Blood Feast: A Fantasy Romance

Three Times Three

Pain pressed into Cassia’swrist. Her eyes focused on her physical surroundings again. A petite boot ground her arm against the floor.

Miranda stood over her. The pendant dangling from her gore-stained hand at the end of Cassia’s torn ambassador cords.

The flame ward was gone, but Cassia was trapped in the rending web of the temple’s magic. Spells tore her in every direction. She couldn’t fight back, even as Miranda knelt and pried open her hand.

She lay helpless as Miranda tore her dagger from her grasp. Rosethorn. Her first and last focus. Stolen, just like her magic, while she lay helpless to stop it.

Mak and Lyros’s shouts echoed. Miranda strode away from her through a haze of fire. Toward Lio. His fangs were out, his face twisted with fury. He slammed the end of Final Word against the flame ward that bound him.

The ring of fire shrank, coiling tighter around him. Miranda stalked closer. There was nowhere for him to run.

Agony drilled into Cassia’s mind again, and she knew her Grace’s pain was greater. He collapsed, his head snapping back, the tendons in his neck straining as he writhed on the ground.

She screamed with rage, even as she tried to whisper comfort in his tortured mind. Lio, I’m here. I’ll make it stop. I won’t let her do this to you.

The look of suffering on his face would haunt her day terrors. He gripped his head, fisting his hand in his hair. He held on to her braid as a groan escaped his gritted teeth.

Miranda pulled back Rosethorn and took aim at Lio’s heart.

“No!” Mak yelled over the boom of another wall breaking.

Some force inside Cassia pulled her free of the crumbling temple’s spells. Natural laws bent to her Will, and the world parted for her. She stepped to her Grace.

Cassia threw her body over Lio’s and hurled black roses between them and the oncoming dagger. Rosethorn stabbed into her vines. She felt that wound all the way to the depths of the letting site.

The roses shot toward Miranda’s throat, and she leapt backward. A rafter crashed to the floor behind her, halting her retreat. Her gaze darted from the roses to the collapsing roof.

She was cornered, and yet she smiled with certainty. “You may have spared him for one more night, but he’ll never see eternity. He’s my kill.”

A traversal spell snapped in the hot, wavering air. She was gone.

The flame wards collapsed, only to leave them surrounded by magefire. The temple was destroying itself.

Lyros struggled toward her through the smoke. “Move!”

She followed his gaze upward. The roof above her and Lio caved in. Stones and burning timbers hurtling down toward them.

With her protective instincts still in command of her every thought, she wrapped her arms around her Grace. As she stepped Lio to safety, the last thing she saw was the Mage King’s own fire engulf his statue.

Cassia’s blood brought Lioout of oblivion. He came to with his head on her shoulder and her wrist against his mouth. Mak and Lyros stood over them in the copse of cypresses. Beyond the trees, the temple was a burning ruin in the twilight.

Lio raised his pounding head. “You stepped to me.”

The fires of the temple glowed in her green-gold eyes. “No one can keep me from your side.”

He rested his face against her and shut his eyes. He was alive, his Will intact. He had never been so grateful to feel his Grace in his thoughts. Cassia was a balm everywhere Miranda had unleashed her fire in his mind.

Mak pulled his hands down his ashen face. “If she hadn’t learned to step just now… Oh my Goddess. Miranda almost killed you with a weapon I made.”

“I’m all right, Mak.” Lio tried to stand. It would take more than one drink to heal the beating he’d just taken. The pain in his head and knees made his stomach churn, but with help from Cassia’s levitation, he made it to his feet.

She supported him with his arm around her shoulders. “Are you well enough to step again?”

Mak didn’t seem to hear them. “Miranda will make people suffer with that dagger. With my creation.”

“We can’t go after her now,” Cassia said. “We have to get back to the tower.”

Mak looked at Lyros, stricken. “I never meant for this to happen. I’m so sorry.”

Lyros tugged Mak into his arms and held on, fisting his hand in the back of Mak’s battle robe. “We can’t do this any longer.”

