Chapter 35
Chapter thirty-five
Cassia
Cassia had always thought of herself as a helpless person, unable to help or do anything of value. She’d lived with the feeling her entire life. But it had never utterly consumed her. Until now.
She stood just beyond the courtyard’s edge, the fire wall hissing inches from her outstretched hands. Its heat stung her cheeks and fingers. She could have pushed harder. Could have drained it faster. She should have. But she hadn’t. She’d frozen.
While her brother bled. While Bridget wheezed and fought and broke beneath the weight of something she never should’ve had to carry alone. And now it was too late.
Bridget’s hand moved, slow and mechanical, like something guiding it from inside. Her fingers slipped into her coat pocket and withdrew a small, shimmering red stone. The Bloodstone.
Cassia’s chest caved in.
“No,” she whispered. Her hands shook as she finally drew more of the flame into herself, draining it with reckless abandon. But the air was already shifting, thickening with ancient magic. It was happening.
Bridget—Vega—lifted the stone high. Cassia surged forward, the fire crumbling around her, but not fast enough.
“Don’t!” she screamed.
But Bridget’s hand closed into a fist and crushed the stone as she muttered something under her breath.
Magic exploded outward in a brilliant, blinding shockwave.
The sound cracked like thunder as a web of glowing fissures snaked across the courtyard floor.
The blood-soaked stone behind Nylah split with a shuddering groan.
A distant rumble echoed beneath their feet. The air howled.
Cassia stumbled against the earthquake building beneath their feet.
Seconds later, Bridget collapsed beside Cade’s still form.
A gust of wind rushed past them. And then Cassia felt it.
The shift in the air. The change in Bridget’s body.
Vega was gone. Back to her own, most likely. Ready to appear before them.
Cassia didn’t wait. She ran. Behind her, she heard Castor yelling for Delphine. Stellan shouted something to their father. But all she could see was her brother lying bleeding and unconscious, while Bridget curled around his body like she could will him back to life.
And then Bridget screamed.
It wasn’t human. It was raw and grief stricken; it shattered something inside Cassia’s ribs.
Tears streaming down her face, Nylah squeezed Bridget’s shoulders, nearly falling from the rumbling beneath them, but she wouldn’t move.
Cassia dropped to her knees beside them as Castor skidded to a stop behind her.
“What do we do?” she breathed. “There has to be something we can do.”
Castor just stared in shock as her father stumbled to the ground beside her.
He was pale as Bridget clawed at Cade’s tunic, blood staining her hands.
Cassia followed their gazes and faltered.
Cade no longer looked entirely human. The spell that had masked his true self was gone.
His once-rounded ears were now sharply arched.
His features had shifted slightly. They were more defined, otherworldly. Tuathan.
“No,” Bridget sobbed. “I didn’t—I couldn’t stop—he—he—”
“Bridget,” Delphine whispered, touching her shoulder, but she didn’t flinch. She just screamed again, and the sound cracked across the broken courtyard like a curse.
Cassia’s heart pounded against her ribs like it wanted to escape. Her eyes swept the courtyard, taking in the ruptures spreading across the ground. Glowing lines of magic split the stone, the sigils carved into the courtyard now crawling with bloodred light.
“They’re coming,” Stellan said behind her.
Cassia turned to see him standing in the center of the courtyard, eyes trained on the growing rift. His face was pale.
“The Sanguis,” he continued. “All of them. Including Vega.”
Cassia’s stomach twisted. “We have to run.”
But her words were drowned out by a sound she hadn’t expected: a broken sob. Her father was kneeling at Cade’s side now, his hands cradling his son’s face. Tears cut tracks through the grime on his cheeks. His lips moved in silent denial.
Then he looked up. Straight at Stellan.
“Help me,” he whispered.
Stellan hesitated. His hands clenched at his sides.
“Please,” Deckard rasped. “The spell. The one you refused when Riker died.”
Cassia’s blood ran cold. What in the hell was he talking about? She turned to Castor, searching his face, but he looked just as stunned. Nylah stood frozen beside Delphine, pale and wide-eyed. Delphine wrapped an arm around her without speaking.
Stellan stepped forward slowly, his expression carved from stone. “There will be consequences. Not for you, but for him.”
“I know,” Deckard said. “But at least he’ll be alive. Take it. Take my life in exchange for his.”
Cassia couldn’t breathe. Her father, usually unmovable and unshakable, was begging. She couldn’t believe it. She didn’t even want to believe it. But then Stellan knelt. One hand on Cade’s chest. One on Deckard’s heart.
