The Spell Realm (The Sorcery Code #2)(49)
A tornado. She’d briefly read about them in one of the books.
She could feel it coming closer, sensed its destructive power. Even with the noise from the relentlessly battering hail, she could hear the roar of the approaching monster.
Two monsters, in fact, she realized with a bone-deep chill as she saw another twister further to the east. Then she spotted a third one and a fourth . . . It was a wall of tornados—and they all seemed to be headed straight for the village.
A strange clarity settled over Gala’s mind. She began doing calculations—the air pressure, the temperature, the direction and speed of all the different winds . . . Everything pointed to one conclusion. Once the tornadoes reached them, the shield would be destroyed in seconds—and so would any subsequent ones she could put up.
Unless she came up with another way to protect them, they would all die.
Sitting down on the ground, Gala began to breathe the way Blaise had taught her. As her heartbeat slowed, she could feel herself starting to float like before, but this time she did not stop it.
Instead, she focused on her first spell.
She began by trying to change the temperature. It required making the molecules of air move faster in a given space—except the space had to be quite large to make any difference to the storm. As she worked on it, she floated closer to the shield, and her mind enabled her to open it and close it within seconds, letting her body pass through. Now she was fully exposed to the elements, and she could feel the effect of the temperature change in the air. Instead of striking her skin, the hail was melting, turning into cold water all around her. It was already an improvement, but her work had just begun.
She was now high enough in the air that she could see the village laid out far below, with the twisters rapidly approaching it. To stave off fear and solidify her concentration, Gala closed her eyes. She could feel the sizzle of electricity in the air, smell the ozone from the lightning strikes, but she ignored all that, focusing only on the task at hand.
This was going to be difficult, yet it was the only way to save the village. Swiftly running through the thousands of necessary calculations in her mind, Gala opened her eyes and unleashed the force that was needed to counter the storm.
The air began moving around her, each current and counter-current melding in perfect harmony. Each blast of the storm winds encountered one of her own, the forces neutralizing each other until it was as if the wind wasn’t there. It was a slow and laborious process, but Gala could feel it working. Within minutes, the heavy clouds shifted, creating an opening in the storm—an opening that encompassed the area around the village.
Everywhere else the storm raged as before, but the skies above the village began to clear, a sliver of star-dotted sky peeking through the darkness.
Chapter 33: Augusta
“Where is Ganir?” Jandison asked loudly, addressing the rest of the Council. It was their regularly scheduled meeting, and no one was ever late without a good excuse.
Augusta sat quietly, not wanting to draw attention to herself. The last thing she wanted was to be implicated in Ganir’s disappearance in any way.
“Does anyone know where he is?” Jandison repeated, looking around the room.
“I might,” Dania said, fumbling with her bag. “I have a locator spell on him. We placed those on each other a few years ago just in case. I don’t ever check it, but I should be able to do so.”
Augusta felt all blood drain from her face. There was a good chance that Ganir had died during her teleportation experiment. And if so, Dania would find out, as the locator spell was only active while the person it was placed on was alive.
“Does anyone have a map of Koldun?” Dania asked, looking up from her bag, and Augusta watched in horror as Moriner handed the requested object to Dania.
The old woman immediately began muttering the words of a revelation spell—a quick oral spell that was required to show the location on the map. A few minutes later, a bright blue dot appeared on the map, right in the middle of Ganir’s territory.
Augusta let out the breath she’d been holding. Ganir was alive after all. Her teleportation experiment had worked.
“It looks like he went home,” Dania said, looking puzzled. “Why would he do that without telling anyone?”
“Maybe because he disagrees about the latest vote, and he’s showing his disdain for the Council by not showing up?” Kelvin suggested, leaning forward in his chair.
“I’m sure Ganir has a good reason for not being here,” Augusta said graciously, recovering from her earlier panic. In a way, Dania had done her a favor. Nobody should suspect any foul play now.
“Either way, the protocol dictates that in the absence of one of the members, the meeting shall proceed as normal,” Jandison said, his eyes gleaming. “We can’t let Ganir’s reluctance deter us from doing the right thing.”
“No, we cannot,” Kelvin concurred. “We need to take care of this threat once and for all.”
“We don’t even know where this creature is,” Dania objected, “so what are we supposed to do? Scour all of Koldun looking for it?”
“Dania,” Augusta said slowly, thinking about how to best bring this up, “can you modify the time parameter of the revelation spell to show Ganir’s location last week? Perhaps there is some other reason he’s not here today.”