“I know,” Cassia began. “We—I—can’t afford any more mistakes, but if we don’t make it back to the tower in time—”

Lyros let Mak go and threw down his spear. “We weren’t ready. We still aren’t. We never should have tried this as fugitives without the Charge’s support. This is suicide.”

Mak tried to pull his Grace close again, but Lyros backed away. Suddenly Mak’s face went even paler.

Lio said in a warning tone, “What in Hespera’s name has Mak seen in your thoughts that could put that look on his face?”

“I’m going to Rudhira,” Lyros announced.

Cassia’s eyes widened in horror. “You can’t—”

He cut her off. “I’m turning us in. I’ll submit us to the Queens’ justice before I watch you all die around me.”

“Lyros, no,” Mak pleaded.

“You can come with me now, and we can face arrest together. Or you can all stay out here and run until I show the Charge how to find you. But we’re going home.”

Lio held up his hands. “Let’s not make any rash decisions. None of us are thinking clearly, not after we just survived our worst battle—”

“By the skin of our teeth,” Lyros retorted. “Now is exactly the time to make decisions. My thoughts are crystal clear. I only wish I’d stopped us before things were so far gone.”

Surely Lio could reason with him. “Surrendering now won’t make anyone safer. Think about this from a strategic perspective—”

“Now you try to be the diplomat?” Lyros scoffed. “I don’t want to hear it, ‘Glasstongue.’ If you want to stop me, you’ll have to do it with your fists.”

“Mak,” Lio said in desperation, “can’t you cast the Blood Shackles on him?”

Mak hesitated, staring at his Grace, his aura bereft.

Even as Lio picked up his staff, he felt helpless. What could he do? Lyros would best him in any fight. If he used his mind magic to stop his Trial brother, his two best friends would never forgive him. And he would never forgive himself.

Cassia’s gaze flicked between each of them, her thoughts racing in a calculation too fast for Lio to follow. Listen to me, if you don’t want the last door to fall. Try to stop them. Then meet me at the tower with whoever is left.

Before Lio’s eyes, she disappeared.

His mind went blank, and terror blinded him. She had stepped away without him. His Grace was alone in enemy territory.

Cassia! he called to her over the distance.

Trust me, she said through their bond.

Lio moved in front of Mak, facing Lyros. “How can you do this to your Grace? To mine?”

“Don’t you dare lecture me on what’s best for Mak.”

“What happened to the promise you and I made the night we watched them get arrested? We swore we would do anything to keep them free. Now you want to turn them in?”

Lyros’s voice rose. “I also swore to keep them safe!”

“You told me you had my back,” Lio shouted. “I thought we were in this together. You can’t decide this is over for the rest of us.”

The weight of Mak’s hand settled on Lio’s shoulder. “Let him go.”

Lio turned to his cousin. “This isn’t fair to you. To any of us.”

“You should go with him. If you and Lyros turn Cassia and me in, you’ll get a lighter sentence.”

“Never,” Lio said. “I will not abandon my Grace or our quest.”

“Our quest is already over.” Lyros stepped, and his words hung in the empty air.

Mak’s gaze traveled over Night’s Aim in the grass, past the Star of Orthros in his hand, then to Final Word in Lio’s grip. “I never should have made them. All I can do now is unmake them.”

Lio closed both hands around his staff. “What are you talking about?”

“I have to make it to the forge before Rudhira finds me. Hand over your staff.”

“No! We need the weapons now more than ever.”

Mak held out his hand. “Don’t make me fight you for it.”

Lio planted the staff. “I will fight you over this.”

His cousin barreled into him. With three moves Lio didn’t know, Mak left him on the ground, disarmed and rubbing his head where Miranda had battered him. But the loss of his staff was more painful still. His connection to the artifact throbbed as if he’d lost a limb.

With their three remaining weapons in hand, Mak disappeared, too. Their Trial brothers were gone. Their errant circle was broken.