Ensnared (Sorcery and Science Book 5) (12 page)

“Hey, do you see Jason and Isis?” Cameron asked.

They’d fallen far behind. The beach had come to an end, and Jason and Isis were nowhere in sight. Everett pointed to a narrow passage in the cliffs, just wide enough for one person to file through at a time.

“They must have gone that way.”

Everett didn’t think Isis would leave them behind, but the determination in Jason’s eyes did worry him. He wouldn’t put it past the assassin to go on ahead with the intention of swinging back around for them after he found Terra. Who knew how long that would take. And if what Jason said was true, that these portals were disappearing, then they could end up stranded on the dreary shore of the Wasteland. He ran up the beach and shimmied through the opening in the rock face. Cameron gasped as he came in behind Everett, pointing at a splattering of blood against the rocks.

“It could be from some animal,” Everett told him.

Cameron’s nostrils crinkled up as he sniffed it. “It’s Elition.”

Everett had forgotten they could do that. Jason could even tell from your sweat what you’d eaten for dinner. It was really creepy, and none of the Elitions seemed to get that.

Cameron held up a piece of torn black fabric. “From Isis’s shirt.”

“Anything from Jason?” Everett asked.

He couldn’t picture the assassin ever being hurt. He never lost his footing and never missed his target. The man was even immune to paper cuts.

Cameron picked one of Jason’s black throwing knives off the ground. “Do you think they were attacked?”

Everett hoped not. Anything that could hurt Isis and make Jason drop a knife was bad news.

“Look over there,” he said to Cameron.

A second piece of torn black fabric dangled from the corner of a nearby cluster of dull grey rocks, swaying in the breeze. Everett drew his dagger, Cameron held Jason’s knife, and they crept slowly forward. Everett tried to step softly, but he twitched at every scrape of his boots against the shifting gravel. His heart was pounding in his ears and his palms dripped with sweat. Yet he didn’t dare release his hold on his weapon to wipe his hands.

As they eased slowly around a colony of boulders, someone jumped out at them. Everett didn’t hesitate. He slashed out with his weapon, hoping to survive by dealing enough damage early on in the fight. A blade flashed up, blocking his strike, and Everett was surprised to see Jason’s cold eyes behind it. Isis had ducked down to evade the jab of his dagger. She’d been the one to jump out at him. Realization dawned and Everett groaned. She and Jason had played a practical joke on them.

“Boo,” Isis peeped with a sheepish smile, lunging sideways to slide out of the way.

“That was not funny,” growled Everett, his arms pounding from the impact of Jason’s strike. Their blades were still crossed, and his muscles were starting to buckle under the strain.

“I told you this wasn’t a good idea,” Jason said to Isis.

At least Everett and the assassin were in agreement about that.

“He nearly took your head off,” Jason added, glaring at Everett.

So, Isis jumped out at me, scaring me out of my wits, and I am to blame? Yeah, that makes sense.
Everett decided not to voice the thoughts. Jason was fired up enough already.

“Jason, stop.” Isis placed a hand on his arm. “You’re hurting him.”

Jason withdrew his blade so quickly that Everett stumbled forward. As expected, the assassin did not apologize. He
had
stopped glaring, which Everett supposed was the best he was going to get from him.

“Whose blood was that on the rocks back there?” Everett asked them.

Jason nodded toward Isis.

“And the fabric?”

“Also hers. This dubious scheme was entirely her idea. She requisitioned my knife for it.” He held out his hand to Cameron. “Which I would like back now.”

With downcast eyes, Cameron set the black blade into Jason’s hand. The poor kid looked disappointed. He’d probably been hoping to keep the weapon to later practice throwing it at trees—Everett’s gaze slid over the beach—or throw it at the kelp, at least.

“So, now that you’ve all had your fun, it’s time to get going again,” Jason declared. “I can see the portal right against the cliff wall.”

Everett would hardly call a near heart attack ‘fun’, but he said nothing as he followed Jason to the wall. They all joined hands and stepped toward a portal Everett couldn’t see. If this was the next practical joke, his forehead would bang hard against rock.

