Radiance - The Alight Archives Book #1

91. Us Useless Adults

Fearne leaped back off her spot, narrowly avoiding the sizeable slab of earth that crashed into the ground in front of her, scattering grass, dandelions, and dirt into her face. Fearne's boots slid across the soil beneath her until she came to a full stop, quickly lashing her wand before her, its tip aglow with green-colored energy, and shouted the name of her spell. "Plant Magic: Viri Scuto!"

Twisting vines sprang out of the cracks in the grassy terrain, climbing around the men's feet and reaching for their shoulders, claiming them with a strength that pulled their arms at their sides and tied their ankles together. The vines ejected into the air, and Fearne watched as five of the eleven men—none of whom were sorcerers, sadly—flailed and kicked in a struggle to free themselves from the wall of vines and plantlife they'd been trapped in. It wasn't necessarily an attack spell, so to speak, but it did wonders in immobilizing those Fearne viewed as an enemy. Since enrolling in Glyph Academy, the spell had only evolved in power.

But Fearne hadn't the opportunity to relish her spellcraft as, with a springing lung forward, two men closed in on her, both arms with rusted daggers in hand. Inhaling, Fearne raised her glimmering wand in the air. "Primary Magic: Cutumo!"

A disc-shaped barrier of turquoise energy materialized from thin air, separating her from her enemies. The metallic clang! of their blades cutting into the barrier caused her to flinch, but the men stumbled back as the weapons bounced off of it as if it was made of rubber. The barrier disintegrated into shards of light afterward.

Wasting no time, Fearne summoned more of her vines from the forest floor, capturing those two men, as well as a third man prowling behind her. Fearne realized as long as she could keep the dullards among their ranks secure in her confines, they wouldn't prove to be a great threat. After all, there was fairly little a dullard could do to fight against a sorcerer, even if said sorcerer was only a student. Not unless they were equipped with an enchanted item of some kind, or they could rely on the effects of a charm, of course.

Fortunately for her, there were only three rogue sorcerers in their group. One of them, whom Fearne assumed was their leader—a tall, muscular brute with messy black hair and cursed with abnormally squarish jaw—hung near the treeline at the edge of the clearing with two other sorcerers, one on either side of him. Though his tattered clothing was cut from the same cloth as his subordinates, Fearne could recognize that he hadn't been present when Adeline defeated Valenka. For starters, he was the only man present who wasn't covered in wounds or patches of ice.

The sorcerer near him leered at her with angry expressions, yet their weak-kneed movements told her that they wouldn't suffer the same mistake as their leader had. Underestimating Glyph sorcerers was no longer on the table for them; similarly, Fearne knew she couldn't drop her guard against them either.

Fearne made a swift peek over her shoulder behind her, where Simon—still cloaked in the green energy of her healing spell—was lying on the ground, an arm over his stomach. As a precaution, Fearne had instructed her titan veladora snaptrappers—towering above him, their massive mouths twisting with the rage of hunger—to guard Simon while she handled all the fighting. She wasn't exactly comfortable with the arrangement, but out of the two of them, it stood to reason she'd be their best option at fending off their attackers, even if she didn't know many attack spells herself.

"Enough of this! Can't you worthless fools do anything right?!" the taller man shouted from across the clearing. She had heard a few of the other men referring to him as Garson. "How is it taking you this long to restrain a single girl?! Douglas wouldn't stand for such a pathetic display, and neither will I!" Snorting frustratedly, Garson began making his way for her in a steadfast stride, his wand glistening with blue energy. Stomping his boot hard on the ground, the man whipped the rod of light overhead. "I'll end this farce myself!"