Chapter 64
Chapter sixty-four
Alistair
After a fold through space, he landed in the main chamber of Vasso’s manor. He let go of Thorne once he knew she was steady and left.
One by one, he grabbed hands, shoulders, and arms and traveled his people to the underground sanctuary. By the tenth journey back to the manor, the floor was slick with vomit. Thorne was doing her best to get the prisoners into chairs and furnishings in the main chamber.
The next blink, he changed courses, bringing the prisoners to the mirroring pool, and once that was full, to the dining room.
Everything was burning. His chest, arms, face, every organ within his body, but he didn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop.
The next time he appeared in the tent inside the Menage, Dominick was standing in front of a crowd that had amassed.
“We need to find Theo.”
“I’m trying to get as many out as I can.” He grabbed the upper arm of a young witch and blinked from the tent to the manor.
“I can’t find him,” Dom said as he appeared again.
“You’re going to have to. I’ve got to get more out.” This time, he held the hand of an elderly warlock who must have been close to dust.
Tent.
Manor.
Tent.
Manor.
“Alistair!” Dominick’s choked voice reached him. Al pushed his way between the coven members, begging for safety. There was screaming outside the tent, and he knew that his time for getting these people out was diminishing. Dom was on the ground, cradling a warlock’s head.
“You’ve got to take him,” Dominick begged. “Please, Al.”
Crouching next to the warlock, Al slid his arms beneath Theo’s legs and back.
He was too light. From what Dominick had said, they’d only had him for a few days.
It was like every ounce of liquid or magic had been pulled from him.
His robes were soiled, and the pure anguish in Dominick’s face had Al swallowing a lump in his throat. Theo was too far gone. Dom knew it.
In the blink from the tent to the manor, Alistair gingerly placed the warlock on a bed, turning his head to the side so he wouldn’t aspirate vomit.
Al didn’t have much magic left. Only a few more blinks before he’d burn out. But still, he conjured a bead of healing magic and placed it on the warlock’s chest. He prayed it’d be enough.
Back in the tent, Dominick wasn’t where he had left him.
Screams grew louder. The pounding of feet against the arena’s dirt floor, accompanied by the sounds of swords zinging through the air, beat into his already aching head.
Al wasn’t sure who was fighting whom at this point.
“You.” He pointed to a warlock. Before his hand hit his shoulder, something burst through the opposite side of the tent with a rip of blade through canvas. Raphael entered in a bloody rage, striking down anyone who lay in his path.
Al grabbed a witch and a warlock and traveled them at the same time. He threw them in the hallway between his and Sera’s room and traveled back.
When his feet hit the dirt floor, he was stopped by piercing pain. The tip of Raphael’s blade rested just above the hollow of his throat. The aliato curled his lip, his otherworldly face defiled by a sneer. And those blue eyes blazed through him.
“Your parents were traitors. It shouldn’t surprise me that you are as well.”
Al didn’t have time to process what he’d said.
His father had been a great soldier, never once abandoning his post. The aliato’s snarl had Alistair raising his hands.
Raphael’s wings were charred in spots, leaving dark craters between the white fluff of feathers.
He wouldn’t be able to fly like that, at least.
The carnage the aliato had left behind him started to stream toward Al’s feet.
Shadow, he thought. Please don’t let any of that blood be Dominick’s.
“The Creator will make an example out of you. You and your kind. You will all be dust soon.”
Alistair didn’t speak, didn’t dare move, but between the light-bringer’s wings, he saw Dominick step closer. Raphael pressed his blade deeper into Al’s throat. A dribble of hot blood flowed down his chest.
“Anything to say, Mesar?” Raphael asked.
Dom inched closer.
All Al needed was a touch, and they’d be out of there. “I hope to be the one to cut those wings from your back,” he sneered.
Dominick yelped, slipping in the blood at their feet.
A mighty caw perforated his ears, and Raven slammed his claws into the aliato’s face. The light-bringer roared, swinging his sword. Al ducked, healed the cut on his neck, and slipped toward Dominick.
In one quick movement, he, Dominick, and Raven all crashed onto the floor of Sera’s room in the manor.
Dominick retched, crawling his way to Theo. Barely on the bed, the warlock cradled his love in his arms.
“Suppose I should be thanking you,” Al said to the black bird, and opened the door to his room. “Though I don’t know how you grabbed me in time.”
Raven flapped its wings.
“What’s this?” Al held out his hand, and the bird dropped something from its beak. “Oh, that’s fucking nasty,” Al said, inspecting the bright blue eye in his hand. “Well done.”
He rolled the eye up into a piece of cloth to deal with later. He was exhausted. Truly, he didn’t know how he was still standing. His legs shook as he rummaged through the small writing desk. He took out a sheet of paper and a quill, then scratched a note.
“I need you to take this to Sera and Vasso.”
He handed it to the bird and let it out the door. At least now Vasso would know they were there. He limped toward the bed and dropped.
Before his head hit the pillow, he was asleep.