The Twenty-Sided Sorceress Series, Books 1-3 by Annie Bellet

Author:Annie Bellet
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Doomed Muse Press
Published: 2015-06-08T00:00:00+00:00

I crumpled the post card in my hand, igniting it with a thought as I let it flutter toward the ground again. It was ash even as it hit.

A scream that shifted to a high-pitched snarl was my only warning. Em rose to her feet and sprang at me, shifting in midair into a white wolf. I threw my hands up and pushed magic out into a shield in front of me.

She bounced off the shield and twisted, landing on her feet. She sprang again and again I forced her away.

“Em,” I yelled. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Snarl. Leap. Bounce. Twist. Repeat.

Then people around us started shifting, turning into crows. They rose as a black swarm into the sky and descended at me, dive-bombing me like I was a bird of prey.

I pulled my power around me like a dome and hunkered down, throwing everything I had into keeping the shield up. Through the barrage of black wings I caught Pearl watching, Jasper’s head still in her lap, and I silently pleaded with her to stop this, to call them off.

She shook her head and looked away from me, her face quickly lost in the slam and flurry of winged bodies.

I couldn’t hold the shield forever. They wouldn’t be able to kill me, but I had no idea what happened to a sorceress who is torn apart. How long would it take to regenerate? Years? What would that pain feel like? Would I be conscious?

Em’s wolf body slammed into my shield again and this time I felt the reverberation right down into my bones. I was going to lose it soon, there was too much physical force being thrown against me.

The deep coughing roar of a lion echoed through the camp and suddenly the crows all came to earth, changing as they touched down back into their human forms. Em hit my shield one last time and rebounded, turning even as she twisted in the air back to a teenage girl.

A huge white tiger leapt between Em and I. Alek. I dropped my shield and called out his name.

He shifted to human and looked around, taking in the two mutilated corpses and the cluster of angry shifters. Carlos, still in his lion form, prowled through the People, cutting a line between them and where Alek and I stood.

“What happened here?” Alek said. His voice was deceptively soft, but carried some of the tiger’s growl still in it, a dangerous tone.

“She broke the wards,” Pearl said, pointing at me. “She allowed the evil in.”

“That’s not the whole story,” I protested. “Sky Heart has been killing the fledglings who don’t turn into crow. He murdered dozens of them. I have seen their bones. He admitted as much to me, to all of us, before Not Afraid killed him.”

Alek turned and looked at me, disbelief and a deep sadness in his eyes.

“You let him in?”

“Yes,” I said. I spread my hands, half reaching for Alek as I stared up at him, begging him to believe my good intentions.

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