Chapter 15

The first rays of dawn light penetrated the wispy tendrils of fog curling around us as we crested the top of the rise of one of the many gigantic hills surrounding the tower. I stopped to have my first glimpse of the tower from this angle. Last time I’d been here had been by air morqual. Dropped onto the tower from the sky, I hadn’t had time to admire the scenery. But now, with the rising sun as its backdrop, the tower was bathed in a sea of golds and yellows.

It was imposing, to say the least. The stony spires of the tiered tower rose up into the air so high they disappeared into the low hanging clouds. My gaze ran down the massive tower, to the obstacles between it and us. Morquals stood watch over the thick sea of oaks and pines, like gargoyles perched on the tower. The tower base was surrounded by a ten-foot moat of icy blue that Starke had warned us was also enchanted to make us lose our minds and go bonkers if we fell in. So basically, don’t fall in. Then, outside of that, a ring of soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder like they were practicing being crammed into a can of sardines.

That was it. Three things standing between us and the prism. A warded forest. A warded moat. An army of dragons and soldiers. That’s all we had to get through to reach the tower. Oh, and Asha. Couldn’t forget her. I didn’t dare say all that aloud for the others to hear; otherwise, it might sound slightly psychotic and suicidal.

I searched the miles of forest beyond the tower, trying to rid my mind of the panic consuming me. I knew my grandmother’s army was all crammed in there awaiting our command, yet I didn’t see any movement. Either the trees really were that thick, or our people were that good. I hoped it was the latter. Bish was down there with them, along with Rach, Olla, Galt, all the leaders and their people. All protecting the mages projecting mimicking magic to appear as us, the elementals. To lead Asha to believe we were in the middle of the fray while we actually slipped through the back door. It had been spooky as hell watching them transform themselves to our likeness. It was uncanny. But it was just a smokescreen. If Asha got too close to them, she would realize instantly they weren’t us. Their one and only job was simply to distract the morquals and soldiers and keep them off our asses long enough for my grandmother, Starke, and us to get inside undetected. Our hopes rested on Asha’s attention being focused on the army demanding entry and being fooled by the mages. That she would confuse Starke’s magic when he brought down the ward with the magic of the approaching army and we would use the key to slip in undetected. A simple plan but the only dang one we had. I prayed desperately in my head and heart that I would see all my friends again when this was over, but I couldn’t get rid of this nagging uneasiness that had been with me all morning. My mother had haunted my dreams all last night, trying harder than normal to convey me to find her, or whatever she was always trying to tell me. But like usual, none of it made sense. I truly hoped it wasn’t a bad omen of some sort. After a night of dreams, tossing and turning, I was more on edge than usual, and it wasn’t helping. Not the least little bit.

The golden hues in the air pulsated with the ward’s magic. The attack command lay with that ward. Once that shimmer came down, all hell would break loose on the other side of the tower. Our people would know we were inside and to advance. Their attack would demand Asha’s attention, allowing us some time to get to the prism… if all went well. And that was a big if.

Stop it with the negativity, Jette.

I tried to divert myself from the awful scenarios bouncing around my head. Swallowing my fear, I gripped my sai tighter and focused my gaze on Starke. “You sure the key is still there?”

“I fail to see any reason why it wouldn’t be. Asha never once discovered it while I used it. I hid it impressively well.”

“Modest much?” I grumbled, my lack of sleep adding to my anxiety.

He graced me with a grin, his eyebrows waggling comedically. “Admit it, you know I’m damn good when it comes to magic aspects… among other things. Some might even say I’m pretty bad-butt?”

I rolled my eyes even though I knew all he was really doing was trying to ease my fear.

“It’s bad-ass, not bad-butt, weirdo. Seriously, if we get out of this alive and intact, you gotta promise me to give up on the human adages. I don’t think I can take anymore.”

He shrugged. “I will make no such promise. I think you are just being what you humans call an achy loser.”

I rolled my eyes again but snorted a little, not bothering to correct that one.

He winked at me before turning back to address the others. “The key is located in that grove below us. Fair warning, the forest we are about to enter is a disorienting place full of bits of discarded and broken magic from the prism. If you find yourself confused, focus on the face of someone next to you. Familiar things will keep you grounded and keep the hallucinations at bay.”

“Hallucinations?” Sash squeaked. “Are you kidding me right now?”

