CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN #3
“Should I have any more trouble from you,” the Night Mage growled, “I will let my men carve him apart one limb at a time. Understood?”
Evylin dipped her chin, anger racing through her. “Yes,” she said flatly.
“Good.” He tugged her along behind him. “Sirraus, are we ready?”
“As much as we can be,” Obel said. “We need the final details from Highlady Calder.”
“Then get it,” Blount said testily. He pulled Evylin up the dais steps toward the throne.
Obel dragged Ilain with him. “We have a Mage of each resource and two moonstones—one white, one black,” he told her. “But what else are we lacking?”
Ilain’s brow furrowed, staring up at Obel. “What are you talking about?”
“The Bonding ceremony,” Obel said, impatient. “We have the Mages and moonstones. What else do we require for you to Bond His Majesty, King Rouland Blount II, to Private Evylin Deckard?”
Ilain gaped at the duke while Evylin’s breath caught. Blount intended to Bond with her at that very moment. He couldn’t because she was already Bonded, but he would figure that out soon enough.
Then a more startling revelation came to her: Obel was at her and Deckard’s Bonding ceremony. He knew what they needed just as well as Ilain.
The duke was playing Blount.
Suddenly, Evylin felt a wave of focus sweep through the room and the moonstone ring that pressed against her collarbone on the silver chain vanished.
Her body thrummed with power, responding to Deckard’s rising magic.
She glanced over her shoulder to find him watching her, but his expression was impassive.
He already had a plan.
“I won’t do it,” Ilain spat, jerking in Obel’s grasp.
“If you don’t,” Blount said, “I will kill your only remaining brother.”
Ilain glanced at Vayden. She hesitated, but Evylin knew she must understand the truth as well. She knew Obel was on their side. The tide had turned in their favor. They just had to play along until the opportune moment.
“Now,” Blount said sharply, “tell us what we’re missing.”
Ilain paused, her acting surprisingly strong. “I—” She glanced at Evylin. “I’m sorry.”
Evylin chewed on her bottom lip, not trusting herself to play her own role well.
Ilain turned to Obel. “Two Warriors,” she said. “One male, one female.”
Blount laughed. “How perfect.” He beckoned to the men holding Ethenn and Brea. “Bring them forward.”
“We—we’re not dressed right,” Ilain argued. “This is to be a sacred event. There are protocols and rituals. And there are far too many people here. The ceremony is meant to be intimate and holy. You must treat it as such if you want me to proceed.”
Blount gave her a bored stare. “I’m not sending away my men to give you better odds at fighting me. Perform the ceremony, or I will start killing your friends one at a time.”
Subdued, Ilain pressed her lips together and gave a tense nod. She guided them each into the proper positioning, with Blount and Evylin facing one another, the eight Mages—including Obel—behind them. Ethenn and Brea stood on either side of Ilain, along with all their guards.
“You can’t wear the Relics,” Ilain said then.
Blount scoffed. “Do not play games with me, Highlady.”
“I’m not,” she said fiercely. “Their magic will impede the union. If you want a secure Bond, you’ll remove them. Otherwise, it will fail to take hold.”
Blount looked at Obel for confirmation. “I have not studied the institution enough to know whether or not it is true, Your Majesty,” the duke said.
With a sharp nod, Blount gestured to the guards holding Thom. One of them took out a dagger and drove it into his gut.
Evylin sucked in a shallow breath as Deckard called in panic to his brother. Thom slumped forward, blood rapidly staining his coat. Brea looked ready to fight the entire room to get to him. Ethenn and Rafferty gaped with panic on their faces.
“I wasn’t lying, you bloody bastard!” Ilain yelled through fresh tears.
He glared at her, unmoved.
“Fine,” she ground out. “Be united by a faulty Bond. See if I care. Join right hands.”
With force, Blount took Evylin’s right hand. She kept reminding herself that Deckard had a plan. This wasn’t the end. They wouldn’t lose.
But Isla was dead, and Thom was bleeding out—again. They were scattered through the room. And at last count, there were thirty-nine soldiers and seventeen Mages present in the throne room, thirty-nine non-magical and seventeen magical beings barring them from victory.
“Fire, Day, Water, Night, Wind, Time, Terrae, and Space,” Ilain began, her voice taut. “This is the foundation of Terraeus, the resources of life.”
Evylin stared up at Blount, the words creating a strange déjà vu in her magically heightened senses. A gentle wave of adoration swept over her from the far side of the room.
