CLEO – Ashenshore

  The fraught question-and-answer session at the cafe with Aedan left Cleo with even more questions—hardly something new—and a building anxiety that left her chest tight and her breath short. The sudden onset of anxiety and despair she’d felt was an unwelcome feeling she’d experienced before, but it was something she usually managed to keep under control.

  Frak! Congratulations Cleo, you made a fool of yourself.

  What was she doing here?

  She was all at sea, with no guidance and only vague suggestions to ‘get stronger’, and she wasn’t made for situations like this and the attention of an attractive man—stop, don’t think about that, Cleo—and the world was unknown and strange still and sometimes it was all just too overwhelming.

  Secrets. She had too many secrets and misgivings and physical trauma, not to mention mental anguish she somehow had to try to manage. And no amount of pastries, no matter how delectable, was going to help with that.

  Well, maybe in the short term…

  Focus, Cleo, she told herself, and not for the first time.

  Get stronger. Tier up your cards. Buy a wand. Figure out whether lupus can be cured.

  Then, and only then, she might be able to have some semblance of a normal life.

  If she could stay under the radar.

  But a part of her knew it would never be that simple.

  She sighed heavily, though the anxiety and anger growing inside her didn’t diminish. A legendary cardholder wasn’t going to have a normal life, but at least some aspects would be normal.

  If she could stay unnoticed and alive.

  Don’t die. Learn as much as you can. Find or buy more cards. Figure out what the frak a Dominion was.

  Related to sorcery, that’s what Aedan had said, which was… what? Some way of absorbing more cards? A separate magic system? Hopefully nothing to do with necromancy, but the Corrupted Scourge were undead and she was here to try to defeat them… eww, no. She wasn’t fiddling with corpses if she could avoid it.

  In her distracted state, Cleo bumped shoulders with a passerby and smiled an apology as the woman tutted and frowned at her.

  “Sorry!” Cleo said, and then she left the main road and darted down an alley. She wasn’t in the mood to wander the busy street, hemmed in by the crowds where even glancing at the myriad peoples with their oddly colored skin and hair pushed her off balance—as if the world wasn’t quite real and she was in a dream.

  By now she was fairly certain she could find her way back to Rivett’s caravan where she could rest and pull herself together. And then what? More questions, she supposed.

  Always more.

  The anger that had her in its grip wouldn’t let go, and she breathed deeply through her nose, clenching and unclenching her hands into fists. She pictured pastries and hot koko-mateh in a vain attempt to improve her mood.

  Further down the alley, two young men lounged about, resting their backs against a wall near a doorway. Both wore stained and patched clothes, and one sported a floppy hat coming apart at the seams, barely held together with rough twine repairs. They glanced at Cleo, but looked away uninterested and kept talking in indistinct murmurs. Somewhere behind her, a crow cawed.

  At first she thought they were thieves and had set up here to waylay unsuspecting passersby, but she quickly realized they both wore dirty aprons and must be on a work break. A quick peek through the doorway as she passed confirmed that inside was a workshop, of sorts. Other men and women in their own grimy aprons continuously stirred two-handed wooden paddles in enormous cauldrons sitting over low flames.

  She gave the two men a quick nod, which they ignored, and continued on, returning to her thoughts.

  Rivett might know what was going on with Commander Magnus’ gathering of carded that Aedan had mentioned.

  Perhaps if she—

  There was a low buzzing sound and Cleo was violently shoved to the side as something struck her energy shield, taking a sizable chunk of her reserved mana with it. The force was so great she half spun and stumbled to her knees, skin scraping on the rough stone cobbles. A sharp crack split the air and shards of brick spattered her, as whatever struck her careened into the wall beside Cleo, leaving a spiderweb of cracks and pockmarks from the impact.

  Gasping for breath, she readied a curse and frantically looked around to see who had attacked her.

  Zane stood just beyond the two workers, who gawked at Cleo as if she’d been the one to cast a lethal spell in front of them. His blackened metal-ringed armor glowed faintly, as did the dagger in his hand. His pale face sheened with sweat, and his untidy brown hair hung lank and oily as if he hadn’t washed in weeks.

  I knew there was something dodgy about him!

  The attack had to have come from Zane, and it was lucky she’d kept her energy shield up. She was surprised he was still around after his initial spell had failed to kill or injure her, since they were in the middle of a town where an entire legion was stationed. That meant all she had to do was hold him off until help arrived, because a legion mage would surely detect the mana usage and come to investigate.