A tremor rolled through the courtyard. Moments later, magic began to hum between them, white-gold and flickering. The wind stirred violently as energy pulled into a spiral, bending the broken air around them, even as the courtyard continued to splinter. The earth groaned beneath their feet.
Cassia turned away, unable to look. Grief threatened to snap her spine in half. She turned toward Bridget, still curled against Cade’s chest. Her fingers were locked in his shirt as if letting go might make it final.
“We need to move before the Sanguis come through,” Castor said, his voice tight with grief. “The stone… Nylah, do you have it with you? Lead us out.”
Nylah’s trembling hand closed around something in her pocket. Her face crumpled. “I—”
“I can do it,” Delphine said softly. “I’ll take her to Finn and Archer first, and then come back for you and Cassia.”
Cassia looked up, startled. Blood stained the bottom of her nose from her trip with them here. She’d felt the weakness in her body as they’d moved through space.
“What?” Nylah turned to her. “But—”
Delphine’s gaze lingered on Nylah’s tear-streaked face. Her jaw tightened. “I can do it.”
Another roar tore through the stones. The fissures widened. Cassia watched Stellan draw the last threads of life from her father’s body. For a second, his eyes locked with hers. And suddenly, she understood.
Their conversation from earlier came hurtling at her with full force. She’d never acted fast enough in her life. For anything. Had never done what it took to truly save something or make a difference.
But now she could.
Wordlessly, she reached into Nylah’s pocket and pried the Tuathan stone from her curled fingers. The girl didn’t resist as she slipped it free and walked toward the two stone thrones. If she was going to attempt the curse, she didn’t want anyone near her in case destruction followed in her wake.
“What are you doing?” Castor asked, his voice shaking.
“Delphine, get Nylah out. Then come back for Bridget and Castor,” Cassia said, already pulling a blade from her belt.
Delphine hesitated, but only for a second. She wrapped her arm around Nylah’s waist. Nylah screamed, “No! I’m not leaving her—”
A pop of magic cut her off as they vanished. The ground rumbled again. The crack in flat stone widened. For a split second, Cassia thought she saw a hand trying to claw through.
She took one step forward and faced the cracked gate, still splintering open.
Stellan still knelt between her father and Cade.
Tears blurred her vision as she watched life slowly fade from her father.
He drew a shuddering breath. Then his dark gaze met hers.
His lips opened slightly, like he wanted to say something, but his eyes glazed over.
Cassia’s heart fractured with a soundless scream as his body stilled.
Seconds later, Cade’s chest began to rise with slow, shallow breaths. But he didn’t open his eyes.
The spell had worked.
Cassia’s knees nearly buckled as she raised the knife to her palm.
She sliced and let blood drip on the Tuathan stone.
Closing her eyes, she began to pull from the ground.
Power answered instantly. Magic surged upward through her bones like lightning trapped inside her veins.
It hummed in her blood and ignited a power inside her gut that sparked into her muscles. Too much. Almost too much.
Castor stepped toward her, panic flooding his face. “Cassia, wait—”
She looked at him, tears burning down her cheeks. Her grip tightened on the stone, blood already slipping between her fingers.
“It’s my turn to be brave,” she whispered.
Cassia began to mutter the curse she’d had memorized the moment Stellan gave her the paper. The words felt foreign on her tongue. A tornado of energy cracked open at her feet, roaring loud and swirling into a silver-blue funnel. A doorway through time. All she had to do was jump.
She glanced one last time at her father’s lifeless body.
Then Stellan’s eyes met hers. He gave the smallest nod.
Then, with his hands still on Bridget and Cade, they shimmered with a brief light and vanished.
Relief crashed over her. Stellan had taken them back.
Delphine would return for Castor and then—
The flat stone in the center shattered into a million pieces. The Sanguis were coming through. And it was about time someone beat Vega at her own games. Cassia drew a ragged breath.
With a pop, Delphine appeared again, ready to take Castor.
Now or never.
Cassia bent her knees and leapt. Wind ripped at her body as magic seized her limbs. She was light and shadow all at once, falling upward through time. But just as she passed the threshold, a hand grabbed hers.
“No!” she cried out.
She looked down.
Castor.
His determined eyes met hers just as her blood smeared across his arm.
The curse, meant for her, bound them both.
“No,” Cassia gasped, horror crashing through her. “You weren’t supposed to—”
But it was too late.
Cassia dug her nails into Castor’s palm, trying to hold on to him. Seconds later, darkness consumed her as the curse began to drag them through time.