Chapter 16

My gaze swept the courtyard in disbelief. After observing the morquals and guards surrounding the castle, I thought for sure, in here, the security would be doubled. I was wrong. The yard was eerily empty except for the array of weapons cluttering the ground. Swords, bows and arrows, daggers of numerous metals and worlds, they littered the ground like confetti after a Mardi Gras parade. As if an army had once stood here, but the soldiers had all suddenly vanished into thin air, leaving their armaments behind. What in heck was going on here? There was no way Asha would have left the prism unguarded. Even if the majority of her army was off trying to stop ours from advancing, she would have left someone guarding this place, right?

“Where is everyone?” Jill echoed my thoughts as we surveyed the courtyard from our hiding spot in the decrepit old garrison lining the back wall. The pungent smell told me more than one errant soldier had used this place to relieve his bladder while on watch, and I wrinkled my nose in disgust as well as puzzlement.

“Now, that’s a million-dollar question. Starke, care to explain?” I glanced sideways at him.

“I cannot.” His brow puckered with puzzlement as he surveyed the courtyard. “I see the same as you. The tower appears deserted, yet the armory has been emptied and left behind. I sense no magic near which means Asha and her morquals are not here.”

“Then, why are we standing here?” Athena stepped toward the opening leading toward the courtyard. “Why look a gift horse in the mouth? Asha has obviously left the prism unattended in her overwhelming hubris. We take advantage of that.”

Hell yeah. If we didn’t have to fight our way across the courtyard to the prism tower, then I was all for it, considering our magic was ebbing away with every passing second. I could feel the prism’s frantic thirst for my power curling in my gut and through my bones. Between that and Asha’s ward, we were being bled dry.

“Stay alert.” Starke still wasn’t convinced. “It may be a trap. They very well may be waiting inside the tower for us in hopes of boxing us in.”

We stepped into the courtyard hesitantly, weapons armed and expecting at any moment for soldiers or fireballs to appear. Still nothing. We moved further, the gravel crunching underneath our boots the only sound in the spooky courtyard.

We were about halfway to our destination when a slight ping met my ears. I whirled on instinct just as an arrow whizzed by my ear so close it whipped strands of hair across my face in its wake.

“Archers,” I screamed, frantically searching the battlements for the guard who had taken the shot. But there were no soldiers or archers hiding above us. There still wasn’t anyone. Instead, I blinked in utmost disbelief as the weapons littering the whole courtyard lifted lazily into the air, bobbing and jerking like they were being carried by invisible hands long severed.

“What the hell new shite is this?” I shrieked, ducking in time as a sword flew through the air at me, swinging manically at my neck. Missing its target, it spun off, carried away by its own momentum. I stared after it, dumbfounded. “Are we being attacked by ghosts?”

“Enchanted weaponry. Watch out!” Starke pushed me out of the way, nearly knocking me from my feet, as another arrow barely missed me.

“Thanks,” I muttered just as another sword aimed straight toward me. I raised my sai, clashing with the oncoming sword. The attacking blade changed its trajectory, so did I, blocking every move it made on me. The marionette weapons were getting better. I grunted as I ducked another swing, popping up behind the blade at its hilt. Slamming my sai into it, I sent it careening toward the rock wall.

I took a moment to glance around at the rest of my party. Jill was using her whip to pluck weapons from the air, bashing them against the tower walls. Zoe was using her arrows to change the direction of anything pelting us, sending them zigzagging off in all directions. Even Sash was playing whack-a-mole with his hammer, but none of what we did seemed to put a dent in the attacking weapons. It was like Asha had enchanted her whole armory and laid it in wait for us. A wall of attacking munitions.

A pair of golden daggers whipped straight toward me, and instinctively, magic rippled down my arm to my blades as I prepared to deflect them with my power.

“No,” Starke demanded, his metal sword clanging as it collided with the daggers, knocking them to the ground.

“No?” I yelled as another deadly blade came swirling at me. I met the attack head on with my sai, grunting and stumbling back from the effort of keeping it from doing any damage. “Please explain to me how we beat enchanted weaponry without magic?” I gritted through my clenched teeth.

“We do not,” he grated back. His blade shattered the spear trying to pierce his chest and it fell to the ground in pieces. “We need to get to the tower without alerting Asha. If she becomes aware of us before we make it there, we will never make it.”

The tower. The tower that was still halfway across the courtyard.

“Everyone,” Starke yelled above the sounds of clanking metal. “We must fight our way to the tower doors. We cannot use magic, no matter what obstacle we meet. Zoe, Jill, Sash, take our backs. You fight what is at our backs, and Jette and I will fight what’s at yours. We stay in a tight circle formation continuously moving toward the doors. Understood?”