But as soon as he felt the sickening churning in his stomach, that same feeling he’d experienced on the last portal jump, he knew it was no joke. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Jason was about as whimsical as a math equation.

The portal spit them out upon a high plateau enclosed by a ring of
blue evergreens. They were far north, which Everett knew from the cold breeze that cut at his face and the thinly grassed, frost-kissed ground beneath his boots. Down below, two lakes sparkled in the morning sun, a shiny black-faced temple wedged between them. The Temple of Aurelia. Beside Everett, Jason reached out with his hand, as though to grasp it between his fingers.

No one spoke as they descended the forested hill, walking across a thick carpet of fallen pine needles. Cameron raced on ahead, the dense trees swallowing him up from sight. When they reached the bottom, he was nowhere to be seen.

“I’ll bet he’s playing his own practical joke now. Any moment now, he’ll jump out from behind some trees,” Everett commented.

The black temple was close now, and still there was no sign of Cameron.

“He’s gone on to the temple,” Jason told them. “I can feel him.” He frowned. “Whatever he’s doing, his resonance is blocking out everything else.”

No one questioned him. Everett had learned a few things during his time in Eclipse. One of these things was that you didn’t doubt the Elite Phantom’s ability to sense resonances
—
whatever the hell that meant.

“I guess he’s excited,” Everett said.

“Cameron is always excited,” Jason said cooly. “Isis.”

His tone was serious enough that even Everett turned to look at him.

“I need you,” he continued.

Isis’s mouth dropped, and Everett felt his do the same.

“At the temple,” Jason clarified. “I’ve heard that the Temple of Aurelia is protected by a series of trials. Trials that can only be navigated by a Prophet. That’s you.”

“My abilities are still somewhat suppressed. After my recent…experience, Silver thought it would be best for me to acclimate slowly. He has mixed a moderate
Inhibiting Serum into the Balancing Serum.”

“I have an Enhancing Serum with me. It will boost your power of Prophecy,” he told her.

Wow, he’d come prepared for everything. Everett never ceased to be amazed by Jason’s brutal efficiency.

“Oh, Jason. I…I can’t,” she stuttered.

“You can and you shall,” said a shrill voice.

They’d reached the temple’s front gate, where Nemesis stood with a sneer on her face. She was pressing a knife hard against Cameron’s neck.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

~
The Temple of Aurelia ~

526AX August 21, The Temple of Aurelia

“NEMESIS,” JASON SNARLED.

“Wait,” Isis said.

She locked her hands around Jason’s arms, restraining him. Nemesis, that fiend of violent, fiery red-orange hair and turquoise eyes, was still holding a knife to Cameron’s neck, after all. Isis didn’t want Jason to provoke her. Nemesis didn’t much like either of them, and she would use any excuse to hurt Cameron.

Cameron appeared uninjured, though the blood had drained from his face, leaving him pale as a ghost. His ice-blue eyes stared forward, shaking with fear. He’d once been Nemesis’s prisoner. Isis wondered what the mad Triad had done to him. She felt her fists clench up.

“Temper, temper, my dear,” Nemesis warned, her smirk widening as she shook her finger at Isis. “And as for you,” she said, turning to Jason.

He was shifting his weight forward. She glared at him, her eyes looking as though they would boil over. He countered with a cold obsidian stare. Watching Jason and Nemesis was like standing before a burning meteor shower.

“Let’s have none of that. You should listen to your little girlfriend, Magus. It would be a shame if my hand were to slip and cut this sweet boy’s throat,” Nemesis simpered.

As if to prove her point, she lifted the sleeve from Cameron’s shoulder, exposing skin broken by a timeline of still-healing cuts. She really was insane. How many times had she cut him in the last few minutes?

“Now, my dear, you pretty little Prophet,” Nemesis said to Isis, her voice simmering with sugar-coated poison. “You will kindly lead us through the trials.”

“As I said, my abilities are currently suppressed,” Isis said.

“Yes, of course. I was paying attention to your superficial chatter, after all. Just take the counteragent Magus offered, and all will be well. No. Stop. Not you. I want your hands where I can see them,” Nemesis warned Jason. She glared at Everett. “You, human! Give her the serum. And hurry along with it. I don’t have all day.”

