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

this was going to be a repeat of the icy cavern. Every breath I took came out in a puffy mist. Goosebumps erupted all along my arms. I could hear the Evil Three shivering.

“What’s going–”

My words died in my throat as a figure materialised inside the circle. The essence of the woman’s body was semi-transparent, but I could clearly see her pleated slacks and three-quarter-length shirt. Her hair was a darker brown than mine. It sat atop her head in the same French curl as the one Samantha wore. When she turned to face me, everything stood still. While the rest of her body was washed of most of its colour, her eyes were two crystals of blue. Eyes that I had seen on my own face for the last seventeen years. I could be her in fifty years. Hilary Hastings.

27

Matilda swore. I would have done the same if my jaw weren’t hanging open. The shade of my great-grandmother attempted to speak. Her hand flew to her throat. A wet-eyed look of confusion washed over her features before they hardened into steely resolve.

Her head snapped up. She took a jerky step towards me. It would have been smart to ask whether spirits got pissed if you disturbed their eternal slumber. Her semi-transparent body almost hit the edge of the circle. She came to an abrupt halt, but it wasn’t from being trapped. It was because a new shadow had emerged inside the circle. This one appeared as a billow of grey smoke. It wasn’t transparent but dense. Tendrils of smoke lashed out and wrapped itself about my great-grandmother’s spirit. Before I had a chance to react, the smoke constricted and crushed Hilary’s spirit into dust.

The remaining cloud condensed into a humanoid form. The same beautiful woman who I’d heard beneath the waves. “Gaia!” Alison screamed.

Another one of the Evil Three shrieked. Rather than scamper away from the circle, Alison jumped towards it. I caught the back of her skirt and dragged her back. Something about the desperate look in Gaia’s eyes had my pulse racing. The drop in temperature made my limbs groan as Alison fought against me.

The being inside the circle phased between youth and decay. Her body began to increase in stature until I had to crane my next to look into her eyes. They were two obsidian orbs. She grew too big for the containment of the magic circle. When she touched the edges of it, the darkness inside me reacted instinctively. It didn’t distinguish friend from foe. All the magic understood was that I wanted the being inside the circle contained. It lashed out with a charge of sparkling black light that lit Gaia up from inside out.

Alison scratched at my face. “Stop!”

She needn’t have been so concerned. Whatever this thing was, it wasn’t the wallflower kind of deity. Gaia returned my attempt to contain her with a blast of her own power. Sapling green streaks of lighting cascaded from the heavens. It struck the five tips of the star inside the circle. The back of my eyes illuminated for a second. The entire fern forest became awash in an unearthly green glow. Gaia raised her arm in my direction. My chest spasmed as something inside me tugged free. My own body glowed with iridescent blue before a thread of it whipped towards Gaia. She wound the thread in her hands like she was spooling wool. I felt like someone had reached into my chest and was squeezing my heart. My third eye opened to reveal the pool of hedge magic draining from me. Gaia was retracting my magic. Panicked at the thought, I attempted to cut off her assault. She raised her other arm. Lightning speared from the heavens. Like an explosion, the flash was followed by pain.

A fissure tore inside my mind. I let go of Alison to press my palms against my temples. A phantom limb burrowed its way into my brain and set off mini-explosions inside. I groaned as I toppled over into the foetal position. Around me I heard a scuffle but I didn’t have the wherewithal to contend with it. Twining beams of green snaked up the inside of the circle. It rallied against being trapped and tore into my mind. The pressure of it felt like the pounding of a hammer in my head. Blood dripped from my nose once more. I tasted the metallic edge of it on my tongue.

“Let go of the circle, Alessia!” Matilda shouted. I heard her words, but in my current state, I couldn’t comprehend her meaning. I was down and Gaia was mentally kicking me. It never occurred to me how much of my self-identity was wrapped in my magic. It was the only thing of worth I’d ever had. When the hedge magic became nothing but a handful of droplets, I did the only thing I could think of to save it. I wrapped it in layers of the darker magic and buried it as far as it could go.

For some reason, my mind conjured up the Ley dimension. I watched as the already bright green world around me exploded into a rainbow of colour. It was only then that I saw how corrupted Gaia’s light truly was. Embedded in the seemingly green hue of her power were small specks of rusted brown. Wherever she was, the containment was eroding her. Unable to get at the last of my power, Gaia let out a skin-peeling shriek. It wasn’t a sound that could possibly have come from a human throat. My insides turned to ice at the sheer rage and despair in it.

“Surrender,” that ancient voice commanded. Everybody always told me that despite the ambiguous source of my power, I was still human. Like every human, I was subject to the whim of our Earth deity. My mind sighed in release. The Ley lines disappeared and I returned to the physical present. Little by little, the darker magic unfolded to reveal the