Hunted by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #3)(51)

“Ah.” Fenris nodded as though that made perfect sense to him.

“Wait a second,” I objected. “Why couldn’t you use a levitation spell to save yourself?” If Fenris was able to teach me how to do that, Iannis had to know how to use it too.

“The levitation spell is not powerful enough to halt a fall that rapid. It is meant for slow ascents and descents. At the rate I was falling, it would have barely slowed me at all.”

“Oh.” I frowned. It sounded like magic wasn’t completely impervious to science. Clearly there was more to learn than I’d thought.

“In any case,” Fenris said, moving the conversation along, “I imagine you did not come out of this unscathed.”

“Certainly not,” Iannis agreed. “I hit a tree, suffered numerous broken bones and lacerations, and was knocked unconscious by the impact. I only awoke when Halyma and her small group of Coazi found me, stuck in the top branches, and deduced I must have fallen from the sky. To give her credit, she is a very skilled healer. I could not have done it better myself. But by the time I was mobile again, she had used her powers to make me believe I was a member of the tribe, and in love with her.” He shrugged, frowning deeply. “Had it not just happened, I never would have believed myself susceptible to such trickery.” After a moment he added, “Now I know why she had to sacrifice some animal every day. It would have been difficult to keep up such a deep enchantment without constant reinforcement.”

I huffed out a breath. “I guess I should take comfort in the fact that even you aren’t infallible.” I wanted to ask if he still had feelings for Halyma, but that would have sounded pathetic. “Still, it would have been nice if you could have kept the serapha charm around your neck. I about died when I found it in a bird’s nest without you attached to it. I thought you’d decided to throw it away for some reason.” My throat tightened, and I swallowed hard to get rid of the lump trying to form there.

“Halyma had a good idea of what it was, and she tricked me into giving it to her.” Iannis’s long fingers went to the charm, and butterflies fluttered in my belly as I watched him stroke the gem briefly. “I would have never taken it off willingly,” he added, his voice softening.

“That’s what I thought,” Fenris said, sounding satisfied. “We could tell by the glow that you were still alive, so the charm was helpful to us regardless.”

“How did you manage to locate me without it?” Iannis asked. “I hope you haven’t just been aimlessly wandering around the plains.”

“We decided to start with the Resistance camp at the base of the mountains,” Annia said. “We’d heard from another group of Coazi that there was a camp holding prisoners, so we figured that was our best lead after hitting a dead end with your necklace.”

“Prisoners?” Iannis’s violet eyes snapped fire as he sat up straight. “Do you mean my delegates?”

“Yeah. They’re being held in an abandoned mineshaft while the camp awaits orders on what to do with them. Naya can tell you the story, since she’s the one who met with them.” Annia jerked a thumb in my direction.

I sighed, then filled Iannis in on what we had discovered back at the camp – that the strike on the airship had been ordered by the Benefactor, targeting Iannis specifically, and that though they’d been waiting on orders from the Benefactor on what to do with the other delegates, they were leaning toward killing them. By the time I was done, Iannis’s face had turned to stone, his eyes blazing with a cold fury that sent shivers down my spine.

“We must rescue them immediately,” he said, pushing to his feet.

“Now?” Annia protested around a mouthful of beef jerky. “It’s dark out. Everybody knows that you don’t travel at night.”

Iannis swung around to face her, and she flinched a little under the weight of his icy glare. “I cannot leave them to die, and besides, such missions are best performed under the cover of darkness. We will go now. Once the delegates are liberated and the Convention is over, I will stamp out the Resistance and their mysterious Benefactor once and for all.”





18





With Iannis’s mind made up, we packed up and headed for the Resistance camp. Fenris and I changed into beast form, and with the aid of Iannis’s spell Annia was able to keep pace with us as we ran. The moon was nearly full now, and gave enough light for us to pick our way through the forest.

I wondered again just how it was that Iannis was able to keep up with us so easily. I hadn’t seen him use the energizing spell on himself, and since expending any magic drained the body’s energy, such a spell would only cancel itself out. I resolved to ask him about it later, when we weren’t in the middle of a rescue mission, and also to fill him in on the problems back in Solantha.

Even at a steady run, it took us several hours to reach the abandoned mining town. By that time, dawn’s fingers were painting the peaks of the mountains pink and gold. The camp was still covered in darkness, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before the light washed over the tops of the rickety old cabins and the soldiers began stirring.

“I bet the cook is pissed that he’s stuck back in the kitchen again,” Annia muttered, and I snickered mentally.

“Stop.” Iannis held up a hand, and we came to a halt. Standing between Iannis and Annia, I peered through the trees and tried to see what had caught Iannis’s attention, but there was only the dark, barely visible outline of the crumbling buildings.