Hunted by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #3)(50)

“Okay,” Annia gasped, clutching at a stitch in her side. “We’ve got to stop or I’m going to explode. Surely we’ve lost them now, haven’t we?”

“We have,” Iannis confirmed as we slowed to a trot. I arched a brow, amazed that though his cheeks were flushed from the run, he was barely winded. “But the Coazi have small parties that roam these mountains, so it would not be wise to assume that we are safe. We really should keep moving.”

“Well I’m sorry, but unlike you three I’ve got human limitations,” Annia snapped, still clutching at her side. “I can’t sprint for miles on end.”

Iannis stopped abruptly, and I nearly ran into him. “Come here,” he commanded.

Annia stopped as well. “Why?” she demanded, suspicion in her voice.

“So that I can help you,” he said patiently. “There is little point in making you suffer through your ‘human limitations,’ as you call them, when I can provide a workaround.”

“Alright.” Annia stepped forward cautiously. “What do you want me to do?”

“Just stand there for a moment.” Iannis squatted down, and Annia jumped a little as he wrapped his fingers around her ankles. He spoke a few Words, and glowing circles of magical energy formed around Annia’s ankles. The energy spread up her legs and over the rest of her body, and her eyes widened as she was briefly enveloped in the strange glow. The magic hummed over her for a few moments, then disappeared in a shower of sparks.

“Wow.” Annia ran her hands down her sides as Iannis rose. “What the hell did you do to me? I feel amazing.”

“I gave you an energy boost,” he said simply. “You should be able to run for several hours more without tiring. It will wear off eventually, but for now you should be able to keep up with us.”

Sure enough, when we resumed our run, Annia kept up without complaint. We ran another eight miles, mostly downhill, until we came across a cave that looked suitable to bed down in for the night. Iannis and Fenris warded the entrance, and Annia and I built a small fire in the back of the cave where the glow could not be easily seen from a distance.

Once Iannis and Fenris had secured the entrance, they joined us around the fire. My eyes roamed over Iannis as he stared into the flames, the firelight flickering over his handsome features. When I’d first met him, I’d never thought I’d see him sitting cross-legged on a cavern floor in beaded buckskins, with his hair tousled and a healthy flush on his normally alabaster cheeks. It was a good look for him – no, better than good. He was downright sexy. No wonder that shamaness had desired him – any red-blooded woman would have. Even so, there was no way I could forgive her for putting that spell on him. What Halyma had done to Iannis was little better than slavery.

“Now that we’ve had a chance to catch our breath, why don’t you fill us in on what happened?” Fenris asked as he handed Iannis a packet of beef jerky. “We’ve traveled quite a way to come to your rescue, at considerable risk. It would be nice to have the blanks filled in at last.”

“Indeed, and I am grateful.” Iannis’s eyes swept over us all, lingering on me just a beat longer than everyone else. Heat swept through my stomach, and I fought the urge to bite my lip. “I am greatly in your debt, for going to such lengths to find me. If you had not, I might have lived for years or decades as Halyma’s sharalli. Her mind magic is extremely potent.”

“Just how the hell did she manage to bewitch you into staying with her in the first place?” I demanded, jealousy adding an edge to my voice. Even though I knew Iannis had been under a spell, it still chafed me that he’d allowed himself to be caught like that in the first place. I mean, he was one of the strongest mages in the Northia Federation. Shouldn’t he have been able to resist one puny shamaness?

“These shamans are far more powerful than the public gives them credit for, and I suspect Halyma is special among them.” Iannis arched a brow at me, no doubt reading my thoughts from the expression stamped across my face. “I woke up in the dirigible feeling disoriented and sluggish, and found my fellow passengers completely unconscious. Then the pilot came into the cabin, wearing a gas mask.” His voice was suspiciously even, but I suspected that deep anger lay hidden underneath, like magma simmering beneath a seemingly dormant volcano. “I could not kill him since we needed him to land, so I tried to stun him instead. But the gas affected me more than I realized, for I missed, and he managed to throw me out the door of the airship.” His voice turned arctic. “He will be punished.”

“I took care of that for you,” Fenris assured him.

“Oh?” Iannis arched a brow.

“Fenris lost his temper when we were questioning him,” I remarked dryly. “He killed the pilot with a lightning bolt.”

“Ah.” Iannis looked surprised. “I suppose this means your secret is out now, Fenris.”

“I was forced to explain my past to the girls after it was done,” Fenris admitted with a sigh. “But never mind that, Iannis. What happened after you were thrown out the door? Even you cannot fly.”

“I haven’t come so close to death in several decades at the very least.” A shadow passed over Iannis’s face as he spoke. “I was hurtling through the cold air, my lungs aching from the gas, and it was too dark to see how far I was to the ground, so I invoked Resinah’s strongest protection spell as well as another to make myself lighter so the impact would not be as great.”