“From the dawn of creation,” Ilain continued, “Allore formed Warriors and Mages from his very soul, setting them as gatekeepers and anchors of his power, charging them to be caregivers and servants to all.”
Inexplicably, Evylin found herself smiling, remembering her ceremony with Deckard. She remembered his tender gaze and gentle touch. The tingle of magic spread across her skin.
Blount’s brow furrowed at her wistful gaze.
Ilain’s voice grew stronger as she spoke. “To Bond is to release who you are alone and fasten who you are together.”
Clarity came to Evylin’s mind. Time slowed, and she saw the room with an omniscient gaze, perceiving each heartbeat. It wasn’t just her Warrior senses that had heightened this time, though. She could sense the heat building under her skin and the world tinged black with the silhouette of Space.
Evylin remembered Ilain’s words from their ceremony. “Not double-sided but never-ending—singular and whole.”
Singular and whole.
Warrior and Mage.
Evylin and Deckard.
A sudden weight settled into Evylin’s left hand—light and metallic and small enough to conceal easily. She tightened her grip, feeling the cool touch of the golden scrollwork.
Her smile grew into a smirk.
“What are you smiling about?” Blount said, interrupting Ilain’s speech.
Evylin shrugged playfully. “Oh, I’m just a happy person, generally. It used to annoy my uncle, whom you killed, by the way. I’ve been meaning to repay you for that.”
Blount’s grip tightened on hers. “You can hold a grudge as long as you like,” he said, with a bitter snarl. “But you’re mine now. And one day, you’ll love me more than any other.”
“Actually,” Evylin quipped, “I won’t.”
His gaze hardened.
“You see—” The world slowed. With her left hand, Evylin raised the returned Bonding dagger to thrust the silver blade into Blount’s chest. The moonstone in the pommel shimmered under the light of the chandeliers. “I’m already Bonded.”
The room exploded with magic.
Blount stumbled back, the blade protruding from his pectoral. With a thought, Evylin summoned it back, and it landed in her right hand.
Angered, Blount sent out a fierce amethyst shadow. It crashed into Evylin, knocking her back.
Around them, Ilain and Obel engaged the other Mages while Brea and Ethenn struggled to fight in their chains.
Elemental and Existential magic erupted in dazzling flares.
With her omnipresent vision, Evylin saw the black crystals of Space tearing through the guards holding Deckard, Thom, Rafferty, and Vayden.
Together, they rose and joined the fray, though Thom struggled with the gaping wound in his gut.
Pausing for but a moment, Deckard set a hand on his brother’s stomach, a bronze light pulsing to heal him.
With the battle raging, Evylin focused on Blount. He sneered at her, something like respect entering his gaze. “You’re more cunning than I expected,” he said. “Who’d you find to Bond with?”
“In truth, he found me.” Evylin ducked under another shadow that narrowly missed her.
She spun, flicking her wrist as she faced the Night Mage again.
The dagger embedded itself in his thigh, and he cried out.
The blade returned to her summons. “I did welcome his advances, though. He’s awfully charming, you see. ”
Blount charged Evylin, slashing with his hands, sending out shadows, waves, and torrents of all other magic.
Evylin dodged them, some with more success than others.
She sensed that her friends had procured weapons for themselves.
Deckard took down several soldiers, and, finally, his and the others’ chains dissolved through his powers.
More Mages and soldiers pressed in around them. An eruption of Terrae magic blasted Rafferty across the marble floor to the foot of the dais. Ethenn defended Thom’s weak side, doing twice the work. Brea fought beside Vayden, both of them wielding the broadswords of fallen Waulden soldiers.
Heat and burning flesh seared the air. Ilain appeared beside Evylin, her hands raised.
A flame roared toward Blount, but he lifted a hand, the Fire Relic flickering on his chest. He took hold of the fire and controlled it, rolling it inward on itself before turning it back to hurl at Ilain.
The fireball hit her square in the chest, tossing the woman across the dais.
Obel stepped up, throwing a deep purple shadow surging toward Blount. Again, Blount controlled the attack with the added power of the Relics. “Traitor!” he accused, hurling the magic back at his godfather. “You were supposed to be with me.”
Obel barely deflected the shadow’s blow and was forced a step back. “I was with you,” he shouted back. “Until I saw the man you’d become.”
“A god?”
“A tyrant like your father.”
Blount attacked with renewed fury. Deep amethyst shadows swirled around him, growing and undulating.
They surrounded the dais, choking the rest of the room from sight.
Evylin tried to dart closer to attack, but Blount’s control of the magic was too strong.
Any step she took, the shadows erupted, slamming into her and sending her reeling backward.