“As much as I’d love to, we have more important things to do.”
Hopefully, I’ll get to burn something this time.
Cyrene just laughed. Sarielle was always there with her bravado to lift her spirits. Two wild hearts united.
Sarielle dropped in low to Aonia and found Dean and Halcyon near the portal. Dean helped her down from Sarielle’s back.
“No luck convincing her?” he asked.
She shook her head. “She wants to stay with the baby. We continue on alone.”
“I suspected as much.”
“Find anything that you were looking for?”
He shook his head. “No, I was trying to see if I could figure out what kind of curse Malysa put on the Mirror of Truth.”
“Did you look in it?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Once was enough for a lifetime.”
“Do you want to wait another day before we move on? Try to do some more research?”
“We already lost too much time to Killian. We can’t afford it.”
She knew he was right, but she could see his interest plain as day.
“And don’t ask me to stay behind,” he said keenly.
“I learned my lesson,” she said with a grin as she removed the portaling coin from her pocket and worked her magic to change the destination. Then she tossed it to Dean. “Take us to Isola.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You trust me to portal us?”
“I do,” she said simply. “Also, we’re probably going to trip an alarm of some sort. We did last time we went to Kell and were kidnapped by assassins.”
Dean’s eyes rounded. “You never told me that.”
She shrugged. “The Guild runs The Triangle—Kell, Mastira, and Harthrow. They’re sanctioned killers by the governments of the countries. They also have magic. Though even they wouldn’t call it that. It’s a bastardized form of it but effective.”
“Why exactly do we want their help again?”
“Because we need everyone we can get against Malysa.”
He nodded and moved toward the portal. What she didn’t say was that she had no idea if she could trust anyone in Kell. She wanted to believe that she could, but she’d been betrayed on that mountainside in the Drop Pass. They’d beaten the Guild but only barely, and Avoca had been in a coma for months after that. Cyrene wasn’t sure just the pair of them would be enough if it came to a fistfight. Which was why she was hoping to get in and out before that ever happened.
But then Dean opened the portal, and the familiar ruins of Isola appeared before them. She didn’t have time to think about all the what-ifs. She trusted her gut. It had gotten her this far.
She reached for her magic and followed Dean into another world. Sarielle and Halcyon moved through the portal behind them. Everyone was silent. Waiting for the moment when the wards would be tripped and told the Guild that strangers were in their midst…on their sacred grounds.
Cyrene gestured to Dean with two fingers to the exit. They crept to the door and ducked their heads out the front. Two guards were striding toward them, powerful and unrelenting. Cyrene jerked back and raised her eyebrows. Dean just grinned and winked.
Then the two Guild members walked into the ruined portal room.
Cyrene lashed out, swirling air around their faces to keep them from yelling out and sucking the life out of them both. Dean moved forward like lightning, jabbing the first Guild member in the throat. The woman dropped, and Dean barely caught her before she could make a noise. While he discarded her, Cyrene watched the other Guild member’s eyes roll to the back of his head as she took enough air to make him pass out but not kill him.
Dean tied both of their hands and feet and dumped them out of view. Cyrene frowned. She wondered if that would be enough for Guild members who were trained fighters and used to having to escape difficult situations.
Cyrene knew that they’d had the element of surprise or else the fight would have been much worse. She narrowed her eyes and leaned into the magic of her diamond. She needed a way to keep them knocked out until they got out of here. She didn’t want to just walk away and have them raise another alarm.
A solution appeared to her. She didn’t know how she hadn’t seen it before. It wasn’t something she had ever done before. But it was similar. She hoped it worked.
She delved into her magic, drawing up from her reserves. It worried her how much she had to pull up. She’d found the bottom of her magic before, and the last thing she wanted was to get there right when she was about to face the Guild. Luckily, the reserves were fine. For now.
Then she used the four elements together. Weaving them into a pattern she had only seen done in Fen with her friends and all the Ancient Ones linked. And now, she was doing it herself.
She placed the invisible bubble around the pair of unconscious Guild members. She modified it to fit their bodies. She didn’t want to be able to let anyone in or out of that space for at least a few hours. Not indefinitely. That was as good as killing them. And the added effort of putting a time constraint on it pulled deeper from her powers. This wasn’t something she could do all the time. But it was necessary right now.
She took a deep breath and then let the small dome snap into place. Her head felt dizzy when it was finished, and she stumbled a step forward. Dean was there in an instant, holding her up.
His eyes were wide. “What did you just do?”
She shook her head. “I…I created a shield. Trapping them inside.”
“How the hell did you know how to do that?”
“I don’t know. I’ve done something similar before.” She looked up at him as color returned to her cheeks, and she regained her balance. “I just knew.”
He probed the encasing. “Effective. Though that was a lot of magic, Cyrene.”
“I’ll be okay.”
He nodded, but his face was severe. “Eat something before we go.”
“Let’s just get out of here. I’ll eat when we’re safe.”
He looked uncertain.
“I still have plenty of magic. We can make it just fine.”
“All right. Let’s go find out who is missing their scouts.”
They left Sarielle and Halcyon behind, wanting to make sure the way was clear before flying out of Isola. Since the ancient Leif city was sacred ground for the Guild, it was almost guaranteed that someone would be up here. It was where Cyrene had first met the Commander. Her feelings about him were all tangled up. He’d kidnapped her, then let her and her friends escape, and then betrayed her. He was an enigma. And yet, she needed his help. His rogue band of Guild were worth a hundred foot soldiers. Even if they didn’t understand magic like she did.
They continued forward, moving through the ruins with ease, surprised that she hadn’t seen anyone else. In fact, that made her nervous. They were assassins after all. They were not supposed to be seen in the light of day. But she didn’t feel like she was being followed.
And suddenly, her senses went on high alert. She dragged Dean to a stop. He looked at her with curious eyes.
She gestured to the right.
“How many?” he whispered.
She concentrated, extending her powers to sense the strength of Doma users. The Guild might believe that they weren’t using magic, but she could feel it in them regardless. Her net widened and widened, and she counted as she went. Her eyes widening in turn.