Metal Mage 5, page 31
“What enchantment?” I mumbled.
“No one can hear us,” the half-elf informed me, “but if they see us, we’re fucked so--”
The three women suddenly halted, and I forced my eyes open once more.
Baroness Batonova stood a few feet in front of us, and her face was an unreadable but striking mask against the blackened jungle. Then she cast her two-toned eyes toward the ferns at our right, and I followed them to find a silver-haired elf stalking carefully through the trees.
Onym held his saber in front of him and moved without making a sound while he scanned the shadows along the base of the house with his serpentine eyes.
The women clutched tighter around me, and my heart thrummed wildly in my chest as I realized the rifle on my back was empty, along with the revolver on my hip. The women had their bows, but their hands were currently occupied with holding me up.
I turned my attention to the silent Baroness as the path Onym wove through the ferns curved closer to where the four of us stood.
I’d wondered when I’d find out who’s side the obscure woman was really on, and I had a sinking feeling in my gut as I realized I was about to find out.
The sultry woman stood there as nonchalant as if we’d all come to take a stroll in the moonlight together, and she lifted her hand to the crook of her waist as she considered the silver-haired elf who steadily wove his way toward her.
Then the air sparked softly around us, and I felt a curious sensation like a silky veil shifted across my skin. It sent a gentle shiver down my spine, and I narrowed my eyes toward the Tenebrae Mage in front of us.
I only hoped she hadn’t removed her enchantments, but as Onym paused briefly and listened to the blackened jungle, he tilted his chin in our direction and walked forward.
Every breath I managed was a ragged one, and the effort I made to quiet them made no difference to my mangled esophagus. So, when my sights locked with the sinister black eyes of the elf for a brief second, my heart damn near stopped.
Onym squinted through the dappled moonlight and came to another cautious stop, but as he looked on through the trees, I finally realized he couldn’t see us there at all.
Then he turned once more, and his saber stopped a few inches shy of the Tenebrae Mage.
She stood in a wash of shadow directly before him, and the shoulders of the elf slowly rose as he drew a deep breath. Then his deadly mask instantly relaxed into recognition at the tangy scent of the exotic woman, and the saber lowered to his side.
“Nulena?” Onym asked softly.
The Baroness looked up as if to admire the stark line of his jaw, and her lips curled pleasantly as she dragged her eyes along the slope of his neck and his broad shoulders. Her countenance softened the longer she considered him, and she looked like she wanted to pull him into her arms as she took a single step forward.
Onym’s eyes grew hungrier as they scanned the trees, and he breathed deeply as if the smell of her overran his senses.
Then I noticed the glint of the slender blade the Baroness had slid from the back of her thigh, and her teeth flashed briefly into a cruel smile before she drove the dagger into the elf’s heart.
Onym’s body went rigid as he jolted, and his face twisted in a mixture of shock and pain. Then he slowly looked down.
In the moonlight that fell around him, the only thing visible was the dagger buried in his chest and a delicate, inky black hand that extended from the shadows.
The lips of the silver-haired elf tried to form words, but his shoulders seized before he could, and he fell to the ground without a sound.
We were all locked together in silent shock when the Baroness turned toward us.
She slowly strolled over and brought herself before me, and I carefully studied the cast of her eyes as she reached her slender arm out.
There was nothing in her expression to confuse me now, and she let her lips curl into a coy smile as she gently grazed her fingertips along the throbbing muscles of my throat.
“Shoshanne,” she murmured, and she glanced to the Aer Mage who gaped from my side. “Tend to him quickly. He is in great need of your attention.”
Shoshanne gave a little nod, and the shadowy woman chuckled as she sent a wink to the others.
Then we watched the Baroness stroll off through the trees to the east, and after a moment, she’d faded into the shadows completely.
Chapter 21
“You’re sure they were all new runes?” Aurora clarified, and I roused myself enough to nod.
Cayla’s plush skin was still pressed along me as she curled under my arm, and Shoshanne carefully stitched my exposed thigh closed for the second time that day.
