Blood Heir (Aurelia Ryder, #1)(53)

Tulip dashed through the deserted pre-dawn streets. The priest turned north. I made a left on Clifton. Tulip broke into a gallop. Buildings rushed past us. The smoke veered right, to the northeast. Woods loomed in front of me, the entrance to the trail cutting through them illuminated by a single fey lantern streetlamp. I steered Tulip onto it.

The trail shied left, then right. Tulip took a turn too fast. Tree branches slapped me.

I couldn’t see him, but my magic told me he was still there, trailing spicy smoke and echoes of human weeping.

The trees on the right ended, as if jerked out of sight. Asphalt replaced packed dirt. We galloped along a lake, Tulip’s hoofbeats too loud on the paved ground.

A shred of darkness streaked on the edge of my vision and disappeared beyond the trees ahead. I would kill him tonight. It was that or my people would start dying.

We reached a bridge and tore across it. The trail turned right, the trees parting like opened hands. A huge ruin loomed ahead, pale grey in the light of the dying moon. A sign flashed by. Atlanta VA Medical Center.

The thing I was chasing hovered above it and dove down. This was it.

I blinked into Turgan’s vision. It was fuzzy and dark, but I saw the ruin from above. The roof was gone, but the outer walls and some of the inner ones still stood, jutting into the sky anywhere from fifty to seventy feet high, turning the abandoned building into an unpredictable labyrinth. The inside of the medical center had collapsed and was cleared, probably looted or salvaged.

A spark ignited in the heart of the ruin. The ma’avir making sure I didn’t get lost.

I dismounted. Tulip stared at me, wild-eyed, and I hugged her to me. “If I don’t come back, go to your mother.”

She knocked me with her head. I grabbed my bow off her saddle and ducked into the building.

The air smelled of concrete powder, a dry chalky scent that lingered in buildings chewed up by magic. Weeds grew through the crumbled floor, widening the cracks. Here and there, walls rose, distorted by the remnants of wiring and plumbing. I glided through it, quiet and fast.

A slight breeze fanned my face, bringing a hint of smoke. Close now.

I walked through an arched doorway. A big square room lay in front of me under the open sky. The floor was a memory, all grass punctuated by a tiled chunk here and there, but the walls were solid, without breaks. At the other end, the ma’avir waited, poised against the pale backdrop.

Too far for an arrow. At this range he would dodge.

I took a step. Another.

The ma’avir waited.

This was a killing box and he wanted me to get deep enough for him to slam the trap door shut.

“You’re making me do all the work,” I told him. “Come. Show me the might of Moloch’s chosen.”

“You’re right. You’ve come all this way. Let me show you the hospitality we reserve for the royalty of Shinar.”

The ma’avir spread his arms. The world ignited.

Fire rose like a monstrous dust storm and rolled toward me. I shut my eyes. It singed my skin and kept going. I opened my eyes. The walls were on fire. They shouldn’t have been, but they blazed so bright, they looked white. Heat assaulted me, unbearable and dense. This was nothing like the weak attacks the other priest had tried. This was like standing in the heart of the sun. Or hell.

At the other end of the room, the priest was a living flame, a simulacrum of a human-made inferno.

The heat burned my back. I took a step forward. The room was shrinking, or rather the fire was moving. He was herding me toward him.

“Ranar kair!” Come before me.

Agony sank its fangs into me and ripped me apart. For a terrifying second, I thought it killed me.

The torrent of power shot from me to the priest. The fire flashed…and nothing.

I had pulled fifty enemy troops to me with that one command before. He didn’t even waver.

It didn’t work. He had no body. He was Moloch’s sacred fire, and that placed him beyond my power. I could alter the environment around him, I could lock him in a spell, but a direct attack would fail.

The heat licked my back again. The stone walls sagged, melting.

Another step.

The scorched ground twenty feet in front of me burst into flame. The thin layer of soil burned off, revealing a gaping pit. Four-foot-tall spikes bristled at the bottom. Not steel, tungsten, just beginning to glow with heat. Burning me would consume my flesh. It would take me longer to regenerate. It might even kill me. The high priest didn’t want to take the chance. He had prepared a tiger trap for me instead.

I had a choice: I could burn to death, or I could be impaled and cut to pieces. How considerate.

Heat scalded me. I took another small step.

The pit was at least thirty-five feet across. Even if I were an Olympic champion, I wouldn’t clear it.

The air felt thick like soup. It was getting harder to breathe.

I could not die here. I would not die here. I’d come too far.

The fire wall behind me moved another six inches.

I had one shot. One chance to get close enough. If I failed, if it didn’t hold…

Another half a foot. I took another step. This would be my last one.

I ripped the canteens of blood from my belt and squeezed their caps. Two small blades popped up. I stabbed them into my shoulders. The magic shivering in my blood broke free, ready to go. I pulled on it and it shot out of me in twin streams, turning into crimson mist. I hurled the contents of the canteens into the air, mixing it with my undiluted blood, and sprinted to the pit, bow in hand.