Jason nodded toward a small pouch hanging from his waist belt, and Everett slipped his fingers inside. The short, slender flask he pulled out held no more than a single mouthful of golden, fizzy liquid. With Nemesis’s eyes locked on her, Isis took the flask from Everett and drank it down in one gulp. It tasted far mintier than her Inhibiting Serum, and there was an after-flavor of alcohol too. She felt it take effect instantly. A warm wave washed over her body. Her limbs began to tingle and her head spun. Everything around her became at the same time very clear—ultra high contrast—and very blurred, as though she were seeing things play out a few seconds before they actually happened.

“Jason?” she asked woozily.

“Sorry. I had to make it strong. I didn’t know how much was needed to counteract the effects of the Inhibiting Serum, especially with how long you’ve been taking it,” he replied. His voice echoed in her head.

“It’s more than enough,” she hiccuped, feeling rather drunk.

“Marvelous,” shrilled Nemesis. “Now lead the way.”

“At least give her a moment to adjust,” Cameron protested. “We don’t even know what dangers lie within.”

“Very well,” Nemesis said, shoving him toward the door. “Then
you
can lead.”

Isis planted her hand on the closed door, blocking the way. “No, wait. I can handle it. I’ll lead.”

She turned her back on Nemesis’s arrogant smirk and Jason’s blackening eyes. Pushing the door open, she stepped into the dark hall. The wall torches that lined both sides of the corridor flared up. Isis threw out her arms before anyone could take another step forward.

“Stay here,” she directed and continued forward alone.

On her next step, she caught a future flash of over-saturated flames as they burst up from the floor, consuming the immediate space around her. She launched herself up and flipped around in the air to face the entrance where the others still waited. She landed at a safe distance, just as fire shot up where she’d stood mere seconds ago.

The second flash came—one of long spears that jutted forward from both walls, designed to stake anyone standing within its spiked web. Isis rolled on the floor and slid out of range as the foresight became reality.

Her mouth tasted strongly of blood, the result of biting her lip. And it tasted of alcohol, the aftertaste of a foresight. But she had no time to catch her breath before the third flash split through her body. Two swinging pendulums, heavy and spiked swung out from both sides, slid past each other. One, two, Isis dodged back, and down, then sprinted out of range.

The fourth flash followed. Loose, heavy rocks showered down from above, erupted from below, and catapulted out from both walls. Moments before they all collided with a grinding, resonating bang in the middle, Isis had sprung forward.

She now stood near the end of the room, steps from the wheel she knew she’d need to turn in order to calm the traps still roaring behind her. The fifth flash hit her. The front door would slam shut and the floor rise up, teetering back and forth at extreme angles until everyone was swooped into the traps still fuming between them. As she felt a gentle buzz beneath her boots—a buzz that she knew would magnify into the turbulent seesaw floor of her foresight—Isis did a forward flip, and she landed with such force with her hands around the wheel that it turned, silencing the room’s terrors.

Isis viewed the others, waiting at the entrance, upside down, then pushed herself up and over to stand atop the wheel. She couldn’t help but smile as she stood high up there, relishing in the power she’d for so long tried to repress. It was truly exhilarating—so much so that she forgot, if only for a moment, how dangerous it could be.

In an instant, Jason was beside her, looking her over with his penetrating eyes. “Are you ok?” he asked.

“Fine—no, great. Actually, I feel amazing,” she had to admit, stretching out her arms and turning on the spot.

“If you enjoy your gift so much, then why did you take the Inhibiting Serum for so long?” he wondered.

“It’s easier. The gift of Prophecy is a turbulent one, full of its ups and downs, which often come without warning. I don’t handle the downs so well,” she told him, more than a little embarrassed.

“Then you are weak,” Nemesis derided her. “Of course, we already knew that, didn’t we? Your eyes tell all. You are weak. Weak and naive. The horrors of this world will tear you apart.”

Nemesis sneered and pushed Cameron roughly in front of her into the next corridor, which had just opened before them.