Chapter 33
T ime slowed and my senses sharpened. My father’s voice carried on the air, his vor s dropping one werewolf after another.
At the edge of the forest, Maddox and the rest of the Noctan army subdued more wolves. Kristoff and his pack continued to fight. Crimson cloaks swirled as the Drakhold’s knights slashed at their opponents. Witches flung out their hands, flashes of blue at their fingertips.
Lorcan looked at me, his mouth moving as he tried to tell me something. But his words were lost in the noise.
The sea of bodies parted, and Rasimir appeared. Our eyes locked, the entire courtyard between us. Knights with the crimson serpent on their chests fanned out behind him.
The werewolves in front of me turned, following the direction of my stare.
Rasimir stalked forward with glinting green eyes.
Green. The same shade I’d seen every time I looked in the mirror or a window or the still surface of a pond.
I moved forward and the werewolves melted away, letting me pass. Light danced around my head. The hobflies had followed me outside.
Vander and Lorcan moved with me, shoving knights and werewolves from my path. Then Lorcan gripped my arm and put his face in mine.
“Drink me,” he shouted, raising his voice over the noise.
I recoiled. “No, I—”
“You’re a dhampir! Lilawen’s ward is gone and your magic is unlocked. You can take my vor without killing me. So take it, Corinthe! I give it freely.”
I gasped, understanding flaring like a torch. He was offering me his vor . Testing whether I could pull power from a willing vampire the way I’d ripped it from the resistant, dying witch.
“Do you think it’ll be different?” I asked.
Impatience flashed in his eyes. “I think we need to find out. Now drink!”
With the battle raging around us, I plunged my fangs into his neck.
He jerked and then tightened his grip on my arm. The scent of leather and spices rushed into my lungs. His blood rushed down my throat. The last vor he’d stolen sparkled within it like a jewel.
Olnava.
This time, I didn’t have to plunge to the edge of death. The vor bobbed within reach, the magic mine for the taking. Because he offered it. I didn’t have to steal. I didn’t have to kill.
I took it.
OLNAVA. The power to stun rushed through me, settling into my skin like it had always been there. Easy. Too easy. It was stronger than sezat , its edges sharper and clearer in my mind. No memories muddled it. The vor was pure magic, and it was mine.
Deep in my mind, the monster smiled. When I pulled my fangs from Lorcan’s neck, his dark eyes held a hint of awe.
And fear.
It cleared before I could be certain I’d seen it, and he stepped out of my way.
“ Uci !” Rasimir cried, his voice closer this time. A witch hit the ground. Wasted power. In his haste to reach me, my father had grown sloppy.
Our eyes locked.
I ran forward.
“ Uci !” he bellowed.
“ Olnava !” I shouted at the same time.
His vor missed. Mine cracked against the air in front of him, blue light flaring.
A gasp went up, and people shielded their eyes.
For a heartbeat, the air in front of Rasimir shimmered.
My vor licked over it, tongues of blue light hungry and seeking.
Then his ward shattered, and my vor slammed into him.
The fighting in the courtyard stopped.
Rasimir went rigid, his eyes wide with shock as he crashed to the ground.
His knights fell back, their expressions mirroring his.
But he was frozen, and they were not. Several turned and ran, their cloaks fluttering behind them.
The rest didn’t intervene as Vander rushed forward and dropped a ring of feygeld around Rasimir’s body.
“ Zid ,” Vander said.
A blue circle snapped into place.
I crossed the courtyard and stood over Rasimir. “You can’t see your prison. That’s more mercy than you showed the people you tortured beneath this castle.”
My father stared up at me, his eyes forced wide by the vor .
“You would have enslaved me,” I said. “If you had treated me with even an ounce of kindness, I would have tried to see the good in you. My mother saw it, so I have to believe it was real. But you don’t understand what it means to love. When you truly love someone, you love them more than yourself.”
Rasimir listened because he had no choice. Like the statues in the courtyard, he was locked inside himself.
“I found love in spite of you,” I said. “I found it in double measure. I want you to know that.”
He stared. One of his fingers twitched. The vor was wearing off. Then again, he was powerful. It was how he’d conquered an entire realm.
