The Imperators Spy, Part 31

Irresistible Force Meets Immovable Object

Cover Reveal (Peter O’Connor, Bespoke Book Covers

Harena looked around warily. “Where are the guards?”

I thought that they had been right behind us. But as I looked back at the portal ring, I saw that its silver had been polluted by demonic red. The magic within it sputtered and sparked. Tyrannus had only sealed the door as a backup plan. His real intent had been to block us from coming through at all. But we had managed to slip through before the magic had been completely disrupted.

“Surely, this problem can be repaired quickly,” said Harena. She didn’t sound as if she was asking a question, but she looked at me pointedly, clearly expecting a response.

“Moon-Ray is the expert on portal magic,” I said. “Worse, there are no other Lunaans that I know of in the capital and very few anywhere else.”

I didn’t mentioned that most of those few were gathered in the Frozen Waste. Without Moon-Ray to communicate with them, we had no way to reach them.

Amicus looked down. “That’s not our only problem. There’s something wrong with the floor.”

His feet were bare, as the feet of dragon warriors generally were, so that they could absorb earth power from the stone if they needed to.

I looked down and realized that the stone beneath us no longer had the brownish glow of raw earth power within it. Somehow, Tyrannus had broken the natural connection that existed between earth power and all its physical manifestations.

I knelt down and touched the floor, just to be sure. My Animaan magic didn’t react, which meant that there wasn’t any active demonic magic in the floor. The damage had been done some time ago. Only a little residue of Tyrannus’s magic was left behind. That was an uncomfortable reminder of just how long Moon-Ray had been trapped here with him.

“What’s wrong with the floor?” asked Harena. Despite her well-developed self-control, I could hear her heartbeat speed up just a little. Or perhaps she was more troubled by the portal’s damage than by the floor. Without Mensan magic, I had no way to find out for sure.

“Tyrannus has somehow blocked the passage of earth power through it,” I said. “I don’t know how to fix such a problem—or if it is even possible to fix it. I must recommend that the princeps withdraw.”

“Withdraw how?” asked Harena. “The portal appears to be destroyed.”

I looked over at what admittedly seemed to be a ruined portal and examined its condition more closely. The silver portal magic was twisted underneath the red layer that gripped it—but there didn’t seem to be any breaks in the silver.

“Given time, I can cleanse it of demonic magic. That might be enough to enable it to function again.”

Amicus’s usually friendly face looked hard as rock as he stared at me, and his sapphire eyes, which now reminded me of blue fire, glared at me.

“For the moment, we need to forget the portal. What Tyrannus has done to impede the flow of earth power does not make the rescue of Moon-Ray any less important, does it? Surely, you do not expect me to leave her fate in my cousin’s hands just because I don’t have my usual physical advantages, do you?”

“I meant no offense—” I began.

“Then let us proceed with the mission.”

“Son, he has a point,” said Harena in an unusually quiet and gentle tone. “It is becoming clearer by the minute that you are now heir to the throne. Part of your duty in such a circumstance is to survive.”

“But what good will it do if I survive at the cost of my honor?” he replied. Despite Harena’s lack of special powers, she was a warrior every bit as much as her son was, and now they stood staring at each other like two fighters, each looking for a sign of weakness to exploit.

“If I am, as you say, the heir, and there is no more senior member of the family present, then I am the one in charge here,” said Amicus, his voice firm as granite.

Harena, clearly not used to such defiance, didn’t have a quick rejoinder to his assertion of authority—because technically, he was correct. She was imperial by marriage, not by blood, and thus, she was not in the line of succession.

“Your father—” she began.

“Is not here,” replied Amicus before she could finish. “And as he has not given me specific orders to cover this particular situation, I am free to do as I wish.”

“But I am not,” I said slowly. Much as I wanted and needed his help, the risk now looked too great. “The acting imperator ordered me to bring you and your mother back safely. Besides that, I have standing orders to protect members of the imperial family from harm.”

Amicus looked at me with disbelief. “First, you question my honor. Now, you question my knowledge of the law. As the senior member of the imperial family present, I can order you to stand down—and now I do. You are to follow all my orders instead of your normal protocols. As for my father’s instructions, since he is not here, it is my responsibility to interpret those orders. He intended my safety and that of my mother to be a priority but not the only priority. If he had intended our safety to outweigh the need to stop Tyrannus, he would never have allowed us to come in the first place.”

I’d only seen Amicus play the dutiful son in the past. I’d never before seen this young hot-head who would throw caution to the winds—and I didn’t like him much. But once again, he was technically correct.

I would have no choice now but to reject the orders of Roburius and of Tyrannus, both of whom had betrayed the imperium that they were supposed to serve. I might even question the orders of Audaxius, whom I now had reason to suspect. But I had no evidence whatsoever against Amicus. My path was clear.

“What are your order, Princeps?”

Harena stared daggers at me, but she still remained silent.

“The door is warded, is it not?” I wasn’t sure how he knew that without having the same magical perceptions that I did, but I nodded my agreement.

“Then if you can break the wards, do it.”

I stepped forward cautiously and put my hands on the door. The demonic energy reacted instantly, but so did my Animaan magic. The result was a momentary red flash, followed by a blazing whiteness that quickly swallowed it up. The door flew open so rapidly that it almost tore itself off of its hinges.

But Tyrannus instantly became aware of our presence if he hadn’t already noticed us. I could hear the pounding of his feet as he ran down a nearby hallway. And I could sense a shockingly large amount of demonic energy, more than I had ever felt before.

“He is coming,” I said. “Prepare yourselves.”

I became undetectable and put on the invisibility ring just in case Tyrannus thought to use bright light against me. Amicus and Harena both drew their swords. We would know all too soon whether or not any of our moves were good defensive preparations or just futile gestures.

The running footsteps became louder and more insistent until Tyrannus appeared in the doorway.

At least, I had to assume it was Tyrannus, but my blood ran cold in my veins as I realized that the man I had known by that name must have died some time ago. Whatever imitation of a human soul had once lived in that body had now fled. How else could I explain the utter inhumanity of his facial expression, the emptiness of his ruby eyes that now looked more like burning blood than any gem, and the way demonic energy flowed from him unchecked?

Amicus and Harena readied themselves to charge him, but from what I could see, neither would survive a battle with him. And if they did not, whatever Tyrannus now was could slip back through the portal, murder Audaxius, perhaps even murder his own father, and become sole ruler of the imperium.

Acting more on instinct that on rational calculation, I threw myself into him, grabbing him with the all the strength that I could muster as Animaan magic exploded from me in response to his presence.

The subsequent war between our incompatible forms of magic was so far beyond human experience that I could never describe it even if I had a lifetime to make the attempt.

But I would not have a lifetime to do that. As far as I could tell, I would not even have a few seconds. How could mere flesh withstand the nearness of such a large amount of magic with so many contradictions sizzling within it?

For the first time in my life, I screamed. Every nerve ending in my body screamed with me.