I’d promised I would only lie there, but I’d never been able to resist the desperate thrusts of the porcelain beauty, and I smirked to myself as I slid my finger along her spine.
Aurora’s breasts pressed against my other side, but she’d been fully focused on details ever since I’d finished with her, and this was probably the third time she’d circled back to this one.
“I feel like they have to be somewhere on these pages,” she groaned as she shuffled the parchment on her lap. “We could spend days looking through these though and still not know what they say.”
The meticulous markings on the parchment appeared to be a mixture of elvish and runes, and there were a few areas that looked like a bird had waltzed up and smeared its feet all over the place. I’d been disappointed at first, but I’d warmed up to the challenge of deciphering whatever the hell the leader of House Syru had been up to. The prospect of possibly figuring out something even the Master didn’t know yet was too good to miss out on.
I let out a sigh and was pleased to find the strange tea Shoshanne forced me to drink actually soothed the muscles in my throat. I could swallow without wincing again, and there was only a light wheezing when I filled my lungs now.
“Hey, it’s a start,” I pointed out, and I stroked the half-elf’s thigh. “We’ll find someone we can trust to decipher the markings, and hopefully they’re not the guy’s taxes or something.”
“There’s the hitch,” Cayla sighed. “Someone we can trust in Nalnora … ”
“The Baroness knows Elvish,” Aurora casually offered, and I felt all three pairs of eyes turn to me.
I shrugged. “I mean … ” I mused. “That’s a maybe.”
Aurora snorted and exchanged a glance with Cayla, but I just sighed and let my head fall back against the tree. The feel of the Baroness’ silky touch on my neck had come to mind more than once that day, but so had the loving smile she’d given Onym right before she murdered him.
I shivered slightly at the memory of her name falling from his lips and turned my thoughts in a more calming direction.
That woman was very dangerous.
We’d found a small glade with a brook that curled amongst the mossy undergrowth beside a small embankment of rocks, and the sound of the water combined with the soft skin of my women pressed against my own almost made it easy to forget the near death I’d escaped.
Almost.
I opened my eyes and admired the copper curls of the caramel beauty as she tied off her string once more and gave a little nod to the newly sutured wound.
“You’re an angel,” I told her, and she sent me a light blush.
“You already said that,” the Aer Mage chuckled. Her creamy legs were tucked beneath her plush backend, and I admired the heavy undersides of her breasts as she reached across me to get her healer’s bag.
“Well, it’s as true now as it was the last five times I told you,” I replied. “Seriously. You fucking saved me with that shuriken. How the hell did you manage to get him right in the carotid?”
Shoshanne gave a shrug that jostled her breasts beautifully, but I could tell she was feeling anything but modest. “Once the Baroness led us to the fortress, the walls were already gone,” she explained. “At first we thought we’d go in through the entrance and find our way to you, but Aurora could hear what was going on, and we knew we wouldn’t be able to make it through the angry guards at the door of the chamber.”
“Or the door itself, for that matter,” Aurora told me. “You’re the Metal Mage.”
Shoshanne nodded. “But I knew I could help if I could just get my aim, and then I remembered the way you’d used your Terra Magic to sense the ambush at House Quyn.”
“Wait a minute,” I interrupted, and I furrowed my brow. “You connected with your Aer Magic as much as I’ve been doing lately? Already?”
The caramel beauty blushed as she nodded, and Aurora sent me a pointed look.
“You’re not the only one ahead of the game,” the half-elf said with a smirk.
“No shit,” I mused, and I turned to the blushing Aer Mage. “What was it like?”
“Amazing,” she breathed, and her eyes sparkled briefly with excitement before she furrowed her brow. “And disorienting. I recognized the way your lungs were struggling first, and I tried to fill them but I couldn’t do it with his grip on you. His magic was too strong.”
I nodded in agreement. “Then why didn’t you just move on to his lungs?” I asked.
