Chapter 29
Cyra
“It’s Bressen! I can feel him again!” I said as Axenus and Samhail both crowded in to see if I was alright.
I let my power reach out to look for Bressen, and this time it latched onto him. The relief I felt at learning he was alive was dizzying, but I forced myself to focus. He wasn’t out of danger yet.
“Where is he?” Samhail asked urgently.
I drew a small circle in the air, and a miniature portal flared to life. I’d purposely made it just big enough to see through, but hopefully not big enough to draw attention if anyone was around. Samhail, Axenus, and I all peered through it to see what was on the other side.
The portal had opened outside an old castle, part of which was nothing but rubble. Most of the castle still stood, but one corner of the keep and part of the battlements had fallen down, as if they’d sustained damage in an attack and no one had bothered to fix them.
“There are wards,” I said. I could feel them now, and that’s likely why the portal had opened outside the castle instead of inside it.
I was able to feel Bressen again for whatever reason, but the wards still prevented me from opening a portal directly to him, and they might hinder us from getting into the castle from the outside as well.
“What’s the plan?” Axenus asked.
The rumble of heavy footsteps sounded in the hall just before Surgeon and Serise burst into the dining room in answer to the mental message I’d sent them.
“Axenus, you may want to get a weapon,” I said before turning to the gargoyles. “You three should shift as soon as we’re through. We attack in two minutes. I’ll see what I can do about getting the wards down.”
Axenus nodded and sprinted toward the armory as Samhail, Surgeon, and Serise all began to undress in preparation to shift.
It was a testament to just how much my life had changed in the last several months that the sight of three huge warriors getting naked in my dining room didn’t phase me in the slightest.
Axenus was back in a minute and a half with a longsword in hand. He also carried a sheathed dagger attached to a belt that he quickly fastened around my waist.
“Ready?” I asked, and everyone nodded.
I threw the portal open wide, and the gargoyles barreled through it, shifting as soon as they got to the other side. Axenus and I followed, and I closed the portal quickly behind me before turning to the wards.
The gargoyles had found the edges of them, but they couldn’t get past. While we’d waited for Axenus to arm himself, I’d tried to get a sense for the wards and the best way to break them down, but if Magdalene had put these up – which she undoubtedly had – that would be easier said than done.
I put out my hands and sent my power into the wards with a command that they lower for me. Instead, I was thrown back as they rebuffed my attempt. Luckily Axenus was behind me, so I only slammed against his chest, and he steadied me.
Inside the castle, I felt Bressen’s urgency, his conviction that he needed to get out of there right away, and his determination spurred my own. I pushed forward again.
“See if you can hold me steady,” I told Axenus, and he stepped up behind me to act as a brace for when the wards tried to throw me back.
A day ago on that field with Magdalene, I’d been able to combine several powers at once to create a singular destructive force, but there’d been more to it than that.
The powers had been held together and amplified by something I was starting to realize was specific to me as a syphon, a power attuned to the Nemesis.
I drew on that power now, letting it mingle with my fire and forcefields and any other magic I had that might break through, and I sent it battering into the wards. I was thrown back again, but Axenus was there this time, and he put his weight behind me to help keep me upright.
The entire ground shook as the wards quivered, and I redoubled my efforts, throwing everything I had at them in an attempt to overload them, to break them down. Anything to get them out of my way. They were between me and my mate, me and the other half of my soul.
Three other blasts hit the wards, and I saw the gargoyles were all aiming their powers at the magical barrier. They were fighting against something that tried to throw them back, but in their stone forms, they weren’t so easily moved.
I sent a blast of elemental power shooting through the ground, and ripples of earth tore forward to slam into the barrier.
The wards flickered, and I sent another blast of my combined powers into them.
I’d never used this much power before, not even after the gods had boosted them at the Priory, but I needed to get to Bressen, so I had to push beyond my normal limits.
I’m coming, my love. I sent the message into his mind to let him know I was here and trying to get to him.
More power suddenly streamed through me as Bressen added his own to my efforts, and I harnessed it to send it blasting into the wards.
A second later, the wards shattered, and the gargoyles surged forward. Their huge stone-like wings beat, kicking up dirt and debris as they took to the air with roars of triumph to head for the castle.
I drew another portal, and this one opened inside the battlements. Axenus and I stepped through it just as the gargoyles landed in the courtyard with enough impact to crack some of the stones of the terrace.
The doors of the castle flew open as dozens of guards poured out, their blue symbiotic shells spreading out over their bodies.
The gargoyles all roared and met the creatures before they finished descending the stairs.
Samhail and the twins threw the guards back with forcefields or just knocked them to the side with huge stone-like fists, tails, and wings.
