Bloodline Diplomacy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 3) - Lan Chan (thriller books to read .txt) 📗

My theory that she was faking it panned out. Her strikes got faster the more I phased. It became impossible to keep up with her. I had only just jumped out of the way of a downward strike when I turned and the tip of her spear was right in front of my face. I twisted and rolled the way Kai had taught me, but she nicked the apple of my cheek.

I gritted my teeth against the pain and phased once more. I landed in a crouch a few metres away from her. My limbs groaned. I wasn’t going to be able to keep this up any longer. Seeing that I was having trouble straightening up, she threw her spear in a haphazard manner in my direction. I was sure she didn’t really care if it hit me. It still came hurtling towards me at an ungodly speed. At the last second, I smacked it aside using the demon blade. The metal of the blade clanged against the spear. Pain vibrated up my arm but at least I didn’t get skewered.

“Not bad,” Gaia said. “You would have had so much promise as one of mine.”

I coughed. Blood spattered onto the sand. Awesome. I was bleeding internally. How many times was I going to be wrong today? This was definitely the way I was going to die. I kicked the spear aside thinking she might come for it. What she did instead had pain of another sort bursting in me. She turned her palms up to the sky and greenery burst into life all around me. I tried to get up and run but they grew too quickly. Saplings turned to canes and branches before I could even blink. Around me, a low forest of briars came to life. Now I knew how that manticore I had beaten in my entrance trials felt. The canes curled around my body making it impossible to move without being cut to shreds.

“Got you,” she said.

I snorted. Mostly out of sheer terror. I tended to babble when I was scared. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” I asked.

This time, she did smile. “That wicked little sense of humour of yours,” she said. “It comes from him. The reason why your earth magic is so strong is because of him. The prophesy that he will one day break his chains and return to claim dominion over this dimension is because of you. You were made from Lucifer’s blood. He needs you to be free. I won’t allow it.”

All of my terrified humour disintegrated. I couldn’t comprehend what she was saying. “You think I’m his daughter?” I clarified.

“No,” she said. “You’re much worse. You’re a part of him. The worst parts. Your mother knew it. She wanted to take her own life, but your great-grandmother tried to stop her. Hilary betrayed everything she was to save you. Your life dooms all others.”

“You’re lying!”

“Why would I lie?”

I didn’t need to know the answer. I was already searching through the memories Hilary had sent me for corroborating evidence. I found it in the image of a young woman whose body was dashed on the rocks below an outcrop on this very peninsula. I tried to swallow but couldn’t seem to get my throat to work.

“I am not,” I said to nobody in particular.

“You most certainly are. You must be selfless where your great-grandmother couldn’t be,” she said. “It is the only way for him to remain confined.”

It took a few beats for her words to really sink it. When they did, I swallowed. The briars around me disappeared. In their place was a simple dagger. “Do it,” she said.

She was asking me to take my own life for the greater good of all the dimensions.

I stared at the dagger. I was already so weak. It wouldn’t take much to stop everything I’d seen in my nightmares from happening. If I died, it would save everyone I cared about. Something slammed once more against the barrier she had erected. Several somethings.

Basil was throwing balls of orange fire at the barrier. It simply absorbed his energy. I could tell he was shouting at people, but there was nothing anyone could do. Kai’s green light flared again as he rushed the barrier only to be rejected. No matter what he did, Kai wasn’t going to get through. I turned my head and allowed myself to look at him. Professor Mortimer and Jacqueline had him propped up between them. He had survived a second blast from the soul barrier, but the way his wings were singed said he wouldn’t survive another one. He wouldn’t survive at all if Lucifer broke free. None of them would. Despite this, Kai struggled against them. His face was contorted in such rebellious pain that I couldn’t bear to watch him.

“Can they hear us?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“So he knows I’m…”

“Yes.” But he was still fighting for me.

I turned to him once more. He’d managed to shove Professor Mortimer aside. Now it was Astrid who was trying to hold him back. Jacqueline stood there stoic as a statue. But when my gaze rested on her, she shook her head at me and smiled. And then Sophie was there. My eyes misted over.

I glanced down at the dagger and then back at her. The way her mouth moved told me she was screaming my name. She held my great-grandmother’s diary up and used it to beat at the soul barrier. It didn’t reject her because she wasn’t a supernatural, but it wouldn’t let her through either. Ever since the cavern in the Hell dimension I had been searching for a way to beat Lucifer. Now I had a solution. Any way I looked at it, I was always going to die.

“You were never meant to live anyway,” Gaia said. She came to stand above me.

I picked up the dagger and repeated what I had to do. She was asking me to take my own life for the greater