“I’m a part of this too,” my grandmother snarled as she yanked a sword from the ground and helped form the circle.

Starke’s plan was sound. And it worked for a bit as we inched our way to the towering doors that glistened in the sunlight like they were spun from gold. The elemental sigils adorning the light wood glowed as if in preparation for our arrival. Welcoming us with open arms. Hopefully the doors opened for us with no issue once we reached them, or else we were in deep shit.

One step at a time, Jette.

My ears pricked as I picked up on the drumbeat that seemed to emanate from the tower. Was the prism actually calling to us, or was it just my terrified heartbeat? I didn’t have time to debate as a whole new wave of weaponry wooshed our way, demanding my attention.

We kept moving, inching our way to what we hoped was salvation. There seemed to be no end to the attacking missiles. As soon as we dispatched one batch, another quickly took its place. I wasn’t even sure that we weren’t fighting the same weapons over and over again. Sweat pooled and dripped into my eyes, but I didn’t dare wipe it away. I was too busy parrying and dodging, terrified one of the sharp ends would eventually meet its destination.

“I don’t understand,” I grunted to Starke as he battled two massive broadswords at the same time with impressive skill. “She needs us. Why is her enchanted weaponry trying to kill us?”

“It isn’t trying to kill. Not you or the other elementals. Injure or maim possibly, but not kill. Your grandmother and I are the intended targets. We are the mages attempting to help you unite with the prism. We are the ones she needs dead, not you. For her to gain control, she needs to be the one to unite you with the prism.”

“Not one word of that answer makes me feel any better.” I tried to shoot him some side shade, but a glint of silver caught in my periphery, and I yelled out a warning instead, “Watch your right!”

Jill was already on it. Her whip sailed through the air with precision, yanking the sword from its trajectory and smashing it to bits on the ground. I shot her a quick thumbs up, wishing again for the umpteenth time that I had a whip. That had been so freakin’ cool.

I took advantage of a break in the attacks to yell to the others.

“Protect the mages. They are the ones in danger, not us.”

“Yeah, somehow I’m not believing you right now.” Sash’s words practically quivered with fear, and I followed his terrified gaze. My heart stopped in my chest as my blood crystallized in my veins.

“Shit on a stick,” I whispered as I saw what he saw. A dark wall was forming at the end of the courtyard. A wall of guns… rifles… revolvers, whatever you wanted to call them. I didn’t know all the different monikers of the mass array of weapons. All I knew was that there was a damn lot of them, and that there was no way we could stop that assault of bullets. Not without magic. And we were running pretty thin in that area.

“We need to use magic. Now,” I hissed at Starke through the corner of my mouth like I was scared any loud noise would set off the frenzy of bullets.

“We don’t have enough,” he answered back. “Between the ward and the prism, we need to preserve what we can to carry out the spell.”

“Which won’t happen if we’re all dead,” I retorted back.

“Uh, people we need to make a decision,” Sash yelled, looking like he was ready to bolt at any moment. I didn’t blame him. The guns were lining up, resembling some ghostly firing squad.

“Point taken,” Starke growled. “Make a run for the doors.” His voice was steady and even, so at odds with the fear running through my veins. “Athena, get them in. Do not look back.”

“But you just said you don’t have enough magic—”

“Go!” he roared. “I will pull power from you all if I must. Trust me.”

My heart protested, demanding I stay by his side to protect him, but the rational part of me knew he was right. None of this would be worth it if we didn’t get inside. Starke knew what he was doing. I trusted him completely to protect us all.

We jumped into action, the five of us making a mad dash for the giant doors, zigzagging all the way. Even an idiot knew moving in a straight line while running from bullets did not mesh well.

Hurrying up the wide marble steps, I practically fell at the base of the door. They stood at least three stories high, the sigils burning so bright at our nearness it almost hurt to look at them. I squinted, fighting against the welling tears.

“Find your sigil,” I screamed, trying to ignore the sound of dozens of guns cocking at my back. I heard Starke shouting a spell. I felt the magic he used pulling tendrils of power from us. Like he was siphoning gas. I desperately hoped it was enough to stop the attack and keep us all alive, but I didn’t dare lose focus.

“Water. Water. Water,” I growled, eyeballing the door in desperation. “Where the hell are you?”

My heart practically exploded in relief as the sigil suddenly jumped out from the rest of the carvings on the wood, forcing its way past my fear. I slammed my sai into the wavy lines depicted on the oak just as Starke’s spell yanked more magic from me. My knees buckled, and I almost stumbled, reaching out to the door for support.

