Southwest Nights (Semiautomatic Sorceress Book 1) by Kal Aaron (large ebook reader txt) 📕

“We’re going to use your non-elegant toy?” Aisha wrinkled her nose in disgust.

Lyssa reached into her pocket to fish out more healing herbs and some stimulant herbs to offset her building fatigue. She would have preferred more time for their regalia and bodies to repair themselves, but it looked as though they were getting a perfect opportunity to end everything.

“Yeah.” Lyssa nodded. “We’re taking my bike. Get ready to hold on tight.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Lyssa maintained wraith form as she put down her kickstand. She and Aisha had parked in a pitch-black empty parking lot near a long-closed department store, judging by the sorry state of the sign and the extensive graffiti. Adding Aisha to the ritual hadn’t strained Lyssa as much as she’d expected, which made sense upon reflection. The bike weighed a lot more than the lithe flame Sorceress, and it wasn’t a thinning spell. The port was twenty minutes away at a reasonable non-enhanced speed.

“Why are we stopping here?” Aisha asked. “Why not go all the way?”

“Because we need to make sure we’re both on the same page,” Lyssa replied. “And I want to do that before either of us needs to blast or shoot anyone. There’s no way this doesn’t end in someone getting hurt, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t set some limits.”

“I’m working with you and I rode your motorcycle, even though you’re from a family of thieves.” Aisha snorted. “Isn’t that enough to establish that we’re on the same page, friend?”

“We have time left,” Lyssa said. “And it doesn’t hurt to dial it down. Plus, it gives our regalia and the herbs that many more minutes to put us back together. Because of our previous little mistake, neither of us is at our best.”

Between Serafina’s construct and confronting Aisha, it’d been a painful couple of days. Most of Lyssa’s pain was gone, and some of her smaller cuts and burns had healed, but she was far from recovered. The same could be said of Aisha.

This wasn’t the first time Lyssa’d had to finish a job while injured. Tricia was right to be scared. Torches had lower life expectancies than most Illuminated for a reason.

Aisha peered into the distance at the twinkle of the skyscrapers that marked the heart of the city. Wistfulness haunted her voice as she spoke. “Hunting shards in a Shadow city. Pathetic. How far our noble kind has fallen from Lemuria.”

“Lemuria sank ten thousand years ago.” Lyssa shrugged. “Kind of too late to give a damn, and it’s not like we know they were good people.”

“They were powerful Sorcerers.” Aisha frowned at Lyssa. “Any degeneration of the Society is because we were forced into the greater world.”

“Illuminated are just people with tricks, which is why Shadows rule the world. Whining about what happened ten thousand years ago is pointless.”

Aisha gave her a cold glare. “This is why I find you so disappointing, Corti. You have no respect for your heritage or tradition with your attitude and your guns. You might as well be a Shadow.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Lyssa peered at the rising sun. “I’m proud to have been born a Sorceress, but I also accept there are limits to everything in this world, even sorcery. We barely know what life was like on Lemuria. Don’t you get it? For all we know, the Cataclysm was the fault of the Illuminated. And I don’t buy all those stories about how much more powerful we were. Shadows do that same thing, you know—tell themselves pretty stories about their history to pretend they don’t have to do the hard work of making a better future. It’s an excuse, nothing more.”

Aisha snorted. “You can’t possibly be comparing us to them. Their ten thousand years of much-vaunted civilization has brought them to nothing.”

“It brought them to control the entire planet, trips to outer space, and the conquest of much of the disease and famine.” Lyssa leaned over her handlebars. “It brought a lot of nastiness, too, but we’re not so different.”

“You believe that nonsense about harmony, don’t you?” Aisha rolled her eyes. “We’ll never be equals. They’ll never trust us, and we’ll never trust them. The best thing we can do for the Illuminated is grow our power and numbers so we don’t have to fear them.”

“You’re missing the point. We’re Illuminated, but we’re still human. That means we’re not perfect, and there was no great Golden Age of the past where everything was better. Until someone is born with a time essence, we won’t be able to do anything about the past. I don’t know about harmony, but all we can do now is try and make a better future.”

“We had our land and power that didn’t need to be hidden.” Aisha leaned back on the seat. “Our continent. Things would be different with the Shadows if that remained the same. The future is what I’m talking about. Last Remnant isn’t enough. It’s too…” Pain filled her voice. “It’s too vulnerable.”

Lyssa blinked in surprise. She couldn’t remember ever hearing Aisha sound like that.

“I get it,” Lyssa murmured. “I do. But it’s not about having our place. That wouldn’t change anything.”

“Why wouldn’t it?”

“We don’t have enough of our kind, and it’s going to take a hell of a long time to catch up with the Shadows.” Lyssa gestured at the store. “There’s only one real path left for us: true coexistence.”

Aisha jumped off the bike, her wraith form dissipating. “It doesn’t bother you at all, does it? M-Day, having all of them know about us, living among them. I thought it would bother you more because you’re older. You were a Torch when M-Day happened.”

“No, it doesn’t matter to me that much. And living among the Shadows?” Lyssa snickered. “We’ve always lived among the Shadows. Are you telling me every single relative in your family is Illuminated?”

“Of course not.” Aisha turned her head, embarrassment coloring her cheeks. “That’s not the same thing. They grew up with the knowledge of their potential and the potential