Burning Up

fire finally went out, leaving his armor to collapse to the battlement stones, empty of all but ash.
    Dizzy, weak with blood loss and the effort of casting the spell, Amaris reeled like a drunken woman. But before she could hit the ground, strong male hands caught her shoulders.
    “I will have to remember not to make you angry,” Raniero said, even as he sent a pulse of magic into her body. She added his strength to her own and healed the lethal sword wound, sighing in relief as the pain faded.

NINE
    “W e’ve got to get to Marin before he kills her,” Amaris said grimly.
    Raniero longed to tell her to stay behind, but her magic was greater than his, and he knew he’d need her if he was to have any hope at all of stopping the wizard. So he nodded silently and turned to lead the way as they went in search of Korban.
    They found him bathed in the pulsing crimson glow of the Blood Orb. His eyes were wide and glittering with exhilaration in his pale face as he held Marin pinned against his chest. The child hung limp in his arms, the side of her face marked with a purpling handprint where he’d obviously struck her.
    “You bastard!” Amaris snarled.
    Korban smirked at them and kept right on chanting, the words coming in a fast singsong now.
    Amaris exchanged a grim glance with Raniero, realizing he was coming to the end of the spell. Once that happened, all he had to do was break Marin’s neck, and the Great Barrier would fall.
    “We’ve got to get her away from him,” Amaris whispered.
    “Aye, but how?” Raniero hefted his sword and eyed Korban, who promptly lifted the child higher to shield himself. “Fucking coward.”
    Amaris’s eyes widened with desperate inspiration. “Marin!” Her voice rang clear over Korban’s chanting. “Remember our game!”
    The child’s despairing gaze met hers, but there was no understanding in them.
    She tried again. “Remember that game you love to play? The one where I look for you?”
    Marin’s big brown eyes went huge. Then, thank the Red God, her little face screwed up with effort.
    And she vanished.
    Korban’s chanting broke off in a startled yelp, and his hands jerked as if losing their hold. He flailed as if trying to recapture the child who’d just magicked herself invisible and squirmed from his grip.
    “Hit the ground, Marin!” Amaris screamed.
    The child instantly appeared, her body drawn into a ball as she lay on the stone floor. The wizard started to swoop down and grab her up again.
    Raniero ran forward, swinging his sword in a furious upward blow. It cleaved through Korban’s neck in one clean stroke, and the wizard’s head went flying.
    But even as his body fell, the Blood Orb flashed a horrifying crimson. A trail of red light started draining from the wizard’s headless body into the globe, which began to pulse brighter.
    Raniero froze in horror. “Red God’s Balls! Korban’s death has completed the spell!”
    Her heart turning into a solid block of ice, Amaris realized he was right. Though the death of an innocent would have provided more power, any death at all would fuel the spell. In moments, it would activate and rip the barrier apart. And once it fell, the Varil would invade.
    Unless . . .
    “We’ve got to redirect the spell.”
    “It’s too complicated—there’s no time!”
    “I can do it!” She stared hard at the pattern of swirling energies, reading them, finding the spot where the spell could be warped, turned to a new purpose. Throwing out both hands, she began to chant, sending her magic swirling toward the chink in the spell.
    It was like trying to redirect floodwaters with her bare hands. The spell roared along the channel Korban had constructed, ignoring her efforts to turn it in a new direction. Amaris gritted her teeth and kept trying. She was damned if they’d fall to the Varil after suffering so much, fighting so hard.
    But even as she strained to turn the magic, she knew she simply didn’t have enough power.
    Until strong fingers wrapped around her shoulders, and a new stream of magic joined that rolling down her arms.
    Raniero’s.
    The vampire joined his will to hers, reinforcing her magic, working to warp the spell into the new shape she willed for it. And slowly, reluctantly, the spell twisted, took on the form she demanded.
    The mystical energies pouring through the Great Barrier began adding to its strength instead of weakening it.
    Somewhere in the distance, Amaris thought she heard reptilian voices