My sigil grew even brighter with an unearthly gleam, like the cosmos itself was just behind the doors, waiting to be revealed. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jill and Zoe repeat the same thing I’d just done as their weapons found their respective marks. We were going to do this.

“Where’s earth? I can’t find earth.” Sash’s frantic wailing dashed the tiny spark of hope.

“There. To your left. Hurry. Hurry up, moron!”

“So not helping,” he shrieked back, his voice laced with panic. Why wasn’t he seeing it?

“Sash, to your left. Focus.” Jill’s calm directive had much more effect than my earlier snarl. Sash listened, finding his sigil and slamming his hammer into the appropriate spot. The moment it connected, the door started vibrating under my hands, as if some sort of electrical power was running through it. The others must have felt it too since Sash cried out in triumph. The cry was quickly overpowered by the cacophony of explosions at our backs.

No! We were too late. Starke was going to be swiss cheese. I spun in terror, ready to use whatever little power I had left to protect him at all costs. He was not going to sacrifice himself for us.

Not today, multiverse.

Starke stood below us in the courtyard with arms spread and sword held high above his head. The power rippled from him like golden waves swelling in a pond. The shimmering veil emanating from his sword dispersed across the courtyard, acting as a barrier against the hundreds of bullets caught mid-air in his web. He’d stopped all the tiny missiles of death from reaching us. An awe-inspiring sight to behold… unless you paid attention to the tiny fractures that were slowly spreading through his magic barrier like a cracked windshield on a minus ten-degree winter morning. It wasn’t going to hold.

Holy crap.

Before I could yell out a warning, I heard the doors creaking behind me as they began to open. I felt the powerful wave rush by me, so forceful it shoved me sideways. The whole tower shuddered as dust and tiny pebbles rained down on my head. I gritted my teeth, expecting at any moment for it to collapse. A high-pitched whistle followed the wind, like some high-frequency scream that had been locked up inside the tower for years and was now let loose and really angry at being disturbed. I covered my ears, my own scream ripping at my throat as I fell to my knees. We all went down. The wind punched and pulled at us, trying to rip out our very souls. My stomach churned at the invasiveness of the magic, and it felt like I was about to puke. What was happening?

And just when I thought I couldn’t take the punishment anymore and that my last meal was about to reappear and splash all over my feet, the wind changed. Its menacing, punishing presence became more benign, like it suddenly realized who we were. It realized we were there to help it.

“Jette, move.”

A tanned hand pulled me to my feet, and I looked up into that beautiful face.

“You’re okay,” I croaked, glancing back out to the courtyard and wondering if the bullets were still suspended in midair. They weren’t. There was no sign of them. No sign of any of the weapons… just piles of ash littering the courtyard, like all the enchanted munitions had disintegrated into nothing. Damn. That was one wicked wind.

“Inside. I’m sure, by now, Asha has picked up on our magic auras. She will be arriving any moment.”

Everyone looked as shaken up and confused as I did, but we all obeyed Starke’s order without question. We hurried through the open doors, straight into the dark veil of the unknown on the other side.

I squared my shoulders and stepped across the threshold, the doors closing behind us with a soft thud. The glowing sigils and insignias that had lit up the front of the doors so brilliantly on the outside were not visible in here, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dimness of the room.

The room was cavernous. I felt its vastness more so than I could see it, if that made any sense. The moment the doors closed, the air inside changed. It felt thicker, hotter, and the pulse of magic that had escaped the open door earlier assaulted me all over again. I gasped out loud. We all did as we stepped farther into the tower.

My eyes flickered around the shadowed room. There didn’t seem to be any source of light I could pinpoint, not even a window for sunlight to filter through. Yet the ceiling shone with some sort of phosphorus glow, casting eerie shadows on the plain stone walls and on the object smack dab in the center of the room. An opaque column of rock made up of sharp angles and edges. The prism. It ran straight up into the ceiling and disappeared down through the stone floor under our feet, like the tower had been built around it eons ago. Despite its impressive size, it looked inconsequential. Like it was just a plain old slab of quartz. There was no beauty to it. No dizzying array of colors refracting from it like I expected. It was dull and milky-like, a sluggish mist swirling through it. But the power emanating from it was unmistakable and called to us with the lure of a siren’s call.

The power was all around us, filling the tower. Filling us. It was a power unlike anything I’d ever felt before. There was something very alive in this place and overflowing with magic. A magic so ancient and strong it resonated in my bones and made my heart ache. A power as old as time. It felt pure and absolute. A power you could lose yourself in and never find your way back from. And oh, I wanted to be a part of that magic. I ached to be a part of it. Like I’d finally found my purpose in life. Like I was finally standing in front of my maker. And in a way, I truly was.

“Do y’all feel that?” I breathed, unable to take my eyes off the prism.

