Ensnared (Sorcery and Science Book 5) (16 page)

When Isis reached the lakeshore, she stopped. Leaving her back to them, she stared out at the water, her eyes tracking a family of ripples on an otherwise glassy surface.

“The portal is in the middle of the lake,” she said. The words were spoken in coarse monotone, those of a person who had grudgingly accepted a most unpleasant fate.

“It certainly makes entering Eclipse through that portal interesting,” Cameron said.

“When you plan to return the way you came, it’s advisable to keep your boat anchored there,” Jason lectured.

“That doesn’t help when I didn’t go out through that portal in the first place,” Cameron pointed out.

Jason’s face was so expressionless that Cameron knew he must be irked. You could crack rocks against that humorless granite block.

“Which of the fifty-two times you ran away from Black Moss are we talking about?”

Cameron had escaped the confines of his dull former school fifty-two times in the seven years he’d lived there. Cameron saw that as an accomplishment. Jason saw it as a mortal failing.

“From what I recall, I entered Eclipse through that portal on escape numbers ten and thirty-four. On number ten, someone had been kind enough to leave a boat out there. On thirty-four, I had no such luck. I dropped straight down into the lake. In January no less. I swore off the portal after that. Who makes a portal over a lake anyway? I felt like an ice cube for two whole days. Simply dreadful, I tell you.”

“I am familiar with the feeling,” Jason replied cooly.

It took a few seconds of suffering under that icy glare before Cameron got it. “It was your boat?” he asked.

“It was my boat,” Jason confirmed.

A few notes of laughter burst from Isis’s lips before she clamped them down. She covered her mouth and tried to pretend no such thing had just happened.

Jason was not amused. “Something funny?” he asked her.

She shook her head but kept her hand firmly over her mouth. Cameron dared a chuckle. Jason turned two dark eyes his way.

“You shouldn’t encourage Cameron’s behavior, Isis,” he chided, handing her an oar. He handed Cameron the other one.

“Care for a quick match?” Cameron whispered to Isis, raising his oar.

Rather than lifting her oar in response, Isis raised only a skeptical brow.

Behind them, the crunch and scrape of wood against rock came to an abrupt end as Jason slid the front of the boat into the water. “It’s too early in our journey for you to already be seeking out trouble, Cameron. ‘Quick’ is right. She’ll have you on your back in five seconds.”

“I’ve been practicing,” Cameron said defensively.

“Have you now? With whom?”

“Lana.”

Jason’s lip twitched. “My sister may be frightful at times, but she’s no warrior. What did she do—toss scented candles at you?”

“Don’t be mean,” Isis told him. She turned to face Cameron, her oar raised. “I will fight you, Cameron.”

She waited for him to make the first move. He swung the oar toward her head, but she ducked with agile grace. As she dropped, she thrust out with her oar toward his right shoulder. Cameron hopped back, pleased he’d managed to evade her. He realized too late that she’d anticipated just that. She swung the other end of her oar around with the speed of a Phantom, hooking the paddle behind his airborne feet. She pulled forward, and Cameron fell flat on his back.

“Three seconds actually,” she told Jason, planting one end of the oar against the ground.

Something not unlike amusement danced across his eyes before they hardened. He extended his hand down to Cameron.

“I guess that will teach me to pick a fight with someone who can foresee my every move,” Cameron grumbled, standing.

“I believe those are the wisest words that have ever come out of your mouth,” Jason said. “You’ll need to get quite a bit faster before you can negate the Prophet’s advantage. Shall I demonstrate?”

Isis set her oar in the boat. “I had quite enough of a beating this morning, thank you.” She hopped in after it, her landing pushing the boat gently from the shore.

Cameron scrambled to follow before an icy swim became necessary. Jason waited a few seconds, then leapt. By then, the boat was nearly three meters from the shore, and he landed softly inside, hardly jarring it at all.

“Showoff,” murmured Cameron as he began to row toward the portal.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

~
Band of Children ~

526AX August 22, North Mist Veil

THEY ENTERED NORTH Mist Veil at the western border, close to the Frozen Forest. The fog and copious tree cover meant there was little to see, but Cameron knew they were deep within the great forest that extended from the southern end of Mist Veil up to the continent’s northern tip. The evergreen trees grew dark green in the south, but up there in North Mist Veil and the Frozen Forest, those of the blue-silver variety were more common.