Now Shoshanne looked worried. “I tried,” she admitted. “It was strange. I couldn’t get to them, he had some sort of strange fortress around him. Like my magery couldn’t seep through his skin.”
“That’s a terrifying thought,” Cayla muttered, and she flicked her blue eyes toward me. “Was it the same for you?”
I shrugged. “My powers don’t have any effect on the body,” I explained, “but he deflected my Terra and Metal magic in a more exterior way. I’d attack, and then he’d deflect whatever I threw his way. I did manage to get his metal chain into a noose, but he just snapped the metal.”
The princess grimaced nervously.
“So …” I prompted as I turned back to the Aer Mage, and she blinked a few times to clear her own thoughts.
“Right,” she muttered. “So anyway, I couldn’t get to his lungs, but I know the carotid arteries are roughly six inches above the crest of the lungs on an average man, so I just sent my breeze there when I threw the shuriken.” The caramel beauty shrugged once more as she finished, and I raised my eyebrows at her cleverness.
“Angel,” I assured her once more.
Shoshanne blushed, and her warm brown eyes sparkled up at me. “I merely distracted him,” she insisted. “You were the one to deal the killing blow.”
Still, the caramel beauty gave a little bounce of pride as she carried on digging through her bag, and I chuckled.
Then her hand pulled a half empty vial of berries out, and she leveled me with a much less charming expression once she’d gotten a closer look at the contents.
“How many of these did you eat?” she asked sternly.
I looked up innocently. “Hmm?” I asked.
The Aer Mage narrowed her eyes, and then she firmly buried the vial of Tiorlin berries in the depths of her healer’s bag.
I struggled to hide the smirk on my face at the sight of her irritation, and I let my tensions ease another measure as I rested my head against the tree at my back. “Now we just need to move on to phase two,” I sighed.
“What’s phase two?” Cayla asked curiously.
I grinned. “No fucking idea, but it’s probably gonna suck in at least a few ways.”
“Or more,” Aurora agreed. “Those elves at House Syru are gonna be after you worse than Natyr were. Especially if the Master moves right in and takes over where their own leader left off. I’m not looking forward to seeing what that would come to.”
I thought back to the maniacal strength of the runed warriors and frowned. “Well … at least he’s lost his most valuable asset,” I replied. “It sounded like he was relying a lot on the knowledge of the leader of House Syru, and regardless of what he’s learned so far, there’s a good chance he’s stuck wherever that partnership left off.”
“What if he was only one of the Master’s mentors?” Cayla asked uneasily, but I didn’t even want to consider the idea of what could be gained from having more than one mentor as powerful as the leader of House Syru.
“Let’s take this one shit storm at a time,” I chuckled.
“But there’s also Onym’s father,” Shoshanne added in a low voice. “He’ll assume it was you who killed Onym, and he may want revenge.” She sounded almost sorry about the fate of the silver-haired elf, and although I loved her for her tender heart, I really couldn’t relate on this one.
Onym was a ruthless shit who tried to kill me more times than I could count. If there was anything that had guaranteed the downfall of House Natyr, it was the Baroness killing the viper off for good. Even if Oryk was still alive, Onym was the stronger of the two, and with him dead, the House of Natyr had been dealt a serious blow.
“I wouldn’t worry about House Natyr,” I assured the caramel beauty. “They’ve fallen quite a few pegs since we arrived in Nalnora, and only Onym would have been obsessed enough to carry on with the odds they’re up against now. I don’t think they’ll be a trouble to anyone for a long time. They don’t even have enough elves to try.”
Cayla sighed and rested her head against my shoulder. “I just hope we can decipher these pages in time,” she muttered. “The thought of the kingdoms being enslaved by the Master is just … ” The princess gave a shudder, and I curled my arm around her.
“Hey, we’ve got this,” I promised. “Rune magic is powerful as hell in the wrong hands, but imagine what it could be in the right ones. Maybe we have no idea what that looks like right now, but I’m betting we’ll figure it out. We just need to keep at it.”
