Southwest Truths (Semiautomatic Sorceress Book 3) by Kal Aaron (the red fox clan .txt) 📗

“Okay, I get it.” Lyssa waved her hand. She could barely perceive its outline. She couldn’t even feel the motion. “Lee gave me many versions of this speech throughout the years. I’m glad to know it’s filtered into the deepest parts of my psyche so it can harass me when I’m trying to get a good night’s sleep.”

“When the time comes and the seal breaks, are you willing to sacrifice yourself?” the woman asked. Her shadowy form drifted in front of Lyssa before dissipating again.

“I’m not going to let Jofi kill a bunch of people.” Lyssa shrugged. “But that’s another reason I’m here. If he’s going to go nuts, this is the one place that has a decent chance of containing him. I understand, though, the first line of defense is me. I’ll do my best.”

“I’ll be watching and waiting. There might be another option, if only because of the specialness of what you’ve achieved and you being in this place of power.”

“I’ll be eaten one way or another if he wakes up, but if this is a clever mental attack, I don’t buy it.” Lyssa snapped her fingers, but no sound came out. “Dream essences are fun for playing around in the Shadows’ minds, but an Illuminated? I’d wake right up the minute you touched my dream.”

Lyssa jerked upright and rubbed her temples after realizing she was in her bed in the guest room. She yanked a gun from where it hung over the headboard and swept the room, taking a deep breath.

The pressure she’d felt yesterday was still there, but she didn’t sense anything else. Anyone with a mind or dream essence would have had to be close to her to pull it off, if not in the same room.

“Is there a problem?” Jofi asked. “You seem unusually alarmed, even by your standards.”

Lyssa lowered her gun. “Just a nightmare. Not even that. A weird dream built from all my stress lately. I don’t think it means anything other than I should find whoever is after me and finish them off.”

“What happened in this dream?”

“Just someone was saying that coming here was a bad idea,” Lyssa muttered.

Jofi paused for a moment before offering, “Then your dream was wise, which in turn makes you wise.”

“Just to be careful,” Lyssa replied, “you didn’t sense any spirits in my room? I don’t know how easy it is to screw with someone with a spirit, but there’s got to be all sorts of dream spirits.”

“There were no spirits in this room besides me,” Jofi said. “No one entered the entire time you slept.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Lyssa stared down at the gun in her hand, swallowing. She realized why the voice sounded so familiar. It was a voice she hadn’t heard in years: her mother’s. Her subconscious could be a real bitch.

A couple of hours later, Sumira bowed her head as Lyssa stepped onto a lift platform. A clear door shot up from a slot in front, sealing Lyssa inside Last Remnant’s version of an elevator. The crystalline azure platform was bounded by walls of clear glass on all sides, but it was open above. A light shimmer marked the protective spell that saved the passengers from stray rain or rude birds.

With a light hum, the lift rose into the air at a pace far too leisurely for Lyssa’s liking. She climbed along with the towers of the city, her view expanding around her. She was glad she wasn’t afraid of heights.

Lyssa hated the lifts. She had no great insight into the spells involved and didn’t like that there was no way to control them from inside. They were raised and lowered by controls in the Heart of Remnant. Dropping a lift from hundreds of feet in the air sounded like a good way of assassinating her.

She had no choice. There was no other way to get to her destination. The Heart was far too high for her to take Dark Steps, and the guards took a dim view of people arriving in unauthorized ways. She wanted to keep the number of people trying to kill her countable on one hand.

The lift approached an open shaft in the rocky bottom of the floating palace. Lyssa held her breath. Once she made it into the Heart, she had a chance of surviving.

Her view disappeared, replaced by a dull red glow from the chamber. Bright light grew from the top until she arrived at a nondescript stone room. The front door slid back into the platform.

Another masked servant waited for her. He bowed his head. “Welcome to the Heart of Remnant, Miss Corti.”

Judging by his voice, he was a lot older than Sumira. The younger servant had arrived at Lyssa’s room shortly after she woke up to inform her she had an appointment at the Vault of Dreams.

Things were moving along far quicker than Lyssa had anticipated. That wasn’t a bad thing. She didn’t mind the Elders and potentially the Tribunal trying to push her along.

“You have survived arrival,” Jofi noted, reminding Lyssa he was there.

Despite her strange dream, she was happy to have the spirit on her side, along with extra magazines. Not being able to trust anyone made the idea of wandering around without her primary weapons unappealing.

Sumira hadn’t mentioned anything about Lyssa coming unarmed. The concept was bizarre when applied to Illuminated anyway. Even without weapons, she was incredibly dangerous, and no one would tolerate being told to leave their regalia behind. The only scenario she could imagine was them requesting her pistols be left behind because they wanted to discuss Jofi without him present.

Lyssa followed the servant out of the stone room, and they eventually arrived in a circular chamber with hallways leading off in several directions. The servant bowed his head and disappeared back down the hall toward the lift.

A Sorcerer in the center of the room advanced toward Lyssa. He wore a full white face mask split down the center by a red line. One side was frowning, and