Page 91 of Raven's Dawn
“After that, the plan’s simple.” Jeremy gestured to our little group. “You four, with Luci tapping into mine and Laila’s power too, will work with Caeda and Rania to put a cage around the island.”
“Shield, cage, whatever you want to call it,” Laila said. “All armies will stay far from this site. It’ll be us and us alone out there.”
“The more people we send, the more risk we have of being detected,” Atlas said.
“So, only born Witches and seers will set the perimeter for the shield,” Caeda said. With her eyes on Rain, she continued. “Your men will stay back until we have lain the stones.”
“We will cast the spell, but only once we are rejoined with our group,” Rania said.
“As soon as the spell goes up,” Jeremy said, “us necromancers get to work. So we’ll be doing two jobs at once.”
“We’re not trying to save anyone inside,” Laila said, “so it won’t be like last time we did this. We will use all the force necessary to prevent them from taking down the shield. We will do so from the outside, but it could still get messy. We’ll be on the outside, though, so we’ll be safe.”
“All of our team will be within arm’s reach of a teleporter,” Connor said. “If things go bad, we teleport out. I don’t think we’ll need to, though. It might get bloody inside the shield, but we’ll make it out.”
“So, for now, we will practice,” Rania said, eyes on Rain. “Tomorrow morning, we set out. But tonight, you show me what you know.”
32
RAIN
Of all the queens I’d met on this land, Rania may have been my favorite. Putting Laila aside, of course. Even though she had been a queen once, she was more of a friend than an authority figure in my eyes.
Rania just did not fuck around, and I respected it.
Since most of this attack was riding on the Witches, and I was the youngest of us all, she trusted me the least. Totally fair. I was skilled. I had worked hard to become that way. But I could admit that I was entirely out of my expertise here.
After assigning everyone sleeping quarters for the night, she pulled me aside to practice the spell she wanted to use. At first, she insisted that she only needed me. I politely reminded her that wasn’t the case. I would be relying on the guys’ power tomorrow, and I needed to practice with it now. Aside from that, they would be casting the spell alongside us. My guys also needed to practice. Luci wanted to guide us, as he’d sworn he would at the meeting.
Like I respected her strong will, she seemed to respect my forwardness. As she led me out the rear door of her castle, with all of my guys in tow, she murmured, “Very well, then.”
Just as we made it outside into a clearing lined with pine trees, Luci suggested using that spell that he and I had worked on before we came here. Rania said, “We are Elves. We will not use Angel magic.”
Luci insisted that it wasn’t Angel magic, not really. Yes, he was part Angel. Yes, he had learned most of what he knew magically from a woman who grew up on Matriaza, the Angel world. But that didn’t mean that the magic was bad, purely because it came from a broken place.
Rania’s response? “I don’t quite care where your magic came from. That’s not the point, boy.”
“And what is your point?” Luci asked in the same tone.
“That mine is better.” She spun to face us for the first time and crossed her arms against her chest. “Elvan magic is stronger. We embrace the fact that women are better practitioners, while your people bastardize it.”
Luci gritted his teeth. “I am not them. I would appreciate if you stopped making me out to be.”
“I would appreciate if you could talk with your people and get them to stop killing mine.”
“I have virtually nothing to do with the war here.”
“Good. I won’t have to kill you then.”
Luci grunted in response.
I had never seen him so irritated, and it gave me more joy than it should have.
“Is that true?” Trailing after her as she drew closer to the woods, practically jogging to catch up to her, I said, “Elvan magic is stronger than the Witch magic I know?”
“You are from Earth, no?” She didn’t turn to look at me, only continued ahead.
Keeping up with this woman was a workout. Winded, I said, “Yes. But I thought all magic was equal in strength. It has to do with what you put in and what you get out. The energy invested into the spell, and the energy you receive from it, are like basic laws of physics. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”