Cayla raised her bright blue eyes up toward me and sent me a small smile.
I cocked a brow and flicked my sights to her deep pink nipples before I leaned in for a kiss. The princess slid her tongue teasingly along my lip with a light giggle, and I groaned as she trailed her finger along the ridge of my cock.
Then Aurora gasped as a high-pitched whistle flicked past my ear, followed by a low thud.
I whipped my head around and found a pale feathered dart impaled in the trunk of the tree only inches from my head, and there was a slim piece of parchment attached to the tip.
“Seriously?” I demanded. I couldn’t be sure if it was the same dart I’d seen once before since I had gone unconscious seconds later, but if it was, I’d just come within inches of being tranquilized again.
I turned to Shoshanne. “I don’t think my body could take a damn thing more right now.”
The healer sent me a vigorous nod and reached up to pluck the dart from the tree.
Aurora caught the parchment that fell while the Aer Mage sniffed curiously at the tip of the dart.
I watched Shoshanne closely as she did, and the woman crinkled her brow at me with an apologetic smile. “At least it didn’t hit you … ” she tried.
I shook my head and ground my jaw at the gall of the southern elves.
Aurora had already started on the letter by the time I glanced over, and I recognized the smug smirk on her face.
“Well,” she mused happily as she read. “Someone’s certainly changed their tune.”
“What is it?” Cayla asked eagerly.
“It’s from the leader of House Quyn,” the half-elf replied. “He says they’d be honored to receive you in their home during you time in Nalnora given your efforts for the good of the elven race.”
“Damn right they’d be honored,” I muttered. The notion of not roughing it in the wilds of the jungle for a while definitely sounded nice, but I was still a bit chaffed about the arrogance of House Quyn, and the freshly laced dart hadn’t exactly warmed me up toward them.
Aurora skimmed through a few lines quietly to herself before she sat up straighter. “Wait … seriously?” she murmured.
I leaned closer to try and see the letter. “What?” I asked uneasily.
An eager grin spread on Aurora’s lips, and she turned her emerald eyes to mine. “The head of House Aelin is there and wishes to have a conversation with you regarding rune magic,” she finished hastily, and she let out a giggle at the thought. “He’s the one with the light blue hair, remember? The one who’s house was one of the first four in Nalnora.”
“Holy shit,” I breathed. “That’s perfect.”
Cayla reached for the pile of parchment from House Syru and studied the strange markings once more. “An ancient household,” she mused. “He’d have to be able to tell us something about these pages as well.”
As she said this, I remembered the slip of the tongue I’d heard from Dragir outside the jungle house only a few days earlier, and I slowly propped myself up as I searched my memory for the exact words.
“House Quyn cannot risk their knowledge falling into his hands,” I finally muttered before I swiftly got to my feet and hopped over the creek.
I didn’t bother to grab my clothes as I dove into the ferns and scanned all over for a sign of whoever had thrown the dart. I had to stop after only a minute, and I fought to catch my breath as my lungs protested. I hadn’t felt this weakened in ages, and I cursed at the pain that seized my throat while I braced my weight against a tree. I’d have to get back into shape fast if I was going to be ready for the wrath of the Master after this last blow, but if Dragir’s words meant what I’d guessed, and the head of House Aelin could offer his assistance as well, I had a feeling I’d just outstripped the Master for mentors in Nalnora.
I gritted my teeth and steadied my breathing as I turned in a full circle. I could only see endless ferns stretching in every direction, but as I continued to scan the jungle, my eye caught on a wisp of grey.
I quickly climbed a felled log and craned my neck, and through the thick fronds I could just make out the back of an elf running off toward the south nearly twenty yards away.
“Dragir,” I growled, and he suddenly came to a stop and turned.
Dragir sent me a condescending smirk as he found me standing naked as a jay on a log. Then he rolled his eyes, and I could have sworn his skin flickered for the briefest moment.