Cameron spotted their path, a partially overgrown dirt trail that led north. All around them, the needle tips sparkled white, and the ground was coated in a layer of pine needles lightly dusted with frost. Harsh rays from the rising sun cut through the trees at irregular intervals, casting surrounding sections into shadow. As they set off down the trail, a shrill howl split through the forest, echoed by a chorus of predatory cries.

“Wolves,” said Jason, drawing two throwing knives.

Isis drew her twin swords. “Everett sure would have loved it here.”

“Which part? The trees? The beasts?” Cameron grinned. “Or the mystic ambience?”

Isis chuckled.

“Considering how much Everett Black loathes the Wilderness, it is a wonder to me that he was so adamant on dragging his broken body out of his sick bed to join us out here,” Jason observed.

“Maybe we Elitions have grown on him,” said Cameron.

“One of us certainly has,” commented Isis.

Cameron snorted in agreement.

“What do you mean?” Jason asked, a hint of confusion gracing his typically expressionless face.

“You can’t be serious, Jason. Assassins are supposed to be observant,” Isis said.

“I am.”

“Then surely you’ve noticed.”

“Noticed what?”

Isis turned to Cameron. “Is he serious?”

Cameron couldn’t really tell, but Jason didn’t play games. That would require a desire to have fun. “I think so.”

“Everett is helping us because he wants to impress Lana,” she told Jason.

“Why would he…” His face grew dark as an eclipse. “How long has this been going on?”

“From the beginning, I think.” Cameron looked at Isis for confirmation.

She shrugged. “I wasn’t around for much of it, but yeah, I think so.”

The ice in Jason’s eyes would have made the ocean freeze solid.

“I don’t think anything has happened yet,” said Isis.

“Yeah, they seem to be at the point of mostly just making eyes at each other from a distance,” Cameron agreed.

“I don’t want my sister making eyes at
anyone
. And most especially not at a Rev mercenary.”

“Everett is our friend,” Cameron said.

“You would feel the same if she were your sister, Cameron.”

Cameron had nothing to say to that. He didn’t even know his sister.

Isis set a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Is it not enough if Lana is happy?”

“No.”

“You sure are being immature about this, Jason.”

“As I said, she’s my sister.”

“And has your sister never dated anyone?”

“Not to my knowledge. And I was hoping it would stay that way. Indefinitely.”

“Everett is a good man,” Isis said.

“He is not as we are.”

“He may not be Elition, but he’s not like most humans. He seems to be doing his best to blend in with everyone in Eclipse. He wants to understand us. And he’s my friend. Or do you have a problem with that too?” Cameron asked him.

“Has he ‘made eyes’ at you as well?”

Ew, gross.
Cameron shook his head.

“Then I’m fine with your friendship.”

“This isn’t about Everett at all, is it?” Isis said. “This is about sharing those few people closest to you.”

Jason glared at her in response.

“Everett wants to impress Lana, but that’s not the only reason he was so ready to come along. He wants to contribute, to be part of a group. A family.”

Her eyes shook with sorrow, and a slow tear slid down her cheek.

“Isis…” said Cameron.

She brushed the tear away and forced a smile. “And maybe he also wants to get on your good side in the hopes that you won’t kill him when he makes a move on your sister.”

“He has helped us, and he’s useful in a fight,” Jason admitted. “Even so…” He growled. “I have this sudden urge to kill something. Right now.”

“You might just get your wish,” Cameron said, pointing forward.

Six pale grey wolves, each the size of a large bear, burst forth from the trees, sprinting forward with grim determination. When Cameron saw that their teeth were bared, he drew his own weapon from his pocket.

“What’s that?” Isis asked.

Cameron shook the padded handle to the left, and a sectioned rod slid out. He shook it again, this time to the right, and the other side extended until the staff was nearly as tall as he was.

“A fighting staff,” he told her. “Jason decided I would have a hard time cutting myself with a blade-less weapon.”