Axenus and I hung back and tried to deal with any guards who broke through. He swept them back with blasts of water while I used my own forcefields to try and clear a path. We used our blades when we couldn’t help it, but Axenus and I at least tried to avoid killing the symbionts whenever possible.
“We need to get inside and find Bressen!” I yelled to Axenus.
He was about to answer when his eyes flared. “No, we don’t! Look!”
I looked to the front doors of the castle where Axenus pointed. Bressen was running toward us with someone in his arms, and I recognized Talyn’s coppery hair. She looked only half conscious, but how or why Bressen had chosen to slow himself down by bringing her back with him, I wasn’t sure.
“Bressen!” I yelled in relief.
A golden glow like the one I’d seen on the gargoyles’ foreheads flashed on Bressen’s, and I paused briefly to wonder once again what in the three hells the mark was and why I was only now seeing it.
I didn’t have time to dwell on the thought, because a moment later I saw Aidan running behind Bressen, not chasing him, but following him. Had Bressen somehow managed to get Morland out of Aidan?
My relief at seeing Bressen alive was fleeting as I realized he ran barefoot over the cold stone, and my magic recognized the pair of pants he wore as a glamour.
Nemesis take me, why was he naked and barefoot?
I didn’t see the bruises and slashes on his face and upper body until he got closer, and then rage flooded me.
“Magdalene!” I growled as the woman appeared in a portal at the top of the stairs, and our eyes met.
“Not now!” Bressen yelled. “Open a portal and get us out of here!”
I hesitated only a second while my need for vengeance warred with common sense, then common sense won out. Bressen was alive and he had both Talyn and Aidan with him. It was more than we could’ve hoped for, and I’d be foolish not to take this small victory.
I turned and opened a portal just in time for Bressen to fly through it with Talyn in his arms and Aidan on his heels.
The gargoyles roared and turned their attention to Sandrian and Magdalene, but Bressen was right. Now was not the time for this fight.
“Retreat now!” I yelled to them, and they all turned to follow me and Axenus back through the portal.
Samhail ushered Surgeon and Serise through before him, then dove through himself, and I slammed the portal shut just as a bolt of Sandrian’s lightning came streaking toward the opening.
A small zap of it slipped through and crackled the air, but it dissipated quickly without access to its source, and I let out the breath I’d been holding.
My eyes sought Bressen, and I found him kneeling by a pillar where he’d set Talyn down. I’d brought us to the Great Chamber of the Citadel without really thinking about it, but this was the best place to come with Aidan, I realized.
I took a good look at Bressen’s body then, and my stomach bottomed out. He was covered in blue and purple bruises as well as multiple cuts that still bled down his back, arms, and chest.
“Sweet gods! What happened?” I cried as I knelt next to him. “Bressen.” I laid a hand on his cheek, and he covered mine with his own.
“I’m alright,” he assured me.
No, he wasn’t, and I remembered whose fault that was.
My head jerked to Talyn as all my rage from yesterday sparked again.
“You!”
She jolted to see the red I was sure had just flashed in my eyes.
“Time for you to die!” I said as I reached a hand toward her, but Bressen grabbed my wrist.
“Cyra, wait-,” he started to say, but his words were cut off by a roar that shook the room and made him jump.
We both turned to see Samhail just shifting back to his human form. A second later he charged at Talyn.
I moved back out of his way, content to let him exact his revenge for both of us. Last night I’d almost been willing to give Talyn the benefit of the doubt, but seeing the state Bressen was in had banished any leeway I was willing to grant her.
“Samhail, no!” Bressen yelled as he tried to position himself between Talyn and the charging gargoyle, but he and I were both surprised when Samhail’s forcefield pushed him aside.
Talyn’s eyes widened with fear, and she seemed unable to do anything as Samhail’s hands closed around her throat.
“Samhail, let go of her!” Bressen shouted, but Samhail didn’t seem to hear as he squeezed harder.
Talyn clawed at his hold, but Samhail was either drawing out her death, or he was more conflicted about killing her than even he realized. I’d seen him rip Jerram’s head off with little effort.
Samhail froze just as Talyn’s eyes began to roll back in her head and her eyelids fluttered. Then she gasped and sucked in a lungful of air as Samhail dropped his hands from her neck.
I looked at Samhail, but his face was placid, his eyes glassy. I recognized the look. Bressen had control of his mind.
Samhail snapped awake a moment later.
“What did you do to me?” Samhail asked Bressen, rising to his feet.
Bressen stood as well. “I stopped you from making a big mistake,” he said. “Talyn is the only reason I got out of there alive and with my body parts intact.”
Tandem Read: Go to Clash of Stone and Steel (Bk 3), Chapter 37-38