“Uh, obviously,” Zoe answered. “You aren’t the only elemental here.” I could practically hear her eyeroll. I ignored her sass, my wonderment transcending the snark.

We stood there for a moment, completely mesmerized, letting the power hum over us. But the longer we stood absorbing the power, the more the anxiety began to set in. The power emanating from it wasn’t as pure as I had first believed. Underneath the magic was an unstableness that tainted it. The prism was… contaminated. The only way I could describe it. As if Asha’s darkness and madness had leeched its way into the prism. Like something wasn’t quite right. A tiny chill of uneasiness skimmed down my back.

“Why are you all standing here like idiots?”

I jumped at my grandmother’s question.

Obviously, she was not as awestruck as we were. “Move. The prince is right. We do not have much time.”

She practically ran across the dim room toward the prism, her long dress swishing in the quiet, and us following in her wake. I pushed the unease to the back of my brain. We had a job to do. A job which I just realized we knew nothing about doing. Maybe we should have asked about this sooner.

“How do we do this?” I threw out to the darkness, hoping that either Starke or my grandmother had a concrete answer.

“As soon as we reach the prism, connect with it,” Starke huffed at my back. “But be careful. You all carry the essence it needs, but it will be hungry for your power. Don’t let it drain you dry. Use your weapons and each other to stay grounded. As it feeds from your crux, Athena and I will do the restoration spell. Your auras and our magic should be enough to bring it back to its full capacity, reestablishing the balance of Endova.”

“That simple, huh?” I muttered, gripping my sai tighter as my sweaty palms loosened my grip.

“Don’t worry,” my grandmother’s demanding voice echoed back at us from the darkness. “You are the elementals. You will know instinctively what to do, as will the prism.”

“Yeah, we all know it ain’t gonna be that easy.”

For the first time ever, I found myself agreeing with Sash. Things were never that easy. Not in my world. But I squashed down my fear and uncertainty about this whole thing. A lot of people were depending on us right now. Hell, the whole multiverse was, whether they realized it or not, and I wasn’t about to let them down. Not if I could help it.

As we approached the prism, the pull of it increased substantially. I could feel its hunger as it realized what we carried inside of us. As if it finally realized its Bounty picker-uppers had arrived.

Up close it looked even bigger than before. We stood at the wide base staring up at the column and the opaque mist swirling inside of it. The mist was interspersed with tiny, twinkling lights, like little stars. Maybe it was stars. Maybe the prism held hundreds of more galaxies inside, just waiting to be discovered. It was mind-blowing just thinking about the possibilities.

“So, now what?” I whispered, afraid to speak any louder. “Do we all join hands and start singing Kumbaya?”

“Let it connect with you,” my grandmother coaxed, her voiced filled with unrestrained excitement. “Let it absorb your auras.”

I wasn’t sure how to do that, but as if on its own will, my sai lifted into the air in front of me, dragging my hands along with it. Startled, I glanced over at the other three elementals who all seemed to be experiencing the same phenomena as me. Zoe, Jill, Sash, each of their weapons was lifted into the air, pointing toward the prism like it was a giant magnet.

“It is beginning,” my grandmother whispered, her eyes glowing silver in the reflection from the prism. “Allow it entry. Let it become one with you.”

I felt the tiny wiggle of intrusion stemming from my sai. The jolt of magic seeped up my fingers, through my wrists, up my arms. It felt… uncomfortable.

“Now, Prince Starke, let us begin.”

The two of them began chanting in unison. I assumed it was the restoration spell, but I couldn’t ask since as soon as the words started falling from their lips my body froze. Locked into place. Even my eyes felt glued to the prism. I couldn’t even check to see if the others were experiencing the same discomfort as I was since I couldn’t budge an inch.

And just like earlier, when I felt Starke pulling strands of magic from me to stop the wall of bullets, the prism began doing the same. Well, kind of, but on a much bigger scale. Where Starke had been pulling strands, the prism was pulling chunks. It felt like whole sections of my soul were being yanked out. I tried to control it and slow it down like Starke had warned us earlier, but I was too busy trying to not pass out. A hum sounded in my ears as images began appearing through the mist. Faces. Buildings. Worlds. All blended together in a myriad of confusion and wrongness. Something wasn’t right. I instinctively knew it. I tried to fight against its magnetic pull.

A face jumped at me from the array of chromatic sludge floating about inside the prism. The woman who haunted my dreams. My mother. Her voice rose above the crescendo of confusion rattling about my head.

“No!” Her scream ripped me from my paralysis. I tried to call out. To stop the other elementals. To tell my grandmother and Starke that we had to stop. That something was wrong. But before I could voice any of that, all hell broke loose.