Chapter 48
Forty-Eight
Pierce
The old ó Rinn cottage is grey and gloomy in the pale morning light.
Still, beggars can’t be choosers. The cottage is warded, and Mathias has never been here.
In fact, I doubt anyone has since we left.
The only noise comes from the rain hammering against the windows as I lay the soul vessel on the hearth beside my grimoire.
The gem pulses with its own staccato heartbeat beneath my touch. Does the organ rotting in Mathias’s ribcage share the same rhythm, or was it silenced the second he made this atrocity?
It won’t matter soon.
I double check the runeform in my grimoire against the one Kyrith created. I insisted on being the one to do this. I can’t mess it up.
Once it’s done, and the lich is dead, I have a break planned for Kyrith and me in Troms?.
I already made her settle for a desperate first fuck over an uncomfortable balcony.
I do not intend to disappoint her with anything less than the most romantic declaration of love money can buy beneath the northern lights.
“Get on with it.”
I whirl, grimoire rising with me as I face the door. It lowers a second later as I groan.
“What are you doing here?”
“You didn’t think we’d let you go alone, did you?” Leo shoves his head inside, his hair sodden and dripping with rain. “Plus, this is technically my fecking house. You tripped the alarm, eejit.”
“You don’t have to be rude,” Lambert comments, though I can’t see him. “Come on, leave him to it. He might have performance anxiety.”
My jaw clenches. “You were supposed to—”
“Don’t insult my intelligence any more than you already have.
You’re a good liar, but did you really think the rest of us wouldn’t notice Kyrie duplicating a grimoire?
Or two of the most critical pieces of the plan being glossed over like that?
Now, my brother and I volunteered to protect your arse—and the dagger—but I didn’t think we’d be standing out here in the pissing rain for half an hour while you did your hair.
It’s one fecking spell. Get on with it.”
I want to throttle him. I almost want to hug him.
What is the world coming to that I’m grateful they’re nearby as I prepare to perform dark magic?
Leo’s probably only doing this because he’s still trying to worm his way into Kyrith’s good books. No one wants to leave the dagger unprotected. Or maybe his superiority complex just can’t trust anyone else to get the job done. Whatever.
“Stay out there,” I warn.
Leo rolls his eyes at me. “We’re not here to watch. Just hurry up.”
“Good luck, dude! We got your back!” Lambert sticks his head in just long enough to give me a mortifying thumbs up. “Everyone else is protecting the boss, so don’t worry about her either.”
Leo drags him away, slamming the door back in place. It’s a flimsy kind of deniability, but if they never saw me practising necromancy, they’ll be able to say as much if asked.
I turn back to the gem, putting my grimoire back down and picking up the dagger. It’s flimsy in my grasp. The pieces are mostly held together by Kyrith’s scraps.
If it breaks midway through the spell…no. She’s reinforced it so thoroughly that the blade is practically mummified.
No part of me wants to cast the spell that killed her afterwards, even if I am directing that magic at Mathias. I didn’t even really want it in my grimoire, but it’s strong magic. Master level spellwork. All the reinforced parchment in the world wouldn’t hold out under that.
It’s not fast, either. When Mathias cast it on Kyrith, after he broke into the Arcanaeum, he chanted the incantation over and over for a good few minutes. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that the more power being stolen, the longer it takes.
I have to hope the others can keep him contained, and that Kyrith can keep me hidden while I cast it.
But that part comes after, when I’m back in the Arcanaeum with the others. First, I need to destroy the gem in front of me.
Gingerly setting the dagger on my lap, I hold my hand over the shining ruby. “An mekith imediom, myrtel ottarn myrtel…”
The glassy surface heats beneath my palm. The scent of magic and rot fills my nostrils and—
There’s a commotion outside. Damn it. Why can’t they go two minutes without mucking about?
I can’t lose focus. Someone yells something.
“Pierce!”
The scarlet surface of the gem starts to crack. Good. Once it’s broken, I can switch spells. I’ll need the dagger to channel his soul—
A heavy hand lands on my shoulder. Before I can utter another word, I’m ripped away from the phylactery.
The thick dusty carpet breaks my fall, but my magic recoils at the interruption, stinging my palms. Muscle memory has me scrambling for my grimoire before I even learn the identity of my attacker.
When I catch sight of him, all of the warmth flees my body.
No. Stars no.
I knew it. I knew Mathias would never let my grandfather’s corpse rest without putting it to use.
His familiar grey eyes are sightless, and his sun-weathered skin is carved with familiar runeforms that ooze blood.
He still has his laugh lines. That detail sticks with me as his fist descends toward my face.
I should raise my arms, protect myself, but I can’t stop searching his blank gaze for a spark of recognition.
His hair is a mess. His outfit is a drab prison tracksuit that he’d never be caught dead in if he were alive.
Pain blooms in my cheekbone as the punch lands. The shock of it breaks through the wall of my disbelief.
