Chapter 52 Cavalry
CAVALRY
CEDRIC
They emerged from the void together—light and darkness, shadow and sun, surging forth as one. The throne room was nothing but blood-spattered marble and felled bodies, riotous screams and clanging steel.
Well, now it was more.
Now, it was fire and fury.
Cedric leapt from Elyria’s shadow with a yell, his boots striking stone and Ashrender igniting.
Golden flame rippled down the blade as he swung wide, cutting through a nearby cultist in a single blow.
The room brightened with the blaze, his magic like a beacon, searing through sanguinagi weapons, red crystal falling in shattered pieces to the floor as he cut, and cut, and cut.
Beside him, Elyria swept one hand upward, the other holding her staff like a spinning baton. Her shadows surged forth—a tidal wave, a beast of smoke. The two cultists nearest to her didn’t even have time to scream before they were smothered under its hold.
And with that, the battle paused. Just for a moment. A heartbeat. A breath. Just long enough for every pair of eyes in the room to turn to them.
And then, it was as though the fourth quarter of hell had broken loose.
Cultists rushed the two of them, steel and blood meeting flame and shadow.
Cedric ducked under a crimson blade, catching a sanguinagi man’s wrist and slashing a burning Ashrender across the cultist’s gut.
There was a hiss of pain—the man’s? His own?
—as a bloody shard flew past Cedric, grazing the side of his face.
“You’re good?” Elyria’s voice was a balm to the sudden rage rising in Cedric as a warm bead of blood dribbled down his cheek.
“I will be.” He met her gaze from across the throne room, a swift clash of emerald and gold-ringed brown before she swung her staff, fortified with spikes of shadow—a dark spear much like the one she had used to mete out justice to the innkeeper in Dawnspire.
The jagged tip collided with a nearby cultist who had started getting the better of one of the king’s royal guards, sending the sanguinagi sprawling.
Behind the guard, who gave Elyria a grateful nod, Dentarius hovered over a prostrate King Callum with bloodied hands.
Slowly, the assault was lessening. The number of remaining cultists thinned, the number of bodies strewn across the wide throne room commensurately ticking up. Cedric let the flame lighting up Ashrender fade away, even as he kept his sword at the ready.
From the corner of his eye, Cedric saw Nox covering Kit’s back as the fae sent a huge blockade of ice across the floor, clearing multiple sanguinagi, as well as several fallen bodies, from its path.
On Cedric’s other side, Sephone fought a duo of cultists back toward the doors, lightning crackling over her skin.
One of her opponents stopped to look at the turning tide of the fight, then promptly turned tail and ran from the room.
But they weren’t all running.
Whirling, Cedric thrust Ashrender through the shoulder of a woman who tried to attack him from behind, a menacing-looking glaive in her hands. It wasn’t crafted from blood magic, just a fierce weapon of stamped steel, and Cedric found himself admiring it as the cultist dropped it with a cry.
“Boys and their toys,” Elyria said, and Cedric didn’t need to be looking at her to know she was smirking as she observed him. “Later, Your Highness.”
“What have I told you about calling—” Cedric turned back around, freezing in place when his gaze found her, half a grin still lingering on her face as a curved red blade arced toward her head.
He was already roaring Elyria’s name—out loud, in his mind, in hers—when her own sensibilities seemed to catch up.
Her eyes were wide, a beam of red-tinted light streaking over her face as the weapon came down . . .
But Cedric wasn’t the only one roaring.
A blur of black smoke came screaming from the shadows. With a horrified shriek, the attacking cultist was blasted back, stumbling away from Elyria. Their crystal weapon dropped to the floor as they succumbed to the onslaught of shadow and teeth and claws.
Sid was here.
Time slowed to a crawl as Cedric looked at the raging beast before him, so far from the sweet cub he’d met just a few weeks ago.
Sid was absolutely massive—a sleek black panther, shadows rolling off her long body.
Her claws were made of slivered darkness, and her fangs glinted as they drove through leather and bone, piercing flesh and spraying blood.
When the shadowcat looked up, maw dripping with the remains of the now extremely dead cultist, Cedric would’ve sworn he saw a familiar-looking smirk in her emerald-green eyes.
But then a red-robed figure darted between him and the cat, and Sid was shadow once more, leaping after the escaping cultist.
“You. Traitorous. Mother. Fucker!” Tristan’s voice drew Cedric’s attention, and he found himself racing across the throne room to where his friend was fighting—
“Thibault?” Cedric’s voice caught in his throat. “What are you two doing?”
Tristan blocked a blow of Thibault’s sword, pushing him back with a grunt. “This bastard betrayed us all. He works for Malchior. He fucking killed Hargrave!”
His heart clenching in his chest, Cedric searched the ground where, sure enough, Hargrave’s lifeless body lay amidst the bloody wreckage.
Cedric’s stomach plummeted.
“Dawnspire?” he asked, his voice a harsh whisper as Thibault and Tristan drew apart.
Thibault’s grin was bloody, his eyes wild. “Sorry, Ric. I must do as my lord requires. And for whatever reason, he wanted you there. Wanted them gone and wanted you to witness it.”
Some volatile combination of anger and realization zipped through Cedric’s center, the furnace in his chest growing hot. “He wanted to break me.”
