A Clash of Magics by Guy Antibes (read this if txt) 📕

hesitate. Trevor decided he had waited enough. Bolts of lightning and tongues of fire erupted from four different vantage points. A stray tongue of fire hit Lissa’s side. He wrapped her in the sheet and pushed her off the bed to the opposite side from the assailants before rolled across to the other side of the room.

Trevor had to put Lissa out of his mind as he pointed the rod at the attackers in order of their proximity to Lissa and began shooting red rays. As flames began to catch on the wood and the cloth in the room, Trevor counted two more attackers. None of them could break through Trevor’s immunity, but Trevor needed information, so he bludgeoned one of the men unconscious with the rod. He ran to the side of the bed. The fire had already begun to burn the sheet that covered Lissa. Trevor only had time to make sure she was still breathing. Trevor could not deal with any injuries here. He brushed off the flames as best he could and took her to the unconscious assailant. Putting a foot on the assassin’s face, he took both unconscious bodies, to the seer’s dining room.

Trevor ran to the sideboard and grabbed a pitcher of water that helped him extinguish some flames. He rolled Lissa up in a rug. Once he was satisfied the flames were out, he unrolled her and covered Lissa with the tablecloth off the table. Tying up the assassin, he realized that he was unclothed, as well. Trevor quickly looked in the sideboard, and finding another tablecloth, wrapped it around him.

Volst showed up with a few clerics, and Lissa soon recovered consciousness. Volst looked over the prisoner while Trevor took her to his dormitory cell for treatment of her burns. He threw his diving outfit on and returned to the dining room, passing Glynna on her way to Lissa. The assassin sat against the wall with the point of Volst’s sword pressed against the man’s throat.

Glynna walked back into the room. “I’ll need more bandages,” she said.

“Touch him, please,” Trevor asked Glynna. “I’d use Lissa, but she isn’t up to this.”

Glynna knelt next to the attacker and put her hand on the man’s neck. She concentrated and then withdrew her hand.

“He is a Jiksaran, but I saw him paid by a Presidonian agent giving the band of assassins instructions to kill you, Trevor.”

“My mother!”

Glynna nodded. “I could feel her malice through the scene that I saw. Perhaps having a public wedding with so much notice wasn’t the best idea.”

“Is the agent still in Jiksara?” Trevor asked.

Glynna shook her head. “You know I can’t tell the present, just the past. I need to return to her,” she said with napkins in her hands.

Trevor sat down heavily on one of the dining room chairs. He wanted to run back to see how Lissa fared, but the seer rushed in and stared at the assailant on the floor.

“Who is he?” Seer Caspur asked.

“One of six assassins,” Trevor said. “They were all magicians and started throwing around fire and lightning. Lissa was burned and is being treated by Glynna. The others didn’t make it out of the room. I knocked this one out and brought him along for questioning. My mother, the queen, is thrilled I got married, it appears.”

Caspur sat on another of the chairs. “The public wedding…” he said, putting his head in his hands.

Trevor nodded. “The wedding was beautiful,” he said.

Lissa walked into the room, assisted by Glynna. “It was,” she said. Salve covered the right side of her face. Her right hand was bandaged, and Lissa was still wrapped up in the tablecloth, but Glynna had made it look like the dress of a goddess, or so Trevor thought.

“She will be fine, but there will be no travel for a few weeks. She will have some tender skin to deal with until it heals,” Glynna said.

Trevor was happy her face looked intact under the salve.

“You need to go to Tarviston,” Lissa said to Trevor. “We can’t let your mother continue attacking you.”

“And you,” Trevor said.

Lissa shook her head gently. “I wasn’t the target. I think it is time for Dryden’s messenger to deliver something to the ruler of Presidon. I think you can convince the rulers of Viksar and Ginster to invade Presidon. Perhaps West Moreton will join you.”

“I don’t want to start a war,” Trevor said. “I’m sure Dryden doesn’t want one either.”

Volst shrugged. “Who knows?”

“The messenger does,” Trevor said. Presidon wasn’t a world problem, just a personal one. “I’ll take Win with me if he will come. He’ll want to see his mother, anyway,” Trevor said.

“Brother Yvan and Reena might agree to take me in their carriage to Jilgrath, where Gorian and Glynna can help me recover,” Lissa said. “I’ve already talked to Glynna in case you agreed to put an end to all this.”

“But I haven’t agreed,” Trevor said. “I’m not worried about me but, but I don’t know.” He shuddered. “I’ve never wanted the confrontation,” he confessed.

Seer Caspur shook his head. “I believe that you need to seal the past, and that means dealing with your mother. You have to think of my daughter and, eventually, your whole family.”

Trevor had to admit that he was afraid of going home and had been ever since Desolation Boxster had been murdered at the northwestern border with Viksar. What would Boxster do? Trevor thought, and he quickly received his answer.

“All right. If Win agrees, we will head east from here,” Trevor said. “Win and I will return directly to Jilgrath.”

“Return to the house on the green that you used while you were in town,” Glynna said. “Gorian and I will stay there with Lissa.”

Trevor couldn’t back down now. After sleeping in another cell through the morning, he spent the rest