The third magic storm whirled across a barren slope of Reaper’s Ridge and headed straight for us less than five minutes later. Oliver whistled a warning, giving us time to stop on a plateau of sandstone before the storm rolled over a gully into view, its snaking coils of earth and water covering over eighty feet of ground and moving so fast we had no chance of escape. It ripped up the ground, spewing gravel in its wake and hurtling hail in every direction. The few spindly trees in its path cracked and splintered.
“It’s too big,” I said. My knees felt like wet sand, and I locked them. “If we try to shield against it, it’ll flatten us.”
“We need to weaken it.”
“How?”
“Unravel it. Come on.” Marcus grabbed my hand and pulled me into a stumbling run toward the oncoming storm.
“What are you doing?!”
“Giving us a head start. Link up.”
I thrust magic to him as I finally got my feet under me. He didn’t slow our sprint until the pebble-size hail stung our faces.
“Concentrate on earth,” he said. “Anywhere it’s wrapped around water, loosen it.”
“Me? Don’t you want to do it?”
“It’s your element. Get to work.”
“But . . .”
“Unless you want to let it hurt the gargoyles.”
I grabbed hold of the link. The elements came in a rush, enhanced by the dormant gargoyles and Marcus. His magic signature—a rosewood shield wrapped in flames and sparks of lightning—sat in my head with the same solid, comforting presence as his fighter’s stance at my side.
Reaching for the first cable of wild earth felt like sticking my hand into a fire and trying to grab a particular flame. The raw element writhed around my magic, eating away my control. I sliced it, cutting a piece of earth from the bundle. The severed end dissipated.
“Just like that. Keep going. Don’t stop, no matter what.”
Working on the outer perimeter of the storm where I had a remote chance of seeing what I was doing, I hacked twists of earth as fast as I identified them. With the snarl of water and earth swallowing the hillside, I had no shortage of options, but no matter how fast I sliced through the earth strands, more always took their place, many of which were too tightly bound to the writhing water to budge.
I faltered for only a second when Marcus scooped me up, then redoubled my efforts as he retreated.
“It’s not going to be enough.” We were almost to the sled, and though I’d reduced the storm to one-tenth its original size, it loomed twice as large as the first storm we’d tackled. It hadn’t slowed, either. Hail battered us, the tiny beads of ice sharp as finger flicks against my exposed face and hands. I squinted against the dust and sand, holding a hand over my eyes to shield them.
Dipping into our linked magic, Marcus enclosed our upper bodies in an air bubble, shielding us from the elements. Without setting me down, he pulled the anchor rod from its loop at his waist and hurled it into the ground, stamping it into place.
“My turn,” Marcus said, tugging on the power of the link. I relinquished it in time for him to wrap a shield of fire and water around us, Celeste, and the cart of gargoyles. It wouldn’t be enough, but we didn’t have another option.
8
The storm slapped against the shield and shattered it in a single blow, hurtling Marcus and me into the air. We slammed to the ground a half-dozen feet from the sled.
Wild magic pinged between the helpless dormant gargoyles, battering them with stones and hail. Celeste fought free of the rope and the storm, scrambling up the hillside to safety.
The storm should have swept over the cart and continued across the ridge, but it didn’t. With almost predatory focus, it attacked the dormant gargoyles. Desperate, I seized control of the magic in the link again and resumed my assault on the storm, slashing and yanking on the tangles of earth.
When I grabbed a strand that pulsed like tainted quartz, I dropped it, shocked. The rest of the wild magic had been pure, undiluted earth. This was tuned—malignant and sharp, but tuned. I scrambled to find it again, and this time I cut through the flawed magic with a sharp slash.
The last of the wild water flattened, and the storm billowed above the dormant gargoyles like a fluffed sheet, then settled onto them and disappeared.
I collapsed. Marcus grunted when my head hit his chest. I froze, taking a quick assessment of my location. Crap. I’d landed on top of him when the storm blasted us.
“Oh! Are you okay?” I asked, rolling to the side. Gravel bit into my hands and knees.
“Fine.” He groaned as he sat up. I pushed to my feet and gave him a hand to help him up. Considering he weighed twice as much as me, it was more a token offering than actual help.
“Sorry about that. Again.” This wasn’t the first time an explosion had ended up with me using him as a cushion. I circled him, remembering the injuries he’d sustained when he’d protected me in Focal Park. The spell in his shirt had held this time, and his back was merely dirty. “I didn’t plan on making it a habit.”
He snorted and drew his sword, checking its length. I winced in sympathy at the bruise its sheath had probably left on his back. His shirt wouldn’t have protected against that.
I stumbled back to the gargoyles, two inches of hail crunching underfoot. I tested all seven twice before I believed my readings.
“They’re okay,” I said. Cut up and abraded from the flying rocks, but their internal balance wasn’t skewed, as I’d feared.
“They’re better than okay. They’re stronger.”
I glanced at Marcus, surprised by his accurate guess, then realized we hadn’t broken our link. Letting our connection unravel, I said, “I felt something in the storm. At the end. Did you catch it?”
“The repulsive bit of earth?”
“I think it was the baetyl’s warped magic.”
“That makes sense. If all these storms are coming from the baetyl, they should be tainted with it.”
“It fits with our theory of why the storms are attracted to the dormant gargoyles.”
“Rourke hasn’t been this healthy in years,” Celeste said, showering us with sand and ice when she shook out her wings.
After getting her permission, I checked her with a tuned blend of the elements. Celeste had a few scratches but was otherwise unharmed.