I could never let myself forget it. If I did, I might end up repeating his mistakes. My mother had sacrificed everything to make sure I never let the lust for power make me forget that love was more important than any crown.
“Goodbye, Father.”
I turned.
“Your root word is useless,” he rasped.
When I turned back, he’d moved his head, and now his eyes burned with malice. “ Irata . A weak word for a weak witch.”
The weight of a thousand pairs of eyes pressed against me. The weight of the gauntlets tried to drag me down.
But I wasn’t weak. I’d never been weak. Just hidden. Protected. Concealed behind my mother’s ward, I’d grown in fertile ground, the soil untouched by Rasimir’s poison.
“ Irata helps me see,” I told him. “And I do. I see you clearly now, Father, and so do all the people you’ve harmed.”
His eyes widened. This time, the vor I’d taken from Lorcan had nothing to do with it.
Turning again, I swept my gaze over the mix of werewolves, witches, and vampires.
The centaurs and sirens. Pixies, dryads, and trolls.
But they were all Noctans. In one way or another, Rasimir had stolen from them.
It was right to let them take back what he’d stripped from them.
Their safety. Their dignity. Their loved ones.
Their hopes and dreams. Rasimir had brutalized the Noctans for five hundred years.
“He’s yours,” I told them. “Take your vengeance.”
I walked away. Seconds later, the first werewolf streaked past me. Then another. Rasimir screamed. A centaur sprinted past, then a siren.
A pixie.
A cloud of hobflies.
Another scream split the air.
A troll thundered by, his passage ruffling my hair.
A minotaur.
Another werewolf.
Gurgling sounds rose at my back.
I kept walking.
The gauntlets fell from my hands, the vor that created them broken by Rasimir’s death.
He was dead. Nocta was free.
Lorcan and Vander pulled me into their arms.
“It’s done,” Lorcan murmured, stroking my hair. “You did it.”
When I lifted my head, Vander stared past me with awestruck eyes. “Corinthe,” he murmured, “you should turn around.”
Wariness prickling, I did as he said. Every creature in the courtyard faced me.
Vampires and werewolves. A handful of witches.
A few courtiers in bloodstained clothes.
Pixies and centaurs. Kelpies with burning red eyes.
Delphine offered a tremulous smile. The giant shifted from foot to foot, rocks tumbling from his shoulders, which sprouted grass.
Sirens stood next to glomarids and merfolk.
As one, they sank to their knees.
“Corinthe!” someone shouted. “The Savior of Nocta!”
“The Savior of Nocta!” the crowd repeated. They rose to their feet, cheers rising with them.
Vander put an arm around my shoulders. Lorcan slipped his hand into mine.
“Well,” Vander said, “that went better than I expected.”
My heart pumped faster as the cheering continued.
We’d done it. We’d won. Rasimir was dead.
Nocta was free. Even as the thought sprouted wings in my head, a second cast a dark shadow.
Marrigan was still out there, her threats simmering.
The citadels dotted Nocta. How many served her?
How many werewolf packs did she control?
Would they rise up to topple me before I figured out what came next?
And I still owed Ruvien a favor. The elven lord was powerful. My power was new and mostly untested.
Movement at the edge of the crowd caught my eye. Kristoff held my stare, Daryn at his side and the rest of the Greyskold wolves fanned around them. The alpha nodded once, then turned and strode toward the forest. His wolves followed suit, melting into the trees.
I shivered. Had Kristoff and his wolves knelt with the other Noctans? The crowd was vast. I’d been too overwhelmed to notice.
Lorcan turned to me, and the look in his eyes chased the shadows from my mind. “I love you,” he said. “Completely.”
The glint in his gaze let me know he referenced our wedding night. Desire shivered through me, and my heart soared. “I love you, too.”
“And me,” Vander said.
Smiling, I threaded my fingers through his. “And you.”
“Of course you do.”
“And you love me?” I asked.
“Probably more than Lorcan does.”
Lorcan bristled. “That’s not—” He closed his eyes. “I’m not doing this again.”
A laugh burst from me. Then I sobered.
“What is it?” Vander asked as the cheering continued.
“You really love me?”
“Yes,” he said slowly, suspicion gathering in his eyes.
“Good. Because I need you to help me move a demon.”