Arcane Island by Angela Knight

Author:Angela Knight [Knight, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIN 010318-03351
Publisher: Changeling Press LLC
Published: 2022-04-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Ariel

The next night, the audience filled the seats under the spotlights as the other teams gathered beneath their banners. Jackson’s guards watched for hopefully imaginary keyboard terrorists. The whole enchilada was surrounded by cameras, some on tripods, some shoulder-mounted. A drone looped, buzzing, overhead.

Our team took our places. Every last one of us had something to prove.

After the little stunt the Sorcerers’ Arcanist had pulled, Dave and Kordell had added even more flourishes to the act. I’d carefully walked the entire area before the shoot, looking for any more Arc booby traps, but I didn’t find any. Evidently Zoe and Kieran weren’t as stupid as I’d feared.

They were still going to wish they hadn’t fucked with us.

It took a lot to make Kordell mad, but he’d had time to think about what they’d tried to do to him. Whatever stage fright he’d suffered from was gone, burned away by his anger.

He waited for his cue concealed in the trees, wearing only a pair of black Speedos. A misting of baby oil called attention to the lean, rolling muscle of his body, accentuated by the tiger stripes I’d applied in magical paint.

I knelt on the sand in the center of a circle designed to help me generate the act’s magical effects. The four sigils Dave taught me rotated among the rest, forcing my aura to flow in fast, even currents. I was dressed in a black spandex body suit provided by the costume department. Black makeup covered my face and hands, so I looked like a shadow surrounded by rotating light.

Raven took her place out on the darkened beach, her guitar in her hands. The Bard wore a thigh-length black silk dress covered in appliqués of swirling gold that made her look as lithe as a reed. Long strands of metallic black and gold fringe shimmered and swayed around her legs as she moved. She’d dyed her pixie-cut hair in metallic gold and black streaks that made her eyes look enormous.

Dave’s drums sounded first, softly at first, slowly, establishing the rhythm. Raven’s fingers danced over the guitar strings as I sent sigils streaming through the night to spiral around her body. Their soft glow illuminated her ageless face as she began to sing, starting low and soft, the volume gradually increasing as her voice soared toward the higher reaches of her impressive range.

Deep in my Feral heart

Where all my passions start,

I feel your magic’s call.

I want to give you all,

All my Feral heart.

Kordell raced toward her out of the darkness. Every time his long, bare feet hit the sand, his painted stripes pulsed with magic, shedding comet trails of sparks that drifted behind him.

Smilodon roared and exploded from the palms in a surge of muscular power. Even the judges gasped as the huge Amur tiger bounded toward him.

Kordell threw himself into the air, flying right over the tiger’s head. He hit the ground rolling and sprang to his feet to dance around Raven in time to the pounding beat of Dave’s drums.

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