Chapter 40
Forty
My power roars out of me, smacking into the daimon pinning me down. They scatter like puffs of cloud.
The full force of my intent rams into the figure I can’t even see where he’s poised by the railing.
Through the magic streaming from the fissures in my soul, I feel Wendos jerk and spasm. Taste the power he was wielding slip from his fingers as mine devours his will and awareness.
For the space of a heartbeat, rage wells up alongside my power.
He had Julita killed—he would have happily murdered me too. He sent those poor scourge sacrifices to their deaths.
Who knows how many other innocents he’s already slaughtered or meant to in his sick quest… for what?
A growl of fury passes over my lips. My power wraps around him—
And I remember.
I remember the man who attacked me seven years ago, the second and until yesterday last time I unleashed my magic. How my gut knotted when I stared down at his slumped corpse and the destruction spiraling out around it.
I remember that Wendos is only the beginning of the conspiracy, not the end. There’s so much more we need to unravel if anyone’s going to be safe.
With a gasp, I snatch at the power rushing out of me. I heave all the control I can summon into yanking the magic back, reining it in like it’s a stallion I have to tame.
Just stop him. Just stop him—don’t shatter him completely.
A giddy warmth spreads through my limbs and across my chest. I sense Wendos’s body crumpling.
I haul every shred of power I can catch back into me.
That’s enough. That’s enough, for now.
Gods above, let it be enough forever.
As the torrent of magic contracts, I shove myself onto my feet—and realize that I can stand without agony. Some of the damage I inflicted on Wendos must have bounced back the opposite effect into me.
The scratch on my chest has healed, my gown’s bodice and the ripped chemise beneath drooping open between my breasts over smooth skin. My shin is solid.
I jerk up my head and freeze.
All across the walls of the tower, vines have sprouted. Slim, green tendrils unfurl from notches and cracks. They spread vibrant green leaves to the last hazy glow of the setting sun.
More twine together across the gap in the staircase, forming a woven ramp to seal the hole.
I dealt out harm, and I conjured new growth. And not a growth that’s going to hurt anyone—not like last time.
A laugh hitches out of my throat, and I press my hand to my mouth.
I scramble to the edge of the collapsed staircase and tread more carefully onto the ramp of vines. It holds my weight with only a slight give.
No more distant rumbles or shrieks reach my ears. The tower doesn’t shake again. The thrum of unsettling magic has vanished.
By cutting Wendos down, I ended whatever horrible spell he and his colleagues were constructing.
With another step, I can see him.
Wendos sprawls on his side on the floor of the tower platform, unmoving, his limbs strewn about. But as I watch, his chest lifts and falls with a halting breath.
I hit him hard, but I didn’t kill him. I held on to that one bit of control.
Julita laughs more openly, with a sensation as if she’s spinning excitedly in my head. You did it! You knocked him right down. She pauses. What exactly was it you did?
My lips part. Before I can decide on an answer, a different voice that’s no longer unfamiliar reverberates through my nerves as if from all around me.
Well done, my wayward rogue. When you welcome me, I can come. And I suspect we’ll work together again before long. But for now you have a rather different problem to attend to.
What?
I freeze, my gaze searching the platform for potential threats—and the rasp of an indrawn breath carries from behind me.
I spin around and find myself facing three men who’ve stiffened where they’re standing just past the final bend in the stairs.
Casimir’s expression looks sickly. Alek is leaning against the wall as if he’s about to fall right over.
And Stavros…
Stavros is staring at me like he’s never seen me before. Staring at the bare skin down my sternum it’s too late to hide, where no godlen sigil brands my flesh.
Staring around me at the vegetation called up by a power no godless person should be able to wield. Past me toward the man I struck down with that power.
“I stopped him,” I say, my voice coming out with a creak. “I stopped him.”
But it looks like I haven’t yet paid the price.
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