Starke stared him down stone-faced. “I am not. The forest will play on your biggest fears.”

“Maybe that’s something we should have known earlier?” Zoe growled at him as she fidgeted with her bow. She was just as nervous as the rest of us. Starke knew that, and he didn’t take offense.

“Knowing last night would only have made you all worry sooner and played havoc with your mental state.”

“Yeah, thanks for the prognosis, doc,” I muttered, agreeing with Zoe totally. My mind was already messed up enough. It didn’t need more hallucinations added to it. And I didn’t need to face my biggest fears today.

“As the prince said, just focus on that which is familiar, and you will be fine.” My grandmother didn’t appear distressed or nervous at all. In fact, she looked more annoyed than anything. “Enough discussion. We need to get inside the tower. Do you know the quickest way to the heart of the prism?”

“I do,” Starke replied. “And I assume you know the ritual to help join the elementals to the prism?”

“Please,” she scoffed. “I could recite the spell from a coma. I’ve been practicing for this moment for years.”

“As have I,” Starke responded. “Therefore, I assume you will not protest to me joining in on the ceremony. Two mages are stronger than one, yes? We will need our combined powers to break past Asha’s ward on the tower without using blood magic.”

She flapped her hand at him in annoyance. “If it gets us moving faster, then fine. Join me in the ceremony. Let’s just get moving before we are exposed.”

Starke appeared to agree since he began moving down the rise toward the grove of pines and oaks.

Jill fell in step with me, her face a mask of anxiety. “Please promise me you’ll be my grounding buddy, Jette. Keep me from losing my cool in there if we start seeing things.”

“I got your back, girl, as long as you’ve got mine. But I’m sure we’ll be fine. Just try and keep your mind clear and free of negative thoughts.”

I was trying to convince myself as well as Jill, but the idea of trying to keep my mind free of negativity was as useless as a life preserver made from rocks. I couldn’t control my thoughts at the best of times, and it didn’t help all that was running through my head right now was that old Ghostbusters movie where they basically had to do this very same thing… and failed miserably. If I saw a giant, angry Stay Puft marshmallow dude in there, I was gonna lose my shit, for sure.

We hit the bottom of the rise and entered into the forest of jagged trees. Bony, bleached branches reached for the sky, sucked dry of any life. Tiny slivers of the morning sun started to make their way through the branches, only highlighting the decay and rot surrounding us. The prism had already pulled every ounce of power from these poor trees. I truly hoped we weren’t next on the list.

We walked deeper, the boughs thickening and blocking out the little sun. No one spoke, as if afraid doing so would wake the broken magic saturating the air and start the hallucinations. I kept glancing over my shoulder, keeping an eye out for the marshmallow guy or anything else my warped mind could conjure up.

My head whipped at the snap of a branch as an ice-cold talon ripped down my spine. I saw nothing as I peered through the ever-increasing shadows.

“Starke, did you hear that?” I whispered at his back. He halted in front of me so abruptly I almost rear-ended him.

“Geez, a little warn—”

He whirled, his hand clutching my throat with an iron grip, raising me up on my tiptoes. Black slate eyes glared at me in hatred as my heart dropped like a stone into my gut.

“All I hear is you baaing like a scared little sheep, elemental. The sound annoys me.”

“Stop,” I croaked, slapping at his hands and trying to suck in air. “Can’t… breathe.”

“That is the point, stupid human.”

I gasped as black spots flashed across my eyes. No, this couldn’t be happening again. I fought against the steel band at my throat, thrashing wildly at his arms and legs. “Starke… you’re… hurting me… said you… loved me.”

His laughter scraped along my skin like razor blades. “Love you? A worthless human? You are nothing to me.”

“No…”

My will to fight turned to dust along with my heart as despair dragged me back into its folds. I fell into its suffocating, familiar embrace. No. Not again. After all we’d been through, he’d succumbed to the dark once more. I could feel the darkness overpowering me, dragging me deeper into its depths.

“Jette.”

The voice cut through the dark, like a light trying to fight its way through the thick murkiness in my head. I gasped, trying to grab hold of that light. To bring it closer, but as if dark Starke realized something was happening, he shook me again. He shook me so hard I swear I heard my teeth rattle and stars danced in front of my eyes.

“Jette, it’s not real.”

