Marked by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #4)(56)

“Happy to see me?” I asked, advancing on him, then froze as I caught the scent of another man – or rather, mage, I realized as I inhaled a whiff of magic.

“You again!” Argon Chartis spat, hobbling out from the corner behind Yantz. He was leaning very heavily on a cane, and I caught a glimpse of a wooden leg peeking out beneath his robes. His dark green eyes blazed with fury, and fear sparked in my chest as he raised a hand and shouted several Words. I lifted my hands in defense as he hit me with a blast of sickly green magic, but my arms froze in place as the energy rippled over me. My heart rate skyrocketed as I tried and failed to open my mouth, tried and failed to reach for my magic, tried and failed to do anything at all.

“Foolish hybrid,” Chartis sneered at me. “Coming down here all by yourself. If you’d brought a more experienced mage as backup, you might have stood a chance.”

“Thankfully, she’s as stupid as she is impulsive,” Yantz said, yanking a dagger from a sheath on his belt. Panic shot through me as it caught the dim light emanating from the single bulb in the ceiling, and I realized the knife was made of silver. The sick gleam in Yantz’s eyes told me that if he had his way, this wasn’t going to be a quick knife to the heart – he was hoping to torture me, and he was going to enjoy the hell out of it. And without my vocal chords, nobody would hear a thing.

“Iannis!” I screamed, trying desperately to reach him with mindspeak.

“Sunaya?” I felt his startled reaction, and I knew he was coming to me. At least Yantz would not have time for any torture, but not even Iannis could navigate that confusing cellar as fast as a silver knife could cut my throat. A knife that was swinging toward me even now.

But in the instant before it could connect, something hot seared my chest, right below the center of my collarbone. Yantz’s eyes widened as orange light exploded from me, washing the room in a strange glow.

“No!” Chartis shouted as the room began spinning around me. My stomach pitched with nausea as the colors and shapes melded together in a blur, and I wished desperately I could close my eyes. Frozen, I watched as the blur of colors lightened around me, catching hints of brilliant green and clear blue. What the hell was happening? Was this an unintended side effect of Chartis’s spell?

But as my surroundings gradually came to a halt, things started to become clear. Literally. The colorful blur gave way to miles of clear blue ocean, a long stretch of powdery white sand, and dark green fronds waving from the tree line to my left. A warm, salty ocean breeze caressed my skin, and strange calls from tropical birds pierced the open air.

Somehow, some way, I’d teleported to another place. And it sure as hell wasn’t anywhere near Solantha.





22





It took nearly an hour for Chartis’s immobilization spell to wear off, and it was easily one of the most uncomfortable hours of my life. I was forced to stand there with the hot sun beating down on my head, and the salty ocean breeze stripping the moisture from my lips and skin. A crab crawled across my feet as it headed for the safety of the water. Poop from a seabird landed on my hair as it flew past, mocking me with its shrill caw.

Paradise.

As I stood immobile in the sand, my thoughts immediately circled back to Iannis. What was going on back in Solantha? Had Iannis apprehended Chartis and Yantz? I wondered what his reaction had been to my disappearance. He must have questioned Chartis and Yantz about it…if he’d caught them. And his serapha charm would tell him that I was far away now.

Iannis wasn’t the only one I was worried about. How were Comenius and Elania holding up under the rebellion? Were they still safe behind the walls of Comenius’s shop and the barricaded Witches’ End? And had Com gotten any word from Elnos as to how he and Annia were doing on their rescue mission? I hadn’t been able to spare much thought for them in the past few days, but now that I was standing here with nothing else to do but think, I realized Comenius should have heard from them by now.

When the spell finally wore off, the first thing I did was strip down and dive into the water. Yes, it was salt water and didn’t do a damn thing for my parched throat, but I was hot as hell and itching to wash the bird crap off me. Unfortunately, the water was too warm to be called refreshing, but when I stalked out a few minutes later, the ocean breeze coupled with my soaked skin helped cool me off.

How the f*ck did I get here?

I stared out at the gentle waves breaking against the shoreline, contemplating that question. Instinctively, I reached up to touch my serapha charm, and as I did, my fingers brushed against a second charm.

The gulaya.

I looked down to see the gulaya sitting innocuously atop my chest. Damn. It must have activated in response to the mortal danger I’d been in, then transported me to this place. On the one hand, that was great, because I was safe from torture and death by Yantz’s silver knife. But on the other hand, I was in the middle of nowhere, too far away from the battle to be of any use. I consulted my serapha charm, curious to know just how far Iannis was from me. Unfortunately, it could only give me a general sense of direction and distance, and it told me that Iannis was much farther away than he’d been when I’d gone searching for him.

Needing to do something other than stand on a deserted beach and ask myself questions I had no answer to, I put my clothes back on, then changed into beast form. White light engulfed my body as it stretched and changed shape, and a few moments later, I was a black panther standing on the sandy white beach. My pitch-dark fur did absolutely nothing to keep the heat off my back, so I headed for the trees, seeking shade and water. The small critters scurrying around in the undergrowth went quiet as I passed, remaining that way for a long time after I left – I might be a new species to this place, wherever it was, but I was still a predator. I caught glimpses of snakes, weasels, and porcupines down on the ground, and above, orange-and-black primates with shaggy hair and thick, long tails clung to branches and watched me with fear and suspicion.