Shifting Stars by Gary Stringer (best fiction books of all time txt) 📗

my ambitions.” She shrugged. “I tended not to listen to my mother too much after that.”

Catriona flattered herself that if Dreya the Dark was volunteering personal information now, then she was definitely making an impression.

“Still,” Dreya continued, “perhaps you’re right. Maybe I should change things up now. Let’s see how you handle this!”

Cat felt the tiny hairs on her arms start to stand up in response to the build-up of charge around the sorceress that was clearly going to develop into a lightning bolt heading in her direction. The druidess had just the thing. Out of her pocket dimension, she pulled out, of all things, a bucket of water, which she threw all over Dreya the instant the bolt was ready, causing it to backfire, painfully. While the sorceress was momentarily stunned, the druid used that same water to trap Dreya in a cylindrical cage of ice.

“Don’t play with electricity, either,” Cat admonished her, as she stepped back down to the ground. “Especially with so much water around.”

Dreya levitated out of the trap, scoffing at Cat leaving such an obvious escape.

“I’m insulted if you think that would be any kind of challenge.”

“Back at ya!” she retorted, making the wind pick up so much that Dreya was thrown back down to the ground with a bump. “As if I’d leave such an obvious escape route without it leading to a trap! You’re still not taking me seriously, Dreya. Stop holding back – show me what you’ve really got, or I might start to doubt that you’re really as powerful and deadly as you make out.”

“Alright,” Dreya acceded. “If you’re sure that’s how you really want it. Just remember you asked for it!”

With that, for the next half hour, Dreya turned up the power and frequency of attacks, putting Cat firmly on the defensive, working frantically to counter whatever came her way. Cat kept on the move, never letting Dreya pin her down, countering with magic or shapeshifting to escape and buy time. The way she ran up and down her Windy Steps, Cat was thankful that her time with Mandalee had got her in shape. Still, she needed a breather for a minute and decided to put a barrier between them while she got her breath back. Throwing a few pebbles on the ground, she grew a stone wall between them as she landed. She didn’t think Dreya would try to levitate over it after what happened the last time. Hopefully, breaking through it would at least take a minute.

“Stonewalling me now, Cat?” Dreya called out. “And here was me thinking we were communicating really well since we started dating!”

“Oh, you know how it is,” Cat returned. “Everybody in a relationship needs their own space, sometimes!”

“True,” Dreya allowed, invoking her magic to shatter the stone into fragments, “but I’m all about breaking down barriers and moving forward. Standing still for too long can be bad for you. It can take the magic right out of a relationship.”

Cat found herself suddenly surrounded by an anti-magic field. “But our two magics are different,” Cat pointed out.

“Yes, of course, I know you’re a druid – don’t think I haven’t adapted the field to take that into account.”

“You know, I really don’t get these things,” Catriona said. “An anti-magic field is itself a form of magic, so how does it operate?”

“It works on a different frequency to other magic and cuts off all other frequencies but its own.”

“Interesting,” said Cat, “so in theory, if I could determine the right frequency, I could adapt my magic to run off the field itself.”

Dreya’s eyes widened slightly, betraying interest in a concept she hadn’t considered before.

“Can you do that?”

“Not yet,” Cat admitted, to Dreya’s apparent disappointment, “but you’ve just given me a big piece of the puzzle. Give me time.”

“Time’s something you don’t have. You’re trapped.”

Cat shook her head. “I’ve been in worse traps than this, and after criticising me for leaving an obvious escape route, earlier, you’ve done the same thing.”

Dreya scoffed, “I don’t make mistakes like that – the field forms a dome over your head. You can’t fly out.”

“Wasn’t planning to,” Cat returned.

The anti-magic field only blocked her from sending her magic outside the barrier, she could still use it on herself, so she shifted to her mole form and burrowed underneath. While she remained underground, Dreya had no way to track her until she came back up and nipped Dreya on the ankle. As the sorceress whirled around, Cat shifted straight to falcon form and flew up into the air over Dreya’s head, where she reverted to her true self and stood on her Windy Steps.

“If this were a real battle,” she said, “I'd have changed to wolf form and bitten you properly, or falcon form and pecked out your eyes, or owl form and…hooted…really loud…or something.”

Dreya’s face twitched to a half-smile, just for a moment before she could get it under control. “Started well, that threat.”

“Wasn’t trying to threaten you; I was trying to make you laugh. Almost succeeded, too!”

“You’re not that funny,” Dreya refuted.

“I am so that funny!” Cat insisted. “Come on, this one was a classic!” she said, pulling another bucket out of her pocket dimension, brandishing it over Dreya’s head.

“Using the same trick twice, Cat? I’m disappointed.”

“Dreya!” Cat rebuked her. “As if I would!”

Cat tipped the bucket’s contents over Dreya, but it wasn’t water, this time, but rose petals.

Chapter 17

“What the—?” Dreya began, unsure how to react to the flurry of rose petals fluttering around her in the breeze. Given the way druid magic worked, it was entirely conceivable that this might be some new, inventive form of attack, although Dreya couldn’t imagine what offensive use rose petals could have.

“Well, I thought our relationship was going so well,” Cat explained, “we could skip right to the wedding.” Then with a mock hurt look, she asked, “I didn’t misread the situation, did I?”

This time Dreya’s smile was fuller and lasted longer. “I think it’s a bit too soon, that’s