The deep, silky voice undercut with steel sliced its way through the despair drowning me. Immediately, I felt his comforting presence snuff out the fear encasing my body.

I stumbled a little as I suddenly realized I wasn’t being held in the air and strangled. I was actually still on my own two feet. Gentle hands caught me as Starke’s worried face swam into focus, his eyes a brilliant green and not a hate-filled obsidian. My own hands flew to my throat, but there were no fingers wrapped around it. Not like I’d hallucinated. Sucking in air, I glanced around at the faces staring at me in worry.

“Are you back with us, little rabbit?” His voice was filled with concern, as far from dark Starke’s as it could possibly be. Warm hands ran up and down my arms in reassurance.

“Um, yeah.” I swallowed hard, the feel of his fingers tight around my throat still real. “Sorry about that.” Heat infused my neck and face. I was relieved yet totally embarrassed to be the first to be taken under by the wayward magic.

He shrugged. “It is easy to fall under the influence, especially if your fear is great. Care to tell us what you saw?”

“The Stay Puft marshmallow man,” I lied through my teeth, not wanting to admit in front of everyone my greatest fear was losing Starke again.

He blinked at me in confusion, even as my grandmother brushed past us.

“She is fine. Let’s move on. We are losing time.”

I cut her some sideways shade. Man, she was cut from pure steel. I wanted to yell after her thanks for the concern, but I knew she was right. We needed to move. I had already slowed us down enough. Starke let me go with a reassuring squeeze of my shoulders before following my grandmother.

Jill grabbed my cold hand as she fell into step with me. “Okay, that was scary as hell. We are not letting go, no matter what. If you see anything that’s not right, squeeze my hand, and I’ll do the same to you. Got it?”

I nodded in agreement.

Zoe passed by us as Jill called out to her.

“Z, you want in on this? We’re promising to keep each other grounded. You and Sash are welcome to join hands with us.”

“I’m fine, thanks.” She shot us a glare of disgust.

Sash, however, had no qualms grabbing Jill’s hand. “If I start screaming about chickens, please wake me up from the hallucination as fast as you can.”

“Oh… kay. Not touching that with a ten-foot pole,” I muttered at him.

Starke kept moving farther into the darkness, and we followed silently, everyone on edge. My head was on a swivel. I did a double take as something white flashed through the trees, like a ghost. Or a marshmallow man. Not again. I squeezed Jill’s hands I whispered, “Please tell me you guys see something moving over there as well.”

I held my breath as I waited for their answer. No, meant I was hallucinating again. Yes, meant there were other things in the woods beside us. I wasn’t quite sure which answer was worse.

“Yeah, I saw something too,” Sash whispered.

Great.

“Me too,” Jill whispered. “Is it real or can we all hallucinate the same thing at the same time?”

“I don’t freakin’ know,” I hissed back. “Not like I know the enchanted forest rules.”

“There it is again,” Jill squeaked and nearly pulled my arm out of its socket as she yanked on it.

“Starke,” I whisper-yelled, trying not to draw attention to us in case there was something out there moving about and hopefully hadn’t noticed us yet. “Psst. Starke.”

Heavy footfalls caused the ground to vibrate under our feet and my heart to race. There went that hope. We spun just in time to see the two large forms hurtle from the trees, pushing the thick trunks to the side like they were matchsticks. Yeah. We’d been noticed.

“Oh crap,” I whispered in terror, my bladder threatening to lose all control.

“What the hell is that?” Sash’s girly shriek nearly busted my eardrum, but it motivated me into action.

“Grimners,” I screamed along with the word, “Run!”

“No, do not run.” Starke’s command held none of the fear quivering my voice, its forcefulness and certainty the only thing keeping us from scattering like ants. “Stick with me. We must move through the ward together. It will only stay down for mere seconds.”

Something else we should have known earlier, I thought frantically but didn’t utter the words out loud. I was too focused on saving my ass from being trampled by the angry, three-eyed giants running at us like pissed-off linebackers. A vague hope that neither of them was the same Grimner whose balls I’d tasered mixed with my fear, ‘cause if it was him, then I’d probably be the first of us to become lunch.

“I can use magic to take them down,” I yelled after Starke’s back, pulling my sai. His answer echoed back at me.

“No. We cannot risk alerting Asha to our presence.”

Dammit.

