Soaring in Air: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Magic of Nasci Book 5) by DM Fike

Author:DM Fike [Fike, DM]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Avalon Labs LLC
Published: 2020-11-17T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

IT TOOK ME two wisp channels and ten minutes of sprinting to reach Whittaker Creek. It dawned on me as I ran that Rafe could have taken the same path to get there. I wished I had one of Sipho’s defensive charms to protect me from an ambush, but I settled on redirecting pith toward rounded trapezoids over my torso and face. The defensive sigils tied up some of my already limited pith stores, but it was better than nothing.

The earthquake’s epicenter lay south of the campground, far away from the service road. Most of the rolling hills held densely packed forests, until suddenly they did not. I found a bulldozed patch of woods, completely flat for yards around. A jagged crack of earth ran right down the center, a fiery glow emitting from within.

I inhaled a breath. Everything looked eerily similar to the crevasse at Noti. This had to be where Rafe had gone.

I stayed within the tree line, waiting for him to appear. Nothing. I almost expected another shepherd or at least one of Guntram’s ravens to make an entrance but still nothing. In fact, besides the occasional gurgle of lava, the place stayed unnaturally quiet, not even animals scurrying under the sunshine.

Vulnerable like Bambi’s mother, I tiptoed out into the open. Crossing the distance to peer down into the chasm, I shivered as I contemplated the taffy-like ropes boiling below. Tabitha had jumped into that flesh-dissolving goo to seal Nasci away from Rafe. She gave her life. And yet, it hadn’t worked.

“How can I do this if she couldn’t?” I asked the lava.

As if in response, Rafe’s face seemed to float underneath the lava. He appeared peaceful, eyes closed, mouth relaxed. At first, I thought it a trick of my overactive imagination, but then his head bobbed up above the surface, thin sheets of red-hot magma falling off him like jelly. He exhaled a gulping gasp, eyes bursting open. A sudden biting wind was my only warning of the upcoming explosion, but it convinced me to scramble backward just before the lava shot skyward like a geyser. The earth trembled beneath my boots as I crab-walked away from the resulting splatter.

As graceful (and naked) as Aphrodite waltzing from the sea, Rafe strode forward, planting both feet on the ground before me. I refused to look down at his junk, focusing on his face. Not a hair on his head stood out of place. An angry scowl formed on his lips.

“You,” he sneered, executing a rapid-fire set of air sigils. Hurricane gusts swirled around me, rocking me back and forth until they lifted me up off the ground. My cries became lost to the wind as I flailed to find any solid thing to grab but found none.

Rafe held me aloft effortlessly, an astounding feat given that I’d only ever seen Guntram execute this sigil, and he’s an expert at air pith. My fingers wriggled about desperately to come up with a counter wind, but my pitiful pithways didn’t have the energy to counteract that level of magic.

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