Page 199 of Blood Feast

Lyros gave Cassia a questioning look, and she nodded. So their plan would work.

She wet her lips, her pulse pattering faster. She adjusted her hold on her dagger.I only have one chance to get this right.

Now is not the time to hold back, no matter what path you take with your magic tomorrow.

Her head fell forward, her face hidden behind her hair. The night wind caught his braid.

Tiny green tendrils slipped from between the roof stones, gleaming with the temple’s power.

All at once, the green shoots thickened into thorned vines. Stone cracked, and tiles shattered. Cassia’s roses tore open the roof. In a rain of debris and black petals, the four of them leapt down into the temple’s inner chamber.

THE MAGE KING'S FIRES

Lio caught one glimpseof the mages. The war circle of Aithourians dodged flying stones while Skleros leapt away from the table, where roses had cleaved his game board and shattered his wine.

Then gouts of flame shot up from the war mages’ hands, filling Lio’s vision with fire.

He levitated backward as Cassia, Mak, and Lyros all shot away in different directions. Lio flattened his back against the wall.

The fire spells sailed into empty air between the four of them, sending hot prickles over his skin. In the wake of the flames came seven revelatory spells that shredded his veils.

The instant the fire sank, the Black Roses moved. Using Final Word for leverage, Lio pushed off from the wall and sped toