Page 147 of Blood Feast

Facing the wrong Overseer was not a possibility they had practiced for. The Union Stones in their weapons flashed with quick pulses of light. Lyros’s signal to retreat.

No. A veteran Gift Collector would know even more secrets. They could take him with the same strategies they had planned to use against Miranda. Lio shot magic into his Union Stone, flashing back the sign to capture.

In that instant of indecision, more skeletons shattered all around them.

Bear’s screams tore the air as he went down. Mak landed on his back, arms and legs flat against a dark hexagram that burned through the snow. A jagged bone pierced Lyros’s chest and propelled him off his mount. He struck one of the stone cairns, and the shard pinned him there.

Lio’s heart jolted, as if trying to beat for Lyros’s. How close was the bone to his heart?

With a powerful, two-handed swing, Skleros aimed a headsman’s axe at Lio’s neck, and there was no ward to stop it.

Lio swept his staff out. The blade of the axe struck Final Word with a clang that made his teeth ache. Behind Skleros,something dark glinted in the snow. The traversal cuffs. The trap must have blown them from Mak’s grasp.

Skleros’s smile widened. “Remember what I said at Rose House. Your head is next.”

“Your heart is next,” Lio snarled.

They had no plan for this, but Cassia’s thoughts met his in the flow of power and anger between them. Their strategy was clear in both their minds. They moved as one.

Lio retreated under Skleros’s vicious swings. Cassia stood clear of the skirmish and gripped her dagger, wearing a grimace of frustration. Knight backed away, staying close to her.

Skleros’s hoarse laughter taunted them. “Haven’t learned much since our last round, have you? You’re still too soft to survive the Master’s game. And she’s still a clueless chit trying to use an artifact she doesn’t understand, destined to be no more than a tool in his hands.”

It was working. The fool underestimated them, cocky in his new form.

In the noise of battle, Lio strained to catch his Trial brothers’ faint pulses. His only reassurance that they lived was that their bodies were not returning to the Goddess in a flash of light before his eyes. Their pain fractured the Blood Union.

Pain Lio and Cassia would deal Skleros. They would show him he was not as indestructible as he thought.

Blow by blow, Lio let Skleros drive him back. The long axe had a greater range than any weapon Lio had faced before. He kept the Gift Collector at staff’s length as Mak had taught him.

The man drove at him with inhuman strength and speed. But not Hesperine strength. Lio held his physical power in check even as he pushed his training to the limit to avoid losing his head. He fell into the flow of battle, as if his staff were a part of him. He watched every twitch of muscle in Skleros, trying to anticipate each swing of that deadly blade.

Just as the axe moved right, Lio shifted into a high right guard. But Skleros pivoted his weapon. Too fast. The axe swung low and sliced open the side of Lio’s robes.

He spun his staff and knocked the axe back just before it broke his skin. The necromancer’s breath clouded in the air with exertion, but still he smiled.

Cassia’s power built under Lio’s feet. Through her, he was aware of the Lustra magic that eluded other mages’ senses. Even Skleros’s. The tainted ground roiled with vengeance.

Knight never wavered from his defensive stance in front of Cassia, protecting her as she cast. His barks boomed at the Gift Collector.

“Do you think a dog can protect you long enough to get off a spell?” Skleros spat. “He didn’t hold up very well against me in Orthros, did he?”

An explosion rippled beneath the ground at Cassia’s feet. A burst of necromancy smothered by the Lustra. Now it was her turn to give Skleros a savage smile. “I didn’t have my magic in Orthros!”

“Go ahead,” Skleros said. “Try your power against the Master. He’s looking forward to putting you in your place.”

Their ruse was wearing thin, but Skleros was far enough from the portal now. He could never outrun a Hesperine to reach his escape route.

Now,Lio said in Cassia’s mind.

Ready,she replied.

The salted soil broke, and the grieving land reclaimed the ruins.

Her roses tore across the rubble, covering the snow in black. A dozen more traps set off, leaving holes in the vines, only for more roses to pour out and cover them.

Thorns ate the ground around Mak and Lyros, crumbling the death magic that trapped them. The vines rose to formprotective walls around them. Another barrier grew up around the portal, cutting off Skleros’s retreat.

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