Shifting Stars by Gary Stringer (simple e reader .TXT) 📕

anything that promoted order and control in magic as well as its protection. The Black division was well known for its infighting, with its wizards vying for power. That exasperated Dreya, as it stood against her dual desires for order and an increase in the power of magic. But if a threat came her way, she would not hesitate to kill her attacker and drain their magic to increase her own. This fuelled her reputation as someone to be feared. She found that useful and did everything she could to cultivate that reputation. That kind of fear, it seemed, meant other wizards didn’t attack her. She wasn’t afraid of those attacks, but they wasted her time and energy. Dreya hated that.

In time, she grew to be the second-ranked Black robe wizard, which gave her a loud voice on the Council – necessary for some of the reforms and changes she had in mind – but without the excessive administration of the highest position. Dreya wasn’t overly keen on the head of her order, Laethyn, but she was confident she would find a way to gain enough influence over him to serve her purposes. Her opportunity came when she saved him from an assassination attempt.

“An act of kindness from Dreya the Dark?” Laethyn wondered, afterwards, when they were together in his office within the Council building.

“I wish people would stop accusing me of that,” Dreya muttered in annoyance. “No, I saved you to demonstrate that I have the power of life and death over you. You live only because it suits me. At the same time, I am showing you that I do not want your job. If I did, it would be mine now, and you would be dead.”

“So, what exactly does Dreya the Dark want of me?” Laethyn asked.

“Most of the time you can keep doing as you wish, but your voice carries a lot of weight on the Council, and there will be times when I want your voice to support my position, to make sure I get things done around here.”

“Is that all?”

“No, there’s one more thing: Don’t pick fights. If you think I’m going to rush by to save your life from something you bring on yourself, think again. The infighting has to stop. Pursue your own agenda as much as you like but do it without weakening Dark magic or any other magic for that matter.”

“That’s just not how things are done, especially in our order.”

Dreya invoked her magic to choke him, slowly, cutting through his defences like they weren’t there.

“It is now,” she said menacingly. She released him. “Are we in agreement?”

Gasping for breath and rubbing his neck, Laethyn nodded.

“But why are you doing this?” he asked. “I’ve heard you want to be known as the Greatest Mage Who Ever Lived.”

“I do,” she affirmed. “But I want that to mean something. Look at it this way,” she said. “Suppose I wanted to be the world’s greatest mathematician: That doesn’t mean I want to live in a world where nobody else can add two and two!

“Don’t you see?” she cried, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation. It was a rare show of emotion for her. She was just desperate for one other person to understand what she was trying to achieve. “This is too easy! I could kill you with a single thought, but what’s the point?” she demanded. “What do I gain? Your title? Your rank? Your office? They mean nothing to me! Even Ulvarius – Tyrant of Tempestria, Scourge of Elvaria – his grounds, his defences, the lich form of the man himself were dust beneath my feet. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed claiming his Tower – my home is everything I could wish for, but seriously, Scourge of Elvaria?” Dreya snorted, derisively, collapsing in a chair, breathing heavily – she wasn’t used to this. “He might as well be called the Menace of Mrs Miggins’ Pie Shop for all the threat he was to me! Tell me honestly, can you think of a single mage anywhere in the world who could at least offer me a challenge?”

“Quite frankly, no,” Laethyn admitted, grudgingly.

“Exactly, so clearly I need to look beyond this world.”

“Other worlds?” Laethyn said, incredulously. “Do you really believe they exist?”

“An interesting thought,” Dreya conceded, “and one worth exploring, but right now I have my mind on higher things.”

“Higher things?” Laethyn wondered, then he gasped. “You mean…higher planes?”

“Well, I don’t want to go there,” she said with a wry smile. “I’m not a tourist, but I do want their power. Moreover, I want this world to stand up to those creatures. They come here and fight their battles and don’t care how much damage is done in the process. Aren’t you sick of it? Don’t you want to do something about it?”

Laethyn snorted. “What? You want to save the world now?”

Dreya jumped to her feet like she’d been bitten. “No, I don’t want to save the world!” she cried, giving Laethyn a disgusted look. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Then what?” Laethyn wondered.

“I want to kill Daelen StormTiger.”

*****

Dreya had long been envious of the shadow warriors’ power, gentle reader, even as she railed against the seemingly indiscriminate way in which they used it.

I know my father himself felt as if he were stuck in a loop. Battle after battle he fought, with always the same result: He was evenly matched against his enemy, but Michael always gave Daelen an edge. Enough to beat back his enemy, but only temporarily. It seemed as if nothing would ever break this cycle, but Daelen did not count on one thing: Tempestria was changing, growing, developing.

Mortal magic was out of its infancy now, gentle reader. By the time of Catriona, Mandalee and Dreya, they had already abandoned crawling in favour of walking. In their different ways, each of them had started to run, and soon, very soon…

…they would learn to fly.

Chapter 15

“I’m flying!” Mandalee cried, laughing in joy and exhilaration.

“See, I told you it would work!”