Elfhome

She leaned her head back against the concrete barrier. Life was so much simpler before she became an elf princess. The sekasha were just the tip of the iceberg. Almost everything on the continent was “hers” and she had no clue what the hell she was supposed to do with it all. She was a mad scientist. A hoverbike racer. A junkyard dog. What the hell did she know about being a princess? Did Cinderella have this problem once the prince tracked her down with the glass slipper? Was this the real reason she took off halfway through the ball? Did Cinderella see all the sekasha and laedin and nivasa and realized that all those people would expect her to be a princess?

What Tinker really needed were the technical specifications on “princess,” not fairytales.

An odd vibration suddenly thrummed against her awareness, like an invisible guitar string been plucked. Windwolf was tapping the power of the Wind Clan Spell Stone. A moment later a flash of lightning tore down from the clear sky, a jagged dancing column of brilliance. It struck southwest of where they were standing. Thunder boomed out instantly, confirming the strike insanely close.

“Oh crap.” Tinker scrambled to her feet. She felt another thrum of power, slightly different, and flame blossomed above the trees.

“Wow!” Blue Sky pulled out the camera. “What the hell is that?”

“Windwolf and Prince True Flame. Okay people we have to move!”

The flame strike had been close to the nearest on-ramp, less than a quarter mile away. The road elevated after that point; it was close to fifty feet off the ground when the highway entered the tunnels. With the bombs in the tunnel, the only way to safety was toward the battlefront.

Tinker hurried toward the cars, the sekasha flanking her.

Blue Sky trotted backwards, still filming, as lightning striking again — closer. “Coolness!”

“Blue!” Tinker felt a third thrum of magic; the Stone Clan had casted a scrying spell. In a weird other sense, like an invisible eye opened, Tinker could suddenly “see” the tight knot of domana-caste elves with their sekasha-caste at the on-ramp, and an unruly swarm of something racing toward her on the highway.

“We’ve got incoming — lots of them. They’re big and they’re moving fast. I think they’re wargs.” At one time wargs had been Elfhome cousins to wolves, but then, in some ancient war, were turned into oversized bio-weapons. “They’re going to cut us off.”

“Away from the cars.” Pony ordered. “Domi, shields.”

Tinker cocked her fingers and brought her hand to her mouth. Her domana shields were generated by the Wind Clan Spell Stones which sat astride a massive spring of magic. In theory, her shields could protect them from anything but it depended on her getting them up and keeping them up.

She spoke the trigger word that set up the resonance between her and the Spell Stones. It was if a giant engine just as kicked to life; magic growled deep within her bones. The vibration rumbled through her bruised bones. She barely kept from whimpering in pain. Power was blooming around her in a rush of heat; the wrong sound could be deadly. She pressed her lips tight, changed her hand position, and triggered her shield. The power shifted and changed and the wind wrapped her and the sekasha.

“Shitshitshitshit.” She hissed now that it was safe to talk. The pain continued to burn bright as the power flowed across the resonance between her and the Spell Stones. “Feels like someone is arc welding my bones.”

“Wolf is coming.” Pony wrapped his arms around her, keeping her steady against the onslaught of pain.

She focused hard on keeping her fingers locked into position even though she could barely feel them beyond the searing. If she moved her fingers, the spell would collapse. “He’d better hurry.”

Lightning struck closer and closer.

“That is so cool!” Blue filmed the sudden wild storm of lightning. “Can you do that?”

“Not yet.” If she could sense Windwolf, then he must feel her and was trying to stop the beasts before they could reach her.

The pack of wargs raced toward them, too many to count. They made a ragged wall of fur, taller than she was. The first one slammed into her shield hard enough to rebound a dozen feet, tumbling off its feet.

The next warg learned from mistake of its pack mate. The beast stopped, braced itself, and roared out white frost. The wave of magical cold struck her shield and wrapped around them, instantly encasing them in thick ice.

“Shit!” Tinker’s breath came out in a plume of mist. She hated that she could only stand there, hoping her shields held. She hated that if she flinched even once, they instantly become vulnerable to attack. The highway was lost behind the ice wall, an opaque haze, marking the range of her shield. She couldn’t see the road, or how many more wargs were between her and Windwolf. “Oh, Windwolf, hurry.”

Fire blasted down on them, making her flinch.

“Nothing can breach your shield, domi.” Pony sounded so calm and confident.