This isn’t my grandfather. It’s a revenant. This is just another fucked up mind-game from the man who destroyed my family.
The lich can’t be far away. He’s probably responsible for the ruckus outside.
I have to get the dagger, the phylactery, and those two idiot brothers and get out of here.
I manage to snatch up the gem and shove it into my pocket, but my hesitation has cost me.
The creature reaches the blade first. Stiff and darkened fingertips grasp the hilt, raising it above his head like he means to stab me with it.
We grapple over the dagger, but revenants are freakishly strong.
My hand slips. The tip slices through the paper wrapped around the blade and buries itself into my shoulder with ease.
“Fuck!” the curse rips from me.
My blood is already coating my torso with warmth.
The revenant draws back, and the broken blade comes free with a sickening squelch. Well, most of it.
The tip is missing. Still buried in my shoulder.
The dead can’t cast, but the revenant is still stronger for being reanimated with magic. I roll to one side, dodging the second blow aimed at my throat. The broken blade screams as it hits the stone hearth instead.
I have to end this.
Mathias sent my grandfather’s corpse against me because he knew I’d be unwilling to fight it. He was counting on shock to stay my hand.
He underestimated the depth of my respect for my grandfather.
Blindly, I reach back, arm screaming in pain, and find my grimoire.
“Rest easy,” I whisper, then slam my bloodied palm into the pages.
The ball of white flame that consumes the corpse is so hot that it singes my skin. I cry out, but don’t look away as he turns to ash.
The dagger drops. The scraps covering it have burned away under the spell, and a rock settles in my gut as I watch it fall.
I grab for it, uncaring that it’s probably hot enough to burn me.
The metal shatters into a million tiny golden particles the instant it hits my palm.
I gape at the glimmering sand falling through my fingers.
What…? No!
A drain starts in my chest. Slow, painful. Like someone has found my magical well and pulled the plug.
“Leo! Lambert! The Arcanaeum. NOW!” I press my hand into the wound in my shoulder and stagger to my feet, crushing my grimoire into my chest.
That’s when I see them.
My parents.
It’s been a while since I last laid eyes on my father’s reanimated body. He had more flesh when I was a child. Now, the only way I can tell that it’s him at all is the golden chain glimmering around his neck. A gaudy gift from my mother, whose desecrated corpse staggers forward beside him.
Her revenant is still very similar to how she was in life, aside from the runeforms cut into her skin.
I should’ve expected Mathias would help himself to my mother’s collection of undead after he killed her. Any necromancer can take over a revenant once the corpse has been prepared. It’s even easier if the original puppet master is gone.
This is exactly the kind of warped strategy he revels in.
I don’t have the power to kill these two. Magic is literally trickling out of me like water.
Right now, only the sofa is between me and them.
They start rounding it from each side, so I force down the pain and vault over the hideous floral monstrosity. My shoulder screams at me to stop moving as I bolt for the door, but if I do that, I’m dead.
The ten paces between me and my goal feel like a mile.
I make it, and even manage to shut it behind me, bracing myself against the wood as I clutch the handle in a death grip to keep the undead inside.
Unfortunately, the situation out here is worse.
Mathias is on Leo’s front lawn, grimoire out and glowing with power.
He’s supposed to be in the Arcanaeum.
Leo’s shield is fading before my eyes, and Lambert’s stone skin is already patchy. Thankfully, neither of them makes the mistake of looking back at me as they hold their own against Mathias’s lethal barrage of electricity.
The air around them crackles.
Then it stops.
The lich has found a new focus.
Me.
His eyes gleam as he takes in the wound to my shoulder, the satisfaction in his expression telling me exactly how bad it is. He checks my hands, growing visibly smugger as he realises I don’t have the dagger.
“Foolish boy.” He shakes his head as Leo edges closer to me, dragging Lambert along. “Did you really think there was a ward strong enough to stop me from tracing my own soul? Or that you were talented enough to destroy it? Benny must’ve passed down his delusional tendencies. Hand. It. Over.”
He laces those words with lethal malice.
A part of me still can’t understand how he found us. We checked the phylactery for trackers a dozen times. The cottage was warded.
Apparently, not well enough.
Now we’re all about to die for that mistake.
Mathias lifts one hand, unleashing another wave of destruction magic. Leo’s barrier appears, flickers, then wavers like paper in the breeze. The lightning ends, and our shield breaks a half-second later.
Shit. One more and we’re done for.
My knuckles hit the door behind my back. “Ad Arcanaeum.”
We’re not supposed to be coming in hot.
Unfortunately, we’re running out of magic, and I don’t think we have a choice. Dizziness is setting in fast.
The wood supporting my back swings inward. I land hard on the tiled floor of the Rotunda, scrambling backwards on my elbows to get out of the way as Lambert and Leo dive after me.
The only remaining piece of the dagger is embedded in my flesh. Under no circumstances can Mathias realise that or be allowed to get his hands on it.
If he does, it’s over.