Free mythean arcana 06 - master of fate by Linsey Hall Page B

ankles.
    “Normally she’d walk,” Aurora said. “Or if she was feeling lazy, turn herself into smoke and travel that way. It’s loads easier, since her energy is connected to the aether. But it looks like she’s going to take you up on the offer of a ride-along.”
    Felix nodded and threw the pack on over his shoulders. Mouse leapt agilely into it. As when it was strapped to the snowmobile, her face peeked out the entrance hole. This time she looked backward. Aurora grinned.
    Felix strapped on his skis and picked up his poles. “All right, let’s go.”
    “Commence reconnaissance,” she said.
    They set off across the snow. She was awkward as hell, but she watched him and mirrored his movements. His stride was powerful and long, but he held back for her. Her speed improved and she had to agree that this was easier than walking through the snow.
    The tingling on her skin increased as they approached the soulceress city. They’d had to stop the snowmobile farther away today and only now was the city coming into view on the horizon. In the daylight, it loomed gray and menacing. It no longer looked like the strange wonderland she remembered from childhood.
    Then, the city had been abandoned, but the buildings and streets had been magically protected by the souls of soulceresses who had not been able to leave. She and her sister had released the souls last year. Though the souls were now free, which was a good thing, their departure had had a devastating effect on the city. 
    It now lay in ruins, their magic no longer preserving it, a gloomy shell of the place it had once been. The tall walls that surrounded the city were damaged and crumbling, as were some of the tall buildings within. It was a labyrinthine place, full of winding stone streets and walls of buildings that rose high into the air. 
    When they were about half a mile away, the great stone walls loomed. 
    “Do you feel that?” Felix called. Mouse had climbed partially out of her carrier and was leaning on his shoulder, peering at the city walls. Apparently Felix’s issues with touch didn’t extend to felines.
    They were only a few hundred yards away now. She could see down one of the winding city streets where the wall had crumbled. Empty. Snow fluttered along the street.
    “Yeah,” she said. “I feel it all right.” 
    The magic that had made her skin tingle when they’d stopped the snowmobile was stronger than it had been, reaching farther out from the city. It had a different tone too, something so strong she could almost breathe it into her lungs. This wasn’t the protective spell the soulceresses had once placed on their city. It should be the magic from her portal gone haywire, if the university reports were correct. But it didn’t feel like hers. 
    “Stop!” she shouted. “Something’s not right.”
    The magic pulsed around her, dark and unfamiliar. Mouse meowed plaintively.
    “Go back. We need to go—”
    An unseen force grabbed her, enveloping her whole body as the world became a blur of color. She was pulled toward the great stone walls of the city at what felt like hundreds of miles per hour. She passed through a gap in the walls and flew down a street that had been decayed to rubble. It all passed by so fast that she could make out no details.
    She had only a second to process that she had been dragged into the city’s great square before the aether pressed down on her and she was shot into the familiar darkness that would carry her to another location. Moments later, she tumbled to the ground. 
    Painfully, she sucked air into her lungs and opened her eyes. She lay on her side in the middle of some type of forest. There was no snow on the ground. 
    She kicked out of the only ski still attached and scrambled to her feet. “Mouse!”
    A rustle of leaves. Aurora spun. Mouse streaked toward her and leapt into her arms, a warm ball of black fur and a sniffing nose that rubbed against her neck, purrs muffled. A dozen feet away,