Take Back Worlds (Diamond Universe: Sierra Walker #3)

Chapter 1

C rossing through a portal is always a weird experience, but this time it’s especially surreal.

There’s a moment in-between, where you can’t see anything. The space between dimensions isn’t actually literal space, right, so there’s nothing there. So there’s this moment where you’re utterly unmoored from everything and you just have to keep taking steps in what your muscles remember as forward movement when you’re not walking on anything. (You don’t have to keep walking, actually; you keep moving through the portal even without trying, but if you don’t, you’re more likely to land on your butt wherever you’re going.) It’s like flashing into a sensory deprivation chamber but pretending it’s still solid ground.

The first time I crossed through a portal, someone held my hand to bring me to High Earth.

The second and last time, Grand Magus Evram watched me go alone. I’d thought it was a sign he trusted how much I’d grown, not that he was making sure I didn’t come back.

But this time, I’m holding Nariel’s hand.

Not only that, I feel him. In my magic, and in my heart.

And I feel fear. Mine or his, I don’t even know, but his hand has tightened on mine, and I realize that somehow it’s my turn to lead someone else through.

Because even with all his centuries behind him, Nariel has never traveled this way.

So I hold his hand, and he holds mine, a two-way anchor, and I walk back—or forward?—toward High Earth.

It only takes seconds.

But seconds is all it takes for an internal sea change.

And then we’re through.

I do still stumble—or I would, but Nariel lifts us. This time it’s me clutching his hand, adjusting my balance as I suddenly find myself floating, and he gracefully lowers us onto the ground—

And then shoots us up.

That gets my attention, and I pull myself out of the surrealness of this moment to work my own magic and fly under my own power, while Nariel cloaks us in shadows near the ceiling.

In theory I can see through his shadows now, but there’s so much happening it doesn’t do me much good.

I know where we are, at least. This chamber is kind of like Grand Central Station for Sarenac City’s field teams: a wide open, almost ballroom-like space, with arches all around. There’s a kiosk in the center that keys each arch to its portal destination.

Which we can’t see, because in addition to all the strike teams that preceded us, there’s just. A lot more people.

From around us, an announcement sounds.

“The Council of Grand Magi are acting in accord. Mages, apprehend Sierra Walker for crimes against High Earth.”

Ohhh balls, it’s an ambush.

Mages from around the world gathered here purely to fuck me up.

I spent so many years dreaming of a triumphant return that somehow this extremely more likely probability never occurred to me.

Honestly I should have thought about what it would mean to show up in a world where people have been told that we’re responsible for their current plague, even if Destien is theoretically escorting us.

But I thought I was coming here to do them a favor out of solidarity and make allies, not to have to fight them for the opportunity to save their asses.

I should have realized that before the grand magi can see me as an ally, they have to see me not just as someone they can’t ignore, but as someone who deserves a seat at their table.

Destien is getting a rapid report from someone on the ground, which means we’re on our own for the moment.

Cloaked in Nariel’s shadows, we’re invisible to them now, but advanced mages—and even though I don’t recognize all the uniforms, it is safe to assume, if this is a joint action from all the grand magi , a thing that never happens, that they are all advanced mages—aren’t generally stupid.

Some realize fast we must have flown and start shooting spells toward the ceiling, like shotgun blasts that might catch something .

Nariel tugs me into his arms and dodges, swooping around the chamber as he puts out more and more shadows to obscure our passage.

“Can you keep me cloaked if you let me go?” I ask him.

“This is not the moment I’d prefer to test that,” he says tightly.

The spells keep coming, and he weaves between their trajectories. With his magic inside me, I can actually feel the directional sense of them but can’t quite sort through all the information. How in the world do you process this amount of input in a battle?

The answer comes to me immediately: you don’t. You focus.

Nariel is used to this, and he’s doing his part.

It’s time for me to do mine.

I can’t target each individual spell, but I don’t need to.

I create a shield around us, and instead of using the elements, I use Nariel’s shadows, putting us in a sphere of darkness.

Not invisible, but impenetrable.

In theory. No individual mage here is a match for our combined power, but there are a lot of them.

What I did not expect is that the shield literally absorbs every hit. I feel it like a zing in my core, a wave of new power in an already overwhelming sea of it.

I guess I did need to recharge after the battle, but working a spell that doesn’t do what I meant it to is terrifying in a whole new way.

Spells are like code. They only do what you tell them to do, even if it’s not what you intended.

Which means using Nariel’s shadows must be telling them something I don’t understand. It incorporates some essence of the nature of his angelic magic that I can’t separate.

And angels can suck us all dry.

Not exactly the first impression I wanted to make.

I also don’t know how long it will hold up to this assault, but the mages, not being stupid, have stopped attacking temporarily.

They know we can’t just hide in a shield forever.

“I don’t know what to do here,” I whisper to Nariel. “My impulse is to fight back, because absolutely fuck them for this, but fighting all of these mages seems like it’s not going to help us not have interference while fixing the plague, or get their help afterward?”

