprouting her own opalescent shield on top.
Her magic cleared the leftover fuzzy bits from her bout of nausea, and Angelique’s eyes abruptly focused as the prickle of her powers cooled her body.
Why couldn’t my magic have done this when I was chasing the Chosen that swiped the mirror?
Despite her irritation with her power’s timing, Angelique recklessly grinned and once again loosened her grip on her core magic.
It spattered the sides of the buildings, crawling farther than it had before as Angelique brought new weapons to the road and reclaimed the ones she had abandoned. She raised them high above their heads, so they glittered in the dying sunlight like especially destructive stars.
Galendra mewled in fear, but it was Primrose who spun around, her eyes searching through the crowd of mages. She narrowed in on one in particular—a male mage Angelique vaguely recognized as a shape shifter.
“Don’t just stand there!” Primrose snarled. “Help us!”
The mage nodded and scurried to their side.
Angelique narrowed her eyes, and on a hunch, she flicked a sword at him.
An increasingly-familiar, green-colored shield sprouted around him, protecting him from the blade.
Another Chosen…But how? They couldn’t have arranged for him to just be loitering here on the off chance that I’d discover them and chase them. Does that mean…just how many of the Chosen have infiltrated our ranks?
A female mage joined them—this one a fire mage. When she passed in front of Lazare, a green shield grew around her as well.
“It seems to me, dearie, that perhaps there are more Chosen hanging around than we thought,” Sybilla casually observed. “What say you to the idea of flushing them out?”
Angelique stretched her fingers. “What did you have in mind?”
“Perhaps it is high time you show everyone here at the Conclave just what it is you can do.”
Angelique gritted her teeth as she stared down at the smaller woman. “And give everyone physical proof that I should be feared?”
“Do you really care what the rest of the Conclave thinks of you? Do you really need their favor?”
Snow White’s shy smile, Elle’s mischievous laugh, Odette’s fierce defense of her, and Quinn’s loyal presence at her back drifted through Angelique’s mind. “No.”
Sybilla nodded wisely. “And there you have it. So, what will you do?”
Angelique took a deep breath. When she exhaled, she actively pushed her magic outward. It switched from a purposeful drift to streaks of silvery white as it raced across the ground, dusted the rooftops, and invaded the darkest corners of the Veneno Conclave, racing until it splashed across the protective walls that surrounded the city.
Her mind felt…odd. Her senses were stretched in so many directions as she felt everything from the weapons at the war mage training ground to the needles the alteration and craft mages carried. Knives in kitchens and chipped glasses with sharpened edges brushed the back of her mind. But above it all, Angelique heard the screams.
Something in her twisted.
She might be willing to use her magic, and granted she didn’t really care what any mage thought of her anymore, but she never enjoyed being feared. She wouldn’t revel in the terror she produced with her abilities.
Angelique shut her eyes, as if she could shut the faint screams out just as easily.
“We’ve been found out!”
“Run!”
“Follow the escape protocol!”
Her eyes snapped open, and Angelique’s mind cleared.