The Spell Realm (The Sorcery Code #2)(60)
No, they had no choice but to use the fusion spell, and to do so now. Implementing it required coordination between most of the Council. With Jandison out of the picture, they couldn’t afford to lose any more Council members. Augusta had been the one to figure out the logistics behind such coordination. It involved Contact spells prepared in advance. Each Councilor had a pair of other members they would Contact—a primary choice and a back-up.
Her heart beating frantically in her chest, Augusta loaded her spell, which was to go to Moriner, her back-up for Jandison. He would Contact his primary choice—Gina—who would Contact Furak, and so on until the cards were loaded with precise timing and order.
Though she knew she’d done the calculations correctly, Augusta still felt uneasy. They were fighting hubris with hubris, and the consequences of any errors could be catastrophic. The fusion spell was a work of terrifying beauty, harnessing the power of the sun and the stars. The energies about to be unleashed were unimaginable. To Augusta’s knowledge, nothing of this magnitude had ever been undertaken in the history of Koldun. But, as terrifying as the spell was, it didn’t frighten Augusta nearly as much as the abomination they were fighting—and she was confident that the powerful barrier they’d built to contain the spell would hold.
Watching the battlefield, Augusta used a simple spell to protect her vision. Though the barrier was supposed to protect them from the harmful effects of the spell, she calculated that some minute percentage of light was going to escape. Given the forces at play, she didn’t want to risk being blinded.
As the spell began to take effect, a shimmering sphere about a hundred feet in diameter formed around Blaise’s creature. This was the barrier. Whatever earth it touched at the bottom section of the sphere was pushed aside, creating a crater underneath the creature’s feet. That didn’t faze Blaise’s monstrosity at all. Instead of standing on the lower layer of the sphere, it was floating in the air, inside the spherical bubble, still looking inhumanly calm.
And just as Augusta noted these details, the fusion spell went into effect, and she saw a dazzling explosion of light.
Chapter 44: Gala
Gala felt torn. She wanted to help Blaise, but if she rushed to the house right now, it would become the focal point of the Council’s attack. The sensation of helplessness, of being unable to protect the one she loved, was unbearable. Gala could feel her calm beginning to slip, her heart starting to beat rapidly in her chest.
And at that moment, she began to feel something strange—some unprecedented spell being cast. She’d noticed she could sense magic before, but she had never felt anything of this caliber. Many people were working together—working on something big.
In the meantime, Blaise continued to fight in the house. Grimly Gala struggled for control, determined to be the master of her sorcery, rather than its puppet, but her fear for Blaise was too strong. Her mind racing, Gala felt the last remnants of her calm disintegrating as her emotions took over.
At first, she again experienced the illusion of her mind leaving her body. Only this time, it was different, more physical. She saw herself from a vantage point high in the sky. It was as if she was seeing the canyon through the eyes of a bird—and that’s exactly what was happening, she realized. Somehow her subconscious mind had connected with that of the birds that attacked her earlier.
It was strange, like she was in two places at once. She could see the faces of her attackers from high up in the air, and at the same time, she saw a shimmering sphere surround her body from both her own and the bird’s viewpoint. And from high up again, she saw herself floating in that glowing bubble. It was something she hadn’t even realized she was doing.
There was something ominous about the bubble that surrounded her—a subtle threat that she couldn’t fully understand yet. She also felt tiny changes in her body, like there was another spell attaching itself to her. She was about to examine it further when she felt the first powerful blast of energy inside the sphere that encased her.
Her reflective spell repelled the blast, pushing it outward, back toward its source, but the bubble prevented it from going beyond its walls. The energy grew, unimaginably powerful and destructive, filling the enclosed space around Gala and weakening her defenses. There was no longer any hope of retaining control, of remaining calm in the face of this maelstrom—all Gala could do was attempt to survive. She was no longer making conscious choices; instead that deep, still-unexplored part of her mind was in control.
Searing, burning pain overloaded her senses as time seemed to slow. She felt her body starting to disintegrate, each cell screaming in agony at its torturous death. The explosive energy was merciless, terrifying, yet Gala’s mind systematically analyzed it, broke it down into its components. And then she knew what it was . . . knew it was the same force that powered the stars above. Hydrogen fusing with itself, forming helium—a terrible reaction that her mind could not find a way to stop.
So instead of stopping it, her mind found a different solution.
It would get rid of the energy by sending it elsewhere—to the Spell Realm itself.
As Gala’s mind ran through the necessary calculations, her agony intensified until she could bear it no longer—until she found herself completely pushed out of her dying body. She was fully inside the bird now, not just seeing but feeling what it felt.
There was a momentary relief from the pain, but then Gala made the mistake of looking down at the shimmering bubble—a bubble that now shone with the brightness of the sun. In an instant, the bird was blinded, and, unable to see, it began falling.