The Spell Realm (The Sorcery Code #2)(43)
“Indeed,” Blaise said, smiling at the child. “But that’s not the only proof of our land’s true age. There are stalactites in the caverns of these very mountains that grow at a rate of about four inches every thousand years. Given how long some of them are, they must’ve been growing for hundreds of thousands of years. And, of course, there are the mountains themselves. The canyon that’s nearby has been formed by erosion from water and the other elements—a process that has most likely taken millions, not thousands, of years.”
The elderly man still looked skeptical. “If that’s true,” he said, “then where did Koldun and all of us come from? How did we come to be?”
“That’s a good question, and one that wise men have been pondering for ages,” Blaise said. “One theory right now is that nature shaped people, not unlike how people bred wolfhounds and shepherd dogs from the primordial wolf.”
He was about to continue his explanation when a loud boom shook the ground. At the same time, the sky lit up with a blazing white-and-purple light before going dark again.
Everybody froze, and one of the younger children began to cry. Only Gala looked more curious than alarmed.
“Was that thunder?” Blaise asked, looking at the frightened faces around the fire. “I’ve never heard it be so loud.”
The old man rose to his feet, his hands trembling. “Yes, sorcerer, that was thunder. It sounds like a storm is heading our way.”
Chapter 26: Augusta
Once she stopped shaking from the aftereffects of her battle with Ganir and the debilitating fear left her mind, Augusta began considering the consequences of what she’d done.
Ganir’s limp body was lying on the floor. She knelt beside it and pressed her fingers against his neck to feel his pulse. It was there, still going strong. The Council Leader was alive, but his mind was deep in a coma, just as she had intended. Of course, she hadn’t planned to use this particular spell on Ganir, but she was glad she’d had the cards on her. The spell had saved her life. And now that she knew it worked on people as well, she would definitely need to prepare new cards before leaving Turingrad.
Now that she had rendered the old man unconscious, Augusta wasn’t sure what to do with him. Ideally she should kill him, but the thought of snuffing out another sorcerer’s life was repugnant to her. Despite their differences, she’d always respected Ganir’s abilities, and the idea of killing him in cold blood bothered her.
She couldn’t let the others find him, though. They would immediately suspect sorcery, and since Augusta’s differences with Ganir were public knowledge, that would not bode well for her. Even though she knew she was in the right on this, she had no doubt there would still be a trial—a trial that could delay the upcoming mission to destroy Blaise’s creation.
No, she couldn’t let that happen. Ganir needed to disappear.
After pondering the problem for a minute, Augusta began working on a complex and highly risky spell. There was a chance that it could kill Ganir, but that was better than murdering him outright.
When the spell was done, she loaded the cards and watched the old sorcerer’s body disappear. If her calculations were correct, it would reappear in Ganir’s mansion in his territory, far away from Turingrad. She knew the location because Ganir had hosted a party there several years ago, and she and Blaise had been invited. Of course, if Ganir had changed anything in that room of his house—or if she had miscalculated even a tiny bit—he could easily end up dead. She didn’t feel too guilty about that, though, not when he had been planning to kill her with that fear spell of his.
Taking one last look around the empty roof, Augusta opened the door leading to the rooftop and began to climb down the winding staircase. She needed to make her way back to Ganir’s study, and she wasn’t about to risk teleportation again.
Walking through the hallways, she made sure that no one saw her as she approached Ganir’s quarters. She needed to find something, anything that would give her more information about where Blaise and his creature were. It seemed unlikely they would live in a desolate canyon, though that canyon could still be a good place to start looking for them.
Opening the door quietly, Augusta surveyed the room. Ganir was almost impossibly neat. She couldn’t find any recently written notes lying about, or jars of Life Capture droplets. As she looked around, however, she noticed a single droplet inside his Sphere.
Without hesitation she walked over to it, sat down in his chair, and brought the droplet to her mouth.
*
Ganir observed the three men who were tied up in his study—Barson’s soldiers who had been captured in a tavern in Turingrad. The binds were not necessary, strictly speaking, as he had already pacified them with a spell. Still, it paid to be cautious. Some stronger minds could snap out of the lethargy of the spell prematurely, which could be a problem with these men. He had to concentrate on the key spell, the spell that would finally rid him of the nuisance that was Barson.
At that moment, a Contact message reached his mind.
“Ganir, this is Blaise. I wanted to confirm your suspicions. Jandison was indeed the one who told me what the vote breakdown was.”
Hearing that, Ganir was overcome with a fury so strong, he actually shook with it. Because of Jandison’s treachery, he had lost Louie and then nearly lost Blaise. Ganir had never had children of his own, and Dasbraw’s boys had been the closest he’d gotten to having sons. And now Louie was dead, and Blaise hated him.