Guardians of the Boundary (Book 3 of The Conjurors Series)

Chapter 15

Valerie woke at sunrise the next morning and decided to find Azra. The unicorn's advice always grounded her, and she also wanted to make sure that Azra's pregnancy was progressing well. She knew that Azra lived in the woods of Arden, not far from the Lake of Knowledge, so she headed there alone.

Tramping through The Horseshoe, she didn't see a soul awake yet, and she had a rare moment of peace. Being alone was different when she was choosing it, instead of all the years it had been forced upon her in foster care.

The hairs on Valerie's arms rose, and her adrenaline spiked. She whipped her head around, looking for the threat that her body sensed, but she didn't see anything.

She continued through the winding streets of Silva and saw a few Conjurors who were awake as well, but no one paid any attention to her. She couldn't shake the nervous energy that filled her, making her palms sweat and the magic she had been collecting at Oberon's instruction bubble to the surface. If someone was after her, they were in for a surprise.

When she was just inside the tree line, she stopped and turned around. If she was being silly, there was no one to see her.

"I know you're there. Come out and tell me what you want," she said in her strongest voice.

It was almost a relief when Rastelli stepped out from behind a tree that was several yards away. Her entire body hummed with magic, and she knew that she wouldn't need Henry this time to defeat Rastelli.

"You don't belong here," Rastelli said, his voice strained. The wildness she remembered from when he attacked Cyrus was back in his eyes, but he was muttering quietly, as if he were having an inner argument with himself.

"Leave her alone, this isn't who you are," he said, but his eyes burned with hate as he stared at her.

Valerie didn't let her pity slow her reaction this time when Rastelli shot lightning from his staff to her chest. She ducked and rolled, and the bolt missed her and hit a tree.

She gracefully leapt to her feet and wrenched the weapon from his hands. Rastelli hummed with power, but with her own magic singing in her veins, he couldn't touch her.

"It's true. You ARE getting better," Ani's voice made Valerie turn, and Rastelli tried to hit her in her still bruised face.

But with her magic at full power, dodging the blow, even while distracted, was simple. She elbowed Rastelli in the gut while she responded.

"What are you after?" Valerie asked, hoping to delay Ani before she used her power. Ani was a siren, so her power would attack Valerie where she was weakest—her mind.

"I thought that would be obvious," Ani said.

Valerie reached for her locus. She only needed a minute to knock out Rastelli and then reach Ani with her mind at her own command in order to disable her. She doubted that the siren had the ability to withstand Valerie's fighting power.

As quickly as she had the thought, she wrenched Rastelli's staff from his hands and hit him in the head. He crumpled to the ground.

Ani had begun singing, and Valerie focused on an image of Pathos in her mind as hard as she could. But the beautiful notes of the song were haunting, even if she didn't understand the words. It was as if Ani was singing about Valerie's deepest longing, absorbing her loneliness. Trying to block out the song was like staying cooped up inside when it was a beautiful, sunny day.

Valerie couldn't remember why she was fighting the song, but she trusted herself. She'd made a plan, and she was sticking to it. But what had it been? The sight of Rastelli, unconscious and bleeding on the ground, gave her a reality check. She gathered up the magic that she had been pooling inside of herself during her training with her father and hurled it outward.