His arms tighten around me, but after a moment he asks, “Do you still want to help them? You came here expecting to be treated as a guest, and this is how the Council is responding.”

Good question. I did want to help them, and I realize in part it’s to prove that I can. But—“I can’t just leave people to die because the grand magi are assholes.”

He lets out a breath. “Then we need a way to not play their game.”

I snort. “Oh, is that all.”

“You can’t fight everyone—“ Nariel stops, a smirk flickering on his face. ”—or rather, you can, but not at the same time. Fighting them isn’t going to get the mages off our backs, is it? If Destien isn’t making a move—”

”—it’s because we need to fight this fight ourselves in order for it to stick.”

So I need to both fight and not fight at the same time.

Right.

Aside from Destien’s order or my beating them, both of which these mages might ignore later, there’s only one thing that gets them to stand down and it’s the same thing that got them to stand up.

“I have a bad idea,” I say.

“I can’t wait.”

“It’s going to make our life harder.”

Nariel gestures expansively at the ballroom-sized station full of mages waiting for us to show weakness so they can tear us apart.

“No, I realize, but—“

“Sierra.” Nariel is serious this time. “Sometimes, temporary measures, patches, are appropriate. And sometimes you have to tear the whole fabric apart to get to the source of the problem, or to get what you need out of it.”

He already realizes what I’m going to have to do, if not the specifics. But he knows I have to choose this.

“You feeling okay?” I ask.

“Better ask yourself,” he counters. “Private though this is—“

“No sex with an audience,” I say quickly. “Even if they can’t see us. I don’t want to test my control of that.”

But I take his point and rapidly adjust the spell, straining to focus.

As our shadow sphere lowers, I frantically adjust the spell, straining to focus.

You know that feeling where you’ve had way too much caffeine and you’re still tired but you know if you keep drinking more it’s going to boil over inside you, and you’re actually shaking?

That’s what Nariel’s magic inside me feels like now. I do not want any more magic caffeine, because being out of control in a combat situation is how you get yourself killed.

And it’s not just me anymore.

So I pull some of Nariel’s shadows out of the spell, which makes it not as strong but also means it can’t absorb as much magic.

Our forms are visible through the swaths of shadow, like figures floating behind dry ice contained in a snow globe.

That simile got away from me.

But the High Earth mages get the unspoken memo: that I’m not afraid for them to see me, and that this kind of attack won’t hurt me.

“Take us down, please,” I tell Nariel. “Still visible, but not quite as far away.”

As he does, some mages shoot their shot. I manifest my hammer and knock their attacks back at them, reflecting them into the crowd, which gets them to stop pretty quickly.

And now we’re close enough that I can see the faces around me.

Hard, weary. Suspicious, fearful. Watchful.

My heart squeezes.

Once I would have said these were my people.

My heart pounds.

This is a big risk. I have their attention, but it’s the attention of people waiting for the opportune moment, not of people who want to listen.

Without a word, I banish the shield, and the shadows disperse.

And then my hammer too.

When I float away from Nariel, I feel prickles along my scalp. I turn to face him fully to see him watching me intently, and the sensation goes away.

Can I feel his attention ? What the fuck?

Cool, cool, we have a brand-new bond I don’t understand while surrounded by enemies who are used to seeing us both as prey, what could possibly go wrong?

Shadows swirl in front of Nariel, and he raises his eyebrows at me.

Should I stay close so he can cloak us again if needed?

I don’t know how to communicate back so elegantly without using words, so I just go for it. “They are going to learn that we can be here in the open. And if anyone tries to assault us again, it will be my pleasure to educate them further.”

I don’t raise my voice, but I don’t keep it down, either.

Predictably, people all around us raise their wands.

A wave of weariness, and hopelessness, surges through me, because of course this is what I should have expected coming back to High Earth, the only place I ever really knew as home, after all these years.

It was never going to be a welcoming committee and smiles and high fives. High fives don’t exist here, but I never had that camaraderie with anyone, either.

I do also feel a bit of petty satisfaction and anticipation from their reaction, though, because at least fighting is something I am prepared for, and even after the battle we’ve just been through, I will absolutely show them what I can do and not be sorry. I can fight them, and I can fight them all.

But I’m here to save them, and I can think of only one way to stop this.

I brought myself here to make allies, but I’ve barely set foot in the world and I’m going to make enemies instead. The kind of enemies I can’t just defeat once on the dueling grounds and then call it a day; the grand magi live forever, and they never forget.

But so do the angels. And I’ll never get what I need to defeat them if all of High Earth is hunting me. I’m done with that, and I am cutting it off right at the source.

I can’t actually imagine myself doing this, like there’s some fundamental disconnect in my brain between before-Sierra and now-Sierra.

But I know the words that will get me heard.

Even if they will also get me killed.

Less than five minutes in this world, and I’m already destroying our chance at a real alliance, because what do I know about getting people on my side?

I know about fighting.

So somehow I still hear myself say, “I challenge the Council of Grand Magi and demand they face me personally.”

The whole room stops dead.