Chapter 54 Ren Monroe

54 REN MONROE

Her mind shattered.

Or maybe it was her body? Both? Ren couldn’t be certain. All she knew was that Theo’s initial pull across their bond had landed her a face-to-face meeting with Arakyl. A private moment in the waxways that was still haunting her thoughts, creeping through her mind like poison. Her guilt about what was happening in Kathor multiplied, spreading across the infinity of her thoughts.

All of this is my fault. All of this is my fault. All of this—

Not only had she weakened the city’s defenses to allow the Makers to infiltrate—but now she was supposedly responsible for the dragon’s awakening in the first place. The creature had been feeding on her revenge this entire time. Gaining strength for this exact moment. Her hatred was like a fire that had spread too far. It was burning the beautiful parts of the world now too. Was she too late to stop him? Or would Arakyl burn until everything she loved was ashes?

Theo had pulled her free at the very last moment. Ren’s feet had set down in the burial chamber, and it was no small glimpse of his surroundings this time. If they needed proof that their bond was properly restored, this was it. She’d been pulled fully across space and time, right into absolute chaos—but Ren Monroe had always thrived under pressure. She’d cast wards to protect Theo, turning away a blow that might have killed him, and then when she was certain he was safe, she’d told him two things: cut the bronze thread and push her back. Really, she’d begged him to do those two things. And Theo Brood, for all his family’s sins, had never failed her.

Obediently, Theo had used their bond to do just that. A shove back to where she’d been standing just moments before. She heard a whisper of Arakyl’s presence in their private waxways—but she was moving far too fast for him to capture her again. Ren’s feet set down in the portal room for exactly one second. A single grain of sand in the hourglass, and then she was pulled again.

The spell had activated with perfectly imperfect timing. The claws of the portal room seized her. It was far too much push and pull for any one person. For a brief moment, her consciousness fractured—completely detached from every world, every plane of existence. She was… nowhere. Not in the waxways. Not in the portal room. Not in a dragon’s burial chamber. Not even outside Meredream—her actual destination. The place she found herself in was a void. Empty of all life. Absent of all threat. Home to only Ren Monroe. She might have stayed there for the rest of time, untouched by the real world and all its torments. It was a comfort to think that she might be safe here. Safe, but alone.

It was that final thought that sent her sprawling through the waxways at last. She could not leave Theo behind. Not after all they’d been through. Not when she still needed to try to make good on her promises. Her feet set down on a hillside. The trees around her were swaying. They were also… on fire. There was blood. Bodies spread over the ground. Most of them, thank the gods, belonged to the Makers. She saw their red scarves. Her eyes dragged upward from the dead to the living. She’d been set down in the same location the others had—but it was clear that the army had pushed the wizards back. Pressed after them and up the hillside. Which meant Ren found herself standing behind enemy lines.

Some one hundred soldiers stood between her and the others. All with their backs to her. She couldn’t believe the wizards were there. Still alive! Behind their wards, fighting to keep the enemy at bay. She saw their numbers had been reduced. Only half of them were still on their feet. The others were down. Wounded or worse. Her eyes found Winnie Fletcher in the middle of that sprawl. The girl was slumped down, holding one of her friends, who’d taken an arrow in the stomach. Ren’s entire body went perfectly still. The other little girl had attended Avid Shiverian’s classes too. Ren remembered that she’d been quite good at the elementary wards, but that had not been enough to save her. Her face looked paler in death. Winnie was clutching the girl tightly, almost as if she might keep her in this world a little longer if she just held on.

“No more of this,” Ren whispered. “There will be no more of this.”

Her hand tightened on the grip of her horseshoe wand. Dark rage was trembling through her entire body. The world must answer for such things. Ren would be the one to make it answer. No one had seen her yet. None of the enemy soldiers had bothered to look back. The first soldier was awarded a killing spell right in the back. She saw his spine fail him. The man crumpled with a scream. Ren hit the next with a stun spell so violent that he was thrown out of one of his boots. The rest was action and reaction. Her magic took on the shape of poetry. The soldiers were no more than paper on which to write the most elegant words she could think of. She ducked under a sword swing and hit the man point blank with a blunt-force punch of magic. Turning, she cast her favorite binding spell, unexpectedly pulling one woman toward her. A quick sidestep brought the same woman’s sword into her fellow soldier’s stomach instead of hers. She blasted both of them away with an outstretched hand.

A voice in the back of her mind whispered that this was a terrible thing too. These people were not themselves. It wasn’t fair they should suffer. “But the children must live,” she whispered back to that voice. “The children must live.”

She slit the next soldier’s artery with a downward slash. Another caught the same invisible blade across their chest. When enough of the army had turned to face her, she cast the concentrated light cantrip. Nearly thirty soldiers, blinded in an instant, temporarily stumbling around. Panicked, they began taking wild swings where she’d stood—all while Ren rotated off to the right, casting stun spell after stun spell into their vulnerable flank. The goal wasn’t to kill them. Most would be wounded. And the truth was that she relished their pain. The sounds of bones breaking. The great ripples across their skin as her magic punched again and again into their ranks. Finally, she was unleashing everything she’d held in for so long. One man was desperate enough to throw his sword at her. She caught it with a quick ward and sent it spinning right back at him. Ren marveled at how easy it all felt. Magic was a scythe. She was the reaper. Her enemies became faceless. They fell, flower-cut to the ground. Ren was about to begin another sequence of spells when she realized that she knew the face standing in front of her. It was familiar. Her wand hand trembled, then lowered.

“Nevelyn? What are you doing here?”

Her friend grabbed her by the shoulder. Together, they ducked back inside the waiting wards with the other wizards. Ren didn’t understand. There had been so many soldiers on that hillside. How had she gotten through them all? Had she somehow ported by accident? She didn’t understand until she looked back. Theodore Crane was picking his way across the battlefield. His eyes were wild and darting. Like an animal who’d just heard the first, hair-raising howl of a wolf in the distance. Except no one was hunting him. Only dead soldiers lay before him.

Ren had… she had…

“Shit.”

Nevelyn barely kept her upright. Ren had nothing left. She’d just emptied out all that she was onto that hillside. Every burning thought. Every bright rage. Logically, she accepted that these people would have killed her if they had the chance. She knew they would. That’s what they were here to do. But what she’d just done was not just defensive magic. It was not blow for blow. She had cut through them with the same terrible power that the viceroy had told them to fear. If ever they needed an example of why all the wizards should die—this was it. Nevelyn kept whispering that it was all right. It would all be all right. Avid caught her eye and nodded once. As if this terrible display of power had been necessary. Crane came gasping into the safety of their wards. All around them, the army had paused. Soldiers at the edges of the group were fleeing. Ren wasn’t sure if it was what she’d just done scaring them off—or some other reason. Those who remained settled back into their stances. Ren could not stomach the thought of more battle. More dying. And for what? A dragon’s grand trick?

She just wanted Theo. Needed him like she needed air. Ren tugged at the ever-present strands of their bond, but she couldn’t feel him. It was almost as if he was hiding from her.

Hiding from what she had done.

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