Tristan snarled through gritted teeth, the two of them advancing on Thibault together. “You’re the reason Audaxus died on the road, aren’t you? You fucking killed him so he wouldn’t be able to sell you out when we questioned him.”
Thibault laughed. “You think mi sanguinexos would trust an imbecile like him with something like this?” He gestured at Cedric. “I am Audaxus.”
Cedric gaped as Thibault—Audaxus—drew a darksteel dagger from thin air and sliced a long gash down his own forearm. There was a red glow in his eyes, crimson veins creeping out from the corners.
For a heartbeat, the gilded columns of the throne room were replaced with glowing walls of luminescent stone.
And it wasn’t Audaxus who had red bursts of power ricocheting off his body, it was Belien Larkin, just before he sent that bolt of deadly blood magic straight into Cedric’s chest during the third trial.
Cedric blinked. No, it was Audaxus, and he was here, now. He was the one responsible for the ambush in Dawnspire. He had almost gotten Elyria killed. He had killed his own partner, his friend.
And he needed to be stopped.
Cedric threw his arm across Tristan’s chest, halting his advance.
“Let me,” he said, and Ashrender lit up again with white-gold sunfyre—a beacon of fate.
Audaxus’ red-tinged eyes went wide, smiling through bloodstained teeth. “The son will rise,” he rasped. “Oh, my lord will be most pleased.”
“Your lord can fuck himself,” Tristan growled.
Cedric lunged.
Scarlet lightning danced up Audaxus’ arms. But it wasn’t Cedric whom the sanguinagi meant to maim—to kill. And even as a flaming Ashrender pierced the flesh over Audaxus’ heart, the man flung his arms out in a final, desperate move.
“No!” Cedric shouted, but it was too late. The magic had already been loosed.
Two jagged, thorny bolts of power arced out from Audaxus’ body. One shot straight up into the air, then plummeted nearly as sharply, aiming for Tristan. Cedric managed to kick his friend aside, just enough for the blow to hit Tristan’s shoulder rather than the center of his head.
With a yelp, Tristan spun into a heap on the floor.
He clutched his shoulder, muttering a string of curses.
But that he was alive was clear, which was all that mattered.
All Cedric had time for, given that the other crimson bolt still curved through the air.
It was slower, somewhat erratic—perhaps because its master was already dying.
But also like it was enjoying its freedom, dancing across the throne room in pursuit of its target.
In pursuit of her.
Elyria looked up as the blow careened toward her, immediately darting out of its path, her wings flaring wide as she took to the air.
The magic followed.
Like it was tied to her, like it would seek her across the realms, it pursued Elyria across the throne room. Cedric watched in horror as she bobbed and wove, zipping through the air in a serpentine fashion. Still, it did not stop.
Skewered on the end of Ashrender, Audaxus released a wet laugh—his final sound.
A small branch of scarlet power split from the main bolt, jumping ahead, clipping the very edge of Elyria’s wing.
A flash of searing pain rippled down the bond, tearing the air from Cedric’s lungs.
His heart plummeted into his stomach as she crumpled to the ground on the far side of the throne room.
“Ellie!” cried Kit. She was moving. So was Nox, and Sephone, and two of the remaining royal guards.
None of them were close enough. None of them fast enough.
Cedric didn’t think.
He didn’t have a single conscious thought.
Didn’t know what he was doing when he hooked himself onto that shimmering thread between them and stepped toward her.
He emerged from the shadows right in front of her, just as she was getting to her feet. Her eyes were wide as they took in Cedric, then moved over his shoulder to stare down what was surely that wild bolt of blood magic coming straight for them.
Through the bond, Cedric felt her fear. Not just for herself, but an all-consuming, visceral panic for him.
She wanted him to live.
But for Cedric, there was no choice to be made.
No hesitation.
No regret.
He died for her once.
He would do it again.
A hundred times over.
A thousand times.
Cedric steeled himself for the inevitable blow, focusing every stray thought, every kernel of focus into the words that would be his last.
“I lo—”
As though a maelstrom had ignited in the middle of the throne room, Cedric and Elyria were suddenly in the air. Their bodies collided as they soared across the throne room, landing in a tumble behind—
Dentarius.
The fae was on his feet, bloodied hands outstretched, wind whipping through his green-black hair. His chin was turned to the side, his eyes on Cedric and Elyria as they peeled themselves off the floor.
Red lightning flashed.
Dentarius grunted.
And then he was on his knees, blood pouring from a wound that bloomed across his chest.
“No!” Cedric shot forward in time to catch the fae as he collapsed, Elyria following just behind.
“Why would you do that?” Cedric’s voice broke.
“Couldn’t let you two . . . hoard all the glory.” Dentarius’ voice was weak, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
Kit ran up beside the three of them, tears carving a path down her brown cheeks. “You stupid, stupid idiot,” she said, voice thick. “Just hold on. I can—”
Faint wisps of healing magic pooled in Kit’s hands, but Cedric knew firsthand the kind of blow Dentarius had been dealt. He knew it would not be enough.
Dentarius looked up at Kit, his mouth tilting up at the bloody corners, even as his breathing became more labored—a wheeze, a rasp.
“Make sure they know . . . I was more than just a . . . politician in the end, won’t you?
” His fingers curled around Cedric’s arm. “And don’t . . . let the bastard win.”
His eyes fluttered closed.
And Dentarius Jaen breathed his last.