  Hopefully.

  “Working hard today?” Zane said, and then shook his head. “I didn’t think so, but I had to double-check just to be sure. I don’t think you’re a threat, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

  “Miss,” the worker in the ridiculous hat said, “are you all right? Is this man bothering you?”

  “Get inside! Now!” Cleo yelled, afraid they would be caught in the crossfire. She struggled to her feet and glared at Zane. She didn’t know where he’d disappeared to previously, or why he’d shown up now, but he meant her no good and she—

  A spasm ran through the worker in the hat’s body, and his arms and legs jerked. Blood spurted from his nose and trickled from his eyes. The other man collapsed onto the cobbles, hands clawing at his face and head, fingernails leaving bloody streaks of scratched skin. Both moaned shrilly as if in great pain but were unable to speak. There was a loud bang as the door to their workplace slammed shut as if blown by an invisible wind.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  With barely a thought, Cleo activated her Malice aura and felt her available mana drop to an extremely low level as her three auras now reserved most of her reservoir. She cast her curse at Zane, wishing, once again, that she had a spell or a wand that packed more of an initial punch for times like these.

  Despair.

  Zane grimaced, mouth twisting in pain as her curse’s violet mist spumed around him.

  “Fraking bitch! What’s this?”

  He gestured and spoke a word, and Cleo felt something latch onto her insides and immediately her remaining mana started to drain.

  Alarmed, Cleo sent her awareness inward, to where the pulsing void of her mana reservoir was located. Inexperienced and fumbling, she frantically searched the area a little in front of and, at the same time, behind her heart. She froze for a few moments, not seeing Zane and the two workers, as she perceived a throbbing conduit that felt foreign to her. It shouldn’t be there.

  She threw her will at her mana pool, trying to dislodge the siphon, but struggle as she might, it slipped from her mental grasp and continued to suck her dry. She didn’t have much time, as soon she wouldn’t have enough mana left to use her curse. And once what she had available was gone, she was sure the drain would start on her reserved mana and her auras would dissipate one-by-one to leave her defenseless.

  Despair.

  The worker with blood streaming from his eye and nose twitched forward toward Cleo. His limbs moved jerkily, as if he were a giant marionette.

  Mind control, realized Cleo. She doubted such an ability wasn’t strictly controlled by those in power, and Zane certainly wasn’t associated with the Empire, which meant only one thing:

  “You’re a Dark One.”

  Zane shrugged in response, though his mouth was still twisted in a grimace of effort. “Siunattu, we’re known by. Dark Ones is what the unimaginative and uninformed call us.”

  The second worker lurched to his feet and limped toward Cleo as well. Crimson leaked from the self-inflicted gashes on his face, and one foot dragged behind him, scraping across the ground.

  Cleo didn’t give a shit what these traitors to humanity named themselves. She cast another curse on a panting Zane, whose eyes were slits, almost closed in intense concentration. His magic obviously took a great deal of effort, and if she could fend off the two workers then he might be vulnerable. The trouble was, she had no weapon and no damaging spell she could use at the moment other than her curse.

  Her anger, which she thought she had under control, surged inside Cleo. Her peripheral vision blurred, and what she could see was painted in a red haze.

  The two workers rushed forward in erratic steps, their hands reaching for her. Cleo backed away, slapping at their hands, but they kept coming. She couldn’t curse them; they were innocent bystanders, for frak’s sake!

  Their whimpers grew louder, and their heads shook, eyes rolling back until all she could see was white. Suddenly, they leaped at her, hands grabbing her arms and shoulders. Cleo tried to push them off, but they weighed more than her and had the steely strength of manual laborers. Before she could do more than gasp and wriggle as best she could, they bore her down to the cobbles. She twisted and turned, pushing and shoving at them, but they grabbed her, and though her energy shield kept their flesh from touching hers, their combined weight crushed her into the ground.

  Both men raised their fists and pounded her. Cleo wrenched an arm free and protected her face as best she could, grimacing as mana drained from her energy shield as it absorbed their ferocious attacks.

  Blood dripped from a nose onto her face, and she retched and turned her head away. She cast another curse on Zane, in the hope that she could keep him distracted while she dealt with these two.

