Page 139 of The Crimson Walls Of Algorath

Something sad shifted across the guard’s face. It appeared and was gone in a heartbeat. A sorrow Azriel knew too well: the love held for someone who didn’t return the sentiment. He’d gone months feeling that kind of pain.

“Then turn the other way,” Azriel said, his voice gravelly, “and let me take care of it.”

The responding airy laugh grated on his ears. Paerish lifted a hand, and the magic shifted around him. An invisible weight lifted from his shoulders and chest, and for the first time in weeks, he took a full, nourishing breath.

“Do what needs to be done.” Paerish stepped back, brows pinching together as more magic worked its way through the air. “I won’t stand in your way any longer.”

Then they were gone. Azriel watched them go for a long minute before continuing to his cell. He sat with a grunt on his sorry excuse for a bed and glared at the doorway, just as he’d done so many nights before.

But the magical barrier didn’t appear. No shimmer, no sign of the normal locks being thrown into place. Nothing. Not even the physical doors moved. If Paerish spoke the truth, then the magic keeping him—keeping all of them—locked away had gone the moment they eased whatever hold they had on him.

Azriel frowned at the thought. It couldn’t have been that simple. If Melia had left such a powerful object open to the manipulation of others, she’d become entirely too self-assured in her position as a Desmo. Unless she’d made the mistake of believing Paerish would never betray her.

He slid his fingers between his neck and the collar fastened there. Where there had previously been a hum of magic, it felt…normal. Mere metal against flesh, warm to the touch thanks to his body heat and nothing else. When he tugged at it, no magic responded. Nothing warned him not to go any further.

Paerish had removed all traces of magic in the collar, reducing it to nothing but an ordinary band of metal. Fucking mages.

Shoving to his feet, Azriel marched back through the door of his cell. No familiar shock of pain. Nothing. And all down the hall, not one cell glimmered with the usual magic. Just like that, the guard had not only unleashed him but uncaged every single prisoner under Melia’s control.

This is what you deserve.

Wicked delight curled through Azriel as he started down the corridor. When he got his hands on Melia, he would string her up and cut her to pieces. He’d conduct symphonies with her screams and paint masterpieces with her blood. Her entire existence would be reduced to art in the name of the wife she stole from him.

The prisoners stirred as he passed as though just coming to the same conclusion as he: they, too, were liberated. Liulund stepped from his cell at the same time as Sasja, staring at the shackles on his wrists in wonder while she flexed her fists. Both no doubt felt the now-unfamiliar strengths returning to their bodies. The fae magic and dhemon hardiness.

Without a word, Azriel exited the barracks. Moonlight shone down on him from the cloudless sky. The desert’s nightly cold seeped into his skin, sending his entire body on high alert. Melia wouldn’t be so foolhardy as to leave her perimeter unprotected, so he scanned the tops of the walls to count the silhouettes of mages. He strained his eyes, digging into the thermal vision to ensure an accurate estimation, then released the tension before accruing a headache.

“What’s your plan?” Raoul stepped in beside him, following his gaze around the top of the walls. The metal around his wrists was gone, likely discarded as soon as his magic had returned.

Azriel snorted. “Plan? I don’t make plans.”

“At least get that collar off,” Raoul replied, and magic hummed from him in offering.

He bent just enough for Raoul to wrap his hands around the metal, breaking it free. Azriel hadn’t noticed how heavy the thing had been and entirely too restricting. A hard swallow only emphasized the sudden freedom when his larynx moved freely.

A shout echoed up from the wall as a guard finally stopped sleeping on the job and recognized prisoners outside their cells. The air vibrated with magic meant to fuse with that from their shackles. When nothing happened, they moved into action.

“The prisoners are loose!” The shout rose up from the wall as the mages rushed to descend upon them. A pair launched over the low balustrade, landing on light feet in a swirl of sand. Air rushed out from them before whipping up more of the fine grains to fashion into small tornadoes that spun toward Azriel and Raoul.

But the latter was already prepared. A huge, wicked grin spread across his face, lighting up his eyes as he said, “Gods, I missed this.”

Raoul lifted his hands, palms down and fingers splayed, and beneath their feet rumbled. Sand shifted as rocks emerged in large chunks of stone. The unsteady ground halted the spiraling columns of sand, and he took advantage of the guards’ hesitation by chucking the stones through the tornadoes, shattering them. They hurtled at the mages, who countered with their own elemental magic.

“Keep them busy,” Azriel said, eyeing their swords.

The human laughed in response before splintering the training yard again. Back and forth he and the guards moved, attacking and defending. Azriel moved in a wide semi-circle, stumbling each time the mages summoned their magic and the ground shifted.

By the time he reached the first mage, the others from the wall had reappeared with more in tow. The sleepy-eyed guards, woken by their night-shift counterparts, shouted in outrage.

“Who let them out?”

“What happened to their bands?”

“Round them up!”

“Someone alert the Desmo!”

Magic flared to life all around him. That of the mages felt heavy and clung to Azriel’s skin as it attacked his senses, whether it was directed at him or not. It was at once familiar to a dormant part of him, caged by the vampire curse in his blood while also maintaining its unnatural stench. Fae magic, on the other hand, exploded from behind him. It drifted through the air like seafoam on currents, lazy yet unyielding. Something from his dhemon ancestry stirred to its call.

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