Myths and Gargoyles by Jamie Hawke (interesting books to read in english txt) 📕

“I see.” Although the words left my mouth, I wasn’t sure where she was now, exactly, or what she meant by that. Maybe she was referring to the clear fact that she had unapologetic feelings toward me? Many people in her situation would be concerned, maybe guilt-ridden, considering she had recently found out her former lover was still alive—albeit almost dead. Or dead, but not completely gone. As confusing as it was, she seemed stable on that front.

“Wait. Do you see what I see?” Riland asked, his voice low.

For a second, I thought he was quoting a Christmas song, maybe as a way of mocking me. Then I remembered that he probably wasn’t aware of the song. On top of that, he had just drawn his sword.

My hand went out to my side, ready to summon the Liahona if necessary. At the same time, my screen of spells popped up, my eyes flying through the list to see what would be useful here.

“Tarian,” I hissed, boosting our defenses, then “Elfenol Streic.” I’d almost forgotten about my elemental strike spell, but in a place like this, it was likely much more of a safe bet than using the Liahona.

Letting my staff grow as the blue magic of ice took hold, I took up an offensive stance, knees bent, back heel raised. The moment the creatures appeared in full sight, I was out, moving to attack.

Only, they were ice creatures. Three of them, I now saw. Switching out ice, I went with fire instead. They were strange creatures, about the height of two men with icy bodies, but twisted and misshapen. Jagged ice spears poked out of their backs and limbs and pulsating blue moved across them like flowing blood, visible through their translucent skin.

I attacked the first from a distance, thrusting my staff out so that a burst of fire shot from it. When the fireball hit, the creature roared, charging toward me seemingly unhindered. Not good. Still, I pressed the attack with fire, charging in as well and diving under the first ice attack to come back with a blow to its midsection. Flames went inside the thing this time and I watched as its body seemed to explode. Only, the skin contained the explosion so that the result was more misshapenness, more jagged ice spears, and one pissed-off-looking ice demon.

Considering what this thing was capable of, yeah, ‘ice demon’ seemed like a good title.

Its gleaming blue eyes turned to me, narrowed, and its hand shot out, connecting with my head. A simple move—just a hand on my head—but it was so much more than that.

As icy cold tendrils moved through me, I discovered that I was frozen in ice, but in another world. A world where everything matched the one I had been in but was now ice. I only knew it wasn’t the Dark Lands because of my ability to sense magic. My power that told me my team was far off, Aerona and Riland locked in their separate battles with the ice demons.

The cold tore through me, trying to break my body and mind at once. But, not fast enough—not before I was able to transmorph myself out of there. More and more, my confidence rose in this regard, and as my mind and body returned to the Dark Lands, I was able to push back on the ice demon and create my own little world for him.

The two of us were suddenly engulfed in stone. I sent fire surging into his body so that he convulsed, more and more of those spikes shooting out until he looked like a huge sea urchin of black and dark blue.

Grinning, feeling like quite the badass, I then switched to lightning mode on my staff and thrust it into the ground at the same time as I made the rocks around us shoot in on the bastard. A burst of lightning, an explosive cracking sound… and when I pulled the rocks away, all that remained were gooey chunks of melting ice.

I turned to see Aerona, hand up against one of the others, as if they were playing a game of mercy. Riland, however, was on the ground, writhing, eyes blue as his body started to turn into ice. Shit, they were making him into one of them!

While Aerona was my girl in a sense, she seemed to be handling herself better than Riland. So, it wasn’t a choice between the two of them, but rather a matter of who needed my help most. I charged over to him, hitting the ice demon with blasts of lightning, but quickly realized that was the wrong thing to do. For one, each blast caused Riland to also convulse in pain. Secondly, if Aerona could defeat the one against her, she could help.

Spinning back her way, I made the rocks shoot up around her ice demon’s feet, then muttered several spells to see if I could get him to sleep, or at least stun the fucker. None of it seemed to work. Glancing back at Riland with increasing worry, an idea struck me. If my elemental magic could work with the staff to etch a rune into the ground, I might be able to finish this quickly.

With that in mind, I muttered “Elfenol Streic” again, to ensure the elemental magic was strong. Then, as fast as I could, I referenced the rune magic in my digital screen and got to it. Three quick runes, then I ran in a circle around Riland, Aerona, and their opponents.

Light blue and white light shot up from the circle, runes glowing green, and then there was a flash as the runes activated. All magic within the circle was turned off. Rune magic, baby.

Riland blinked, confused, and the ice demon with a hand on his head stared, equally confused. Aerona growled as she and her ice demon went at each other hand-to-hand, her horns helping, tail lashing about and acting like