The Sorcery Code by Dima Zales and Anna Zaires

Chapter 32: Blaise

Chapter 32: Blaise

Blaise was analyzing his last spell when he heard knocking at the door. His heart jumped, and a tendril of fury snaked down his spine. Was this the Council making their move?

Rushing down to the storage room, he swiftly grabbed a bunch of cards he had written for just such a confrontation after his brother’s death. It was a mixture of offensive and defensive spells, each optimized for the particular strengths and weaknesses of the Council members.

In the meantime, the knocking continued.

Thinking furiously, Blaise took a generic defense spell and fed it into the Interpreter Stone. It would afford him some protection against both mental and physical attacks, hopefully buying him some time.

Approaching the entryway, he called out, “Who is it?”

“Blaise, it’s me, Ganir.”

Blaise’s anger doubled. How dare the old man show his face here after what he’d done to Louie? Ganir’s betrayal was in some way worse than Augusta’s; the old sorcerer had always treated Louie as a son, and nobody had been more shocked than Blaise to learn of Ganir’s vote in favor of his brother’s punishment.

Filled with fury, Blaise began to speak, instinctively resorting to a spell designed to paralyze his opponent. He didn’t think; he just acted. If the spell succeeded, he had no idea what he would do with the unmoving body of the Council Leader, but he didn’t care at the moment, too consumed with anger to be fully rational.

After he was done, Blaise took a deep breath, trying to regain control of his emotions. He didn’t know if the spell had been successful, but there was a chance that he had surprised Ganir. When it came to battle, unanticipated moves were the best, and it was unlikely the old sorcerer would’ve expected him to use such a simple spell.

He felt himself getting calm and clear-headed. Very calm.

Too calm, Blaise realized. Ganir was using a pacifying spell against him—a spell that had partially penetrated Blaise’s mental defenses.

The thought of being manipulated infuriated Blaise again, and he felt the unnatural calm dissipate, bringing back some of the volatile emotions he’d experienced earlier. However, Ganir’s spell must’ve been at least somewhat effective, since he was no longer feeling quite so murderous toward the Council Leader—something that Blaise bitterly, but calmly, resented.

At that moment, he heard Ganir’s sorcery-enhanced voice. It was loud and clear, as if the old man was standing right next to him and shouting. “Blaise, I am extremely disappointed,” the voice said. “I know you hold a grudge, but I thought you were better than this. Attacking me without even looking me in the eye?

That’s not the Blaise I remember.”

Blaise felt his fury returning. The old man was a master of mental games, and Blaise hated being manipulated.

“I will give you a second to walk away,” Blaise shouted back, speaking to Ganir for the first time. Tauntingly, he added, “And you’re right—I’m not the Blaise you remember. That Blaise died along with Louie. You remember Louie, don’t you?”

As he was speaking, Blaise scribbled the rough coordinates of where Ganir was standing on a card and added some code before loading the card into the Interpreter Stone. Then he jumped back a few feet, making sure that he wouldn’t be in the radius of the spell.

The spell he unleashed was designed to paralyze his victim mentally—to blast the mind with indecision, fear, shock, and various effects of sleep deprivation. It was far worse than the physical paralysis spell Blaise had used earlier, since this one was an amalgamation of multiple attacks on the mind all rolled into one.