always the best way to stir him up enough to come at her again. “Snakes? Scorpions? I wear that mark with pride.”
“You are Carpathian, not mage,” he sneered. “You are to be used to feed, nothing more. You will never be one of us.”
“I am one of you whether you want to admit it or not. I am mage, and I bear the mark of the high mage. You can say whatever you wish, Vasile, but the truth is, I am mage, the same as you, and I am able to counter your pathetic spells.”
Blue, is Phantom responding? She heard Isai’s voice. He included her so she knew what was happening on their end, just as she was doing so he knew she was in position and ready.
I told him we have Sable safe. That was his main concern. He remembers Julija’s kindness. I am releasing him.
Julija renewed her efforts to keep her brother’s attention centered on her. She lifted her hands. Every muscle in her arms and back protested. Even her lungs felt labored, as if she’d already run a great race and had little left to spare. She was doubly grateful that Isai had taken over manufacturing the fog. It had been the least difficult, pulling droplets of water from the night air to make the heavy mist. She needed every bit of her strength in her fight to counter Vasile’s increasingly complex attacks.
Gathering the energy in the mountains and between them in the surrounding valley, she very delicately spread it throughout the distance between her brother’s fortress and the bluff where she waited. She didn’t have to wait long. The attack came from every direction.
Air. Enormous birds with vicious beaks and razor-sharp talons, wings beating at the air, heavy with hatred and rage, driven by the dark mage’s own venomous emotions.
Ground. The dirt and rocks moved, raising and lowering inches and then feet as tentacles erupted, searching blindly for her, or the cats she protected, reaching with greedy claws for anything in their path.
Wind. The force beating at her. Coming out of nowhere, hurtling with the force of a hurricane. Whipping up debris and rock, whirling and spinning, drawing everything into the mindless vortex to throw at her.
Rain. Not just any rain. Acid rain. It dripped from above, burning through everything it touched, including the hideous birds so they shrieked and cried but kept coming at her to attack.
Blue darted in, under cover of the dark and shadows, slipping right past Vasile as he cast his spells, one right after the other, determined to kill his sister. The cat bit down on the collar holding Phantom prisoner. Phantom remained very still, his gaze locked on Isai, who waited patiently as Blue began to chew through the thick leather. His sharp teeth made short work of the tight collar. The moment Phantom was free, Blue slowly ducked back into the shadows, indicating that the other male should follow him. Phantom began to follow and then, at the last moment when he would have found freedom, whirled around and leapt toward Vasile.
The mage whipped around, snarling, his face twisted into a mask of hatred and rage. He slammed pure power at the shadow cat, knocking it from the air in midleap. Phantom screamed in pain and hit the ground hard, to lie there panting. Vasile thrust power a second time, but it hit an invisible shield and bounced back at him. Vasile staggered backward, whirled in a circle, throwing up a barrier between his personal power and whatever or whoever had come to the cat’s aid. He took a careful look around.
Phantom just blew it for us, Julija, Isai informed her. I had to shield him in order to keep him from getting killed. As it is, I do not know how badly he is injured. Vasile has cocooned himself behind a barricade making it impossible to strike at him.
Are you safe?
Julija had multiple problems and she didn’t want to completely annihilate Vasile’s spells, which meant when she protected herself, she had to be careful. She couldn’t completely destroy or reverse the spells. She needed them. The delicate net that she’d thrown, so subtle Vasile hadn’t felt it, was already working to form a circle around each of the spells her brother had cast.
She threw a net over her head to protect herself from the low-flying birds and then added a shelter above the birds to keep the acid rain from hitting them. The wind was less problematic because