Patronizing as the statement was, perhaps Jason was right. At least in this case. Just a few hours ago, he’d nicked himself fingering one of Jason’s throwing knives.

“Suddenly, the boat oars make sense,” commented Isis.

“Let’s just hope the wolves don’t prove as capable opponents as you, Isis,” Jason said.

Cameron doubted the wolves would even make it to him—not with the way Jason fought. He’d already positioned himself at the front, cutting off Isis too. She looked at him, then at her swords, as though she were considering poking him in the back to get him out of her way.

She never had the chance to act. The wolves ran right past them, swallowed up by the forest once again. It was then that Cameron realized the wolves were not the hunters. They were the hunted. But what would scare a pack of gigantic predatory wolves?

The trees rustled, and seven children ran out of the trees and stopped in front of them. They were teenagers, all within a few years of one another, and every one of them was Elition. Dressed in a mismatch of black and camouflage greens—a look somewhere between assassin and soldier—the children’s eyes gleamed like predatory cats, the colors exaggerated even for Elitions. Their hair, too, blazed in shades too brilliant to be natural. Every single one of them was on stimulants. A lot of stimulants.

Cameron had never seen anything like it. Wait, no, he had. Back in the lair of Gregory Vib, that mad scientist who had bred himself a small army of eerie Elitions. Could this be his latest ‘menagerie’?

Beside Cameron, Isis was apparently reliving the very same memory. She shivered and shifted her weight. “Déjà vu.”

Without a word, Jason launched his two knives at the children. The front one, a girl with teal eyes and copper hair pulled up into a high ponytail, plucked both easily from the air and shot them back as her comrades circled around. Isis pulled Cameron out of the knives’ path. She threw a worried look at Jason, who was already surrounded by four of the glowing-eyed children.

“Can you handle Sunshine there?” she asked Cameron, indicating the daffodil-haired girl who was closing in on him.

At his nod, she swung out one of her swords, trying to corral the two approaching boys away from him. She managed to get them all the way to a ring of split trunks before the whoosh of an incoming sword reminded Cameron that he should have been paying attention to his own opponent. He blocked the swing with his staff and tried to throw the girl off balance. She sidestepped with agile grace, smiling as a tiger would greet its future lunch. Her sword rose up, striking forward again and again. Cameron met the attacks, but each block sent him another step back, until he was nearly trapped against the trees.

An ear-splitting scream of pure anguish ripped through the forest. Cameron followed the sound to Isis, who was crouched down low, holding to Jason. Shock hit Cameron as he realized Jason’s body was dripping blood from every limb. His head hung limply, the back of it supported against Isis’s chest. Despite her tight hold on Jason, there was still a sword in each of her hands. She bared her teeth as six Elitions—no, seven, for Sunshine had joined her brethren—closed in on them. All of them trailed streams of blood behind them, staining the white ground red with every step that they took. As their hot blood hit the frost, it steamed and dissolved. Even Elitions would go down if you drew enough blood, but though they seemed to be as bad off as Jason, they continued to close in on him and Isis as though they didn’t feel the pain at all.

The children were within three steps of them when a horn rumbled—long and deep—from within the forest. As one, the Elition children turned and ran off back the way they had come. Their footsteps were light, and soon Cameron couldn’t hear them anymore. He hurried over to Isis and squatted down before Jason.

“What happened?” he asked her.

Her lips trembled, frozen in terror. Cameron shook her shoulders. In response, she tightened her hold on Jason and pointed her swords at Cameron. She looked ready to skewer him.

“Isis?”

She met his eyes, and the trance lifted. The weapons wilted from her hands. “They moved as one, attacking again and again. He was moving so fast that they couldn’t touch him. But the two I was fighting slipped away, and one got in a blow. Then another. And another. There were too many of them and they coordinated their movements too well, as though they were one mind. They left him no space to evade. I went along their back, slashing them up one by one. But they ignored me, as if I were nothing but a mosquito. And they kept up until Jason fell.” She gripped hard to Cameron’s arms. “This is all my fault.”

“No, it’s not.”

Isis’s eyes flared a blue brilliant enough to rival any enhanced Elition’s. “I shouldn’t have let those two get away from me. I should have done more damage. I should never have—”