  Three against one was unfair, and too much for her to handle. There had to be something…

  Cleo envisioned her shield expanding outwards until it became a hemisphere surrounding her, and willed the change to happen.

  Her glowing blue energy shield swelled, pushing the two workers away, where they scratched and pounded on its surface. She shoved it outward again, until both of them were pressed into the wall, where they writhed and flailed impotently.

  “What’s this, what’s this?” Zane said through clenched teeth. “You’re quite the delicious meal of mana.”

  Which was draining fast and almost down to the dregs. Cleo cast despair again, but felt the spell falter and dissipate as her unreserved mana drained dry. She backed away a step, but doing so left enough room for the two workers to wriggle free and claw at her shield. She moved back and crushed them into the wall again, planting her feet to keep herself steady.

  Maybe she could drop her shield and run? But she didn’t like her chances of escaping three assailants, and one a carded mage at that. So fleeing wasn’t an option, but she had no juice left to fight with. An icy dread seeped into Cleo’s bones, pushing her anger deeper inside her.

  Zane laughed softly as her fear showed on her face.

  “It’s nothing personal,” he said. “Wrong place, wrong time, and all that. You’re out of mana. If you drop your shield, I’ll make it quick.”

  Like frak you will.

  Zane frowned and waved a hand, and the two human puppets he controlled fell limp. “But if you’re out of mana, why do you still have a shield?”

  Cleo dispersed her energy shield aura, and the blue glow dissipated.

  “Ah,” Zane said. “There was some residual—”

  She ignored him and sent her senses inward, suppressing a smile when the massive chunk of her mana that her aura had reserved rapidly regenerated and began to refill her reservoir.

  “Curse Strike,” Cleo said, and three points of violet light coalesced overhead.

  Dazzling rays sparked as the curses on Zane were consumed and transmuted. She closed her eyes as the violet lights coalesced into blazing glares, painting the walls and street with coruscant radiance.

  Thunder cracked and the ground trembled.

  When the light faded suddenly, Cleo opened her eyes and peered through the dust now swirling in the air—to see Zane still standing there, his eyes wide and mouth twisted in pain. Smoke rose from his shoulder and hair, and on one side of his neck the pale skin was blackened and scorched.

  Cleo couldn’t help herself. She laughed weakly at the desperate situation, and then coughed as the dust in the air caught in her throat. The two workers had collapsed in a heap when Zane cut his mind control, and she couldn’t see any scorch marks on them from her Curse Strike. But they were unmoving and obviously in a bad way.

  Zane straightened, and the glow of his armor pulsed brighter, and then the light washed over the skin of his neck and arms. Cleo watched in stupefied amazement as his flesh healed in the span of seconds. An icy wind blew around her, and she felt mana sucked out of the air, a whirling vortex that gathered almost every drop and led straight to the dagger in his hand.

  That meant nothing good, she was sure.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but Cleo reactivated her energy shield and beat him to it.

  “Retribution.”

  It was a gamble. Her energy shield somehow ‘stored’ the damage of the attacks against it, but she didn’t know if deactivating the aura dissipated the energy or whether it was set aside somehow.

  Her question was answered when her unreserved mana drained entirely.

  And then Cleo froze as a horrific realization hit her.

  Shit! The two workers might die!

  The air hummed like a hundred bees and a wave of void-energy erupted from Cleo—and to her shock, passed harmlessly around Zane and the mind-controlled workers.

  Did he just dispel my Retribution or shield himself?

  “Enough playing,” Zane said.

  Suddenly he paused and then turned away from Cleo to look over his shoulder. After a moment he swore, and then without a glance back at her he ran a few steps and then leaped. Her eyes widened as there was a flash and a shockwave, and Zane disappeared, to be replaced by an oversized raven—with a fist-sized human head. The mutant bird then shimmered like a mirage, and the head turned into a raven’s; then it flapped its wings and sped unnaturally fast away before Cleo could curse it.

  She took half a step in its direction before stopping herself. She couldn’t fly, and she’d already lost sight of the raven—Zane. Her stomach churned at the thought of the miniature human head on the bird’s body.

  Growling in frustration, Cleo turned back to see a whirlwind of embers above the buildings headed towards her. As it neared, she could make out a human form inside the swirling sparks.

  Dalvin, Commander Magnus’ attendant.

  Well, her guess was correct; the man was a mage.

  And he was going to have questions for her.

  Questions Cleo didn’t want to answer.