My first challenge involved crossing a passageway of spelled telekinetic swords. The path was tight, leaving little room to maneuver around the belligerent swords. I lifted my own sword to parry the strikes, each clash of the blades exploding with telekinetic magic that tore down my arms, rumbling to my core. The surges of psychic energy upset my balance, my equilibrium. I stumbled sideways, twisting my ankle as I hit the wall. Gritting my teeth, I pushed forward and endured, fighting through the swords to the very end.
The next obstacle followed immediately, allowing no respite. The walls of the labyrinth moved, constantly shifting, making it damn near impossible to navigate. As I was trying to find some pattern in the seeming chaos, a wall slammed into me, as though the labyrinth had grown impatient with me to move faster through the challenges. It must have been programmed by an angel.
The walls began moving faster. They were twirling and spinning all around me. I ran, sliding and diving between them, trying to make my way through the course. I avoided a wall, only to have another slam into me. It felt like being hit with a hammer of telekinetic magic. As I shook the pain from my body, another wall closed behind me. I was trapped.
Moving in and out, the walls slammed into me from all sides with fists of thunder. I felt like I was being beaten down by an angry street mob. The barrage was relentless, the force of the telekinetic punches knocking me down.
My knees hit the floor. A wall loomed high above me, suspended in the air. Then it bellyflopped to the ground. I jumped out of the way, my body creaking in protest as I pushed it faster, narrowly avoiding the spinning walls. Black splotches danced in front of my eyes in a dizzying kaleidoscope.
I was lost. Even after months of training, this branch of magic was confounding, my resistance to it nonexistent. But thankfully I was quick. All that training with angels had paid off. I spotted an opening in the dancing wall parade, and I took it, slipping through. I could see the end of the course, the exit from my misery. I sprinted toward it.
I burst out of the course, dodging its final farewell kiss. Then I stood there and stared back at the moving, shifting obstacles. Catching my breath, I brushed my hand across my bruised skin. My body looked like a truck had driven over me—then backed up and rolled over me again for good measure. When something with telekinetic magic hit me, it really hurt, more so than any other branch of magic I’d faced so far. It was pure torture.
Get moving, Pandora. If you’re still standing, you can do it all again, Nero’s voice said in my head.
I chuckled, wondering if it was really his voice, if he was really still close enough to speak into my mind. Probably not. He must have been long gone by now. My mind was just conjuring what I needed to keep going. Harsh as Nero was in training, there was something remarkably comforting about hearing his voice chastise me for slacking off.
You’re right, I told Nero. It didn’t matter if it was really him.
Taking a deep, calming breath, I lowered into my knees and got ready to tackle the obstacle course again.
A crack of magic exploded in my face.
“Leda Pierce,” said a deep voice.
The blinding splotches of light slowly faded from my vision, and then I saw him: the Lord of the Legion of Angels, one of the seven ruling gods of heaven. He was also known as the God of War and the God of Earth’s Army. And he was standing right in front of me.
12
Magic and Counter Magic
“Ronan,” I said in surprise.
His dark obsidian eyes watched me closely. The last time I’d seen him, they’d been green. Gods seemed to change their features like they were jewelry. The black color matched his dark armor better.
“Thank you for the fashion advice.”
Oops. I wasn’t watching my thoughts. That was a bare necessity when conversing with gods.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“Curiosity. Telekinesis is giving you trouble.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugged. “The gods are keeping a close eye on you.”
Great. I felt like I was under a microscope. Despite what the Pilgrims would have us all believe, I knew the gods were not all-knowing and all-seeing, but they did have eyes and ears everywhere. The question was how often they were watching. I hoped they had better things to do than to keep me under constant observation, but it wouldn’t take 24/7 surveillance to realize I’d been having trouble with Psychic’s Spell. I’d been working on it for months, after all, and I didn’t feel any closer to cracking it.
“And also, Nyx told me,” Ronan added.
The First Angel had been watching me since I’d joined the Legion. She thought she could make an angel out of me, and my inability to advance further had thrown a monkey wrench into her well-laid plans.
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” Ronan said.
Before I could react, he hit me with a psychic blast that threw me clear across the gym. Even as I was falling, he followed up with a crushing telekinetic weight that smashed into me from above, slamming me into the floor. I felt two bones break in my ribcage, and black stars spun in front of my eyes.
The next thing I knew, I was on the floor. Ronan was crouched beside me, healing my wounds.
“You didn’t last long,” he commented, helping me to my feet.
Still seeing stars, I snapped back, “You’re a god. The fight wasn’t a fair one.”
“You’ve jumped into more than your fair share of unfair fights. That never seemed to stop you.”
“That’s different. You didn’t give me time to develop a strategy.”
His dark brows arched. “And what kind of strategy could you possibly devise that would work against a god?”
“I’d think of something. Like throwing sand in your eyes. Even gods have to see to fight. In fact, the better your senses, the more sensitive you are.”
Ronan laughed. Then he stepped back, lowering fluidly into a fighting pose. “Enough advance warning for you?”
I looked around the gym, searching for anything that might help me against a god. I came up short. My options were limited. And I was seriously underpowered.
So when he attacked, I just did my best to not fall on my ass this time. Rather than countering his telekinetic punches, I danced away, evading.
“Running away isn’t a viable strategy. I expected more from you,” he chided me.
He moved fast, his fists a blur. Too fast to follow. Too fast to avoid. He slipped past my defenses and pounded my head with a psychic punch, his fist powered with an extra dose of magic. I blacked out.
When I came to, Ronan was staring down at me. “I told you running away isn’t a viable strategy. I’m faster than you. My magic is faster than yours. If I were a hostile enemy, you would already be dead.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’re the kind and cuddly God of War.”
He laughed again. “You need to commit to the fight,” he said as I stood. “You’re distracted.”
“I have a lot on my mind.”
I told him about my experience interrogating the two mercenaries today—and the high I’d felt from the power I held over them. Even as I prattled on, confessing my sins, I wondered why I was opening up to Ronan. He couldn’t possibly understand.
But he surprised me by saying, “Nyx struggled with the same thing.”
“Really?”
Nyx always seemed to know exactly what she was doing, like she was totally committed to every decision. She never wavered, and she never lost control.
“Nyx wasn’t always like that,” Ronan told me, picking up on my thoughts again. “She was raised by her mother’s family, humans. She only later came to train with the gods. It was a big change for her.”
That certainly explained Nyx’s more human qualities. She had a sort of duality—so human one moment, and the next, so inhuman, so like the gods.
“How did Nyx get past the indecision?” I asked Ronan.
“You have to believe in what you’re doing, that it’s for the best.”
“Even when what I know is right contradicts what the Legion wants?”
“This is about your sisters,” he said.
“Yes, but it’s not only about them. My duty to save lives, especially my sisters’ lives, will always outweigh catching the bad guy. I can catch him later. I can’t bring someone back to life once they’re dead, though.”