“There,” he shouted above the shrieks of the Grimners, pointing to a wall of rocks piled on top of each other like a low gate. The golden shimmer emanated from the top of the rock wall and up through the canopy of trees. “As soon as I bring down the ward, jump.”

“What do you mean jump?” I screeched, but he was already at the rocks, his hands spread searchingly across the stone. He picked up a palm-sized, arrow-shaped rock from the tiny pile on top and slammed it into a tiny crevice in the middle of the wall.

It caused the air to pulsate over us like ripples in a pond. Not only did I feel the ward fall, but I heard it as well. The moment the shimmering magic evaporated, it was like a wakeup call to the forest surrounding the tower. The armies waiting for our command came to life with a roar of attack, stunning not only us but the Grimners as well. The war cry echoing through the mountains was reciprocated by the angry screech of the morquals, the terrifying sound freezing us all in our tracks. The fight was on. Starke’s booming ‘jump’ immobilized us back into action, leaping us over the stones like we were Olympic pole vaulters.

Starke was right. The magic pulsed at my back mere seconds after I passed over the stones as the ward rose around us once more. I glanced around frantically, counting heads and making sure all of us made it through intact and hadn’t had any body parts sliced off by the returning magic wall.

The silence on this side of the ward was startling after the explosion of sound earlier. I spun around, expecting to find the Grimners still on our trail, but they were now on the other side of the magic wall and unable to follow. They stomped back and forth, eyes rolling as their tiny pea brains tried to understand where their prey had disappeared to. So, I took from that they couldn’t see beyond the ward. One tiny thing in our favor. I really didn’t have the stomach for tasering Grimner dangly bits again.

“That was the monster you took down when you rescued Jill?” Zoe’s disbelieving gaze swung back and forth between me and the Grimners patrolling the ward.

“No time for an admiration party,” my grandmother growled, turning her scowl from Zoe to Starke. “Lead the way. Asha will not fall for our distraction for long. Once she realizes the elementals among the attacking army are fakes, she will look elsewhere for us. We need to have the prism restarted before she comes for us since I feel my magic already waning.”

She was right. On this side of the wall, Asha’s ward and the pull of the prism sucked greedily at our magic. I could literally feel it being pulled from my body. At this rate we’d be as weak and helpless as kittens in no time.

“Agreed. This way.”

We followed Starke through the trees and came out on the back of the tower behind a low stone wall. Using the wall as cover, we surveyed the tower for any signs of an ambush. Nothing moved other than the sun’s rays reflecting off the icy blue moat, making it look like it was comprised of a million tiny crystals. Tiny, liquid crystals of madness.

Satisfied no morquals or guards were lying in wait for us, Starke stood up. “There.”

I looked around, hoping desperately he wasn’t pointing to the old, fraying rope bridge spanning the moat. There was nothing else. Great.

“Are you kidding me? That’s our way in?” I squeaked.

“Problem?” he countered, eyebrow raised.

“Not at all,” I muttered. “It’s always been a dream of mine to fall through a fraying rope bridge into a moat of pure craziness.”

He, of course, ignored me. Hunkering back behind the low wall, his green gaze spanned all of our faces, as if he was trying to instill us all with his crazy-ass nerves of steel.

“Remember the plan. The tower base is just inside that wall. When we reach the doors, you use your weapons to align with your elemental symbol to allow us access to the tower. Inside the tower, we use our combined essence to restart the prism. It is a simple spell, one that Athena and I will carry out. Once it is done, our Endovian magic will be as strong as Asha and her morquals. They will no longer hold their power above our heads. We can defeat them and take Endova back once and for all. And remember to steel yourselves for the assault of the prism. The moment it feels the presence of the united elementals it will… react.”

“What he means is that it will try to rip your guts out at first,” I added, remembering how it first reacted to me when Asha had captured us.

He grinned, his white teeth gleaming in the shadows. “What she said. The moment will not last long. As soon as the prism recognizes you for what you are, it will welcome you. Stay strong. This plan is simple. Or as you humans would say, easy as cake.”

“Easy as pie,” I muttered at his back as we fell in line behind him, making a beeline for the bridge. I prayed to high heavens the stupid thing would hold our combined weight while also wondering what would happen if we did fall into the moat. Could things really get any crazier than they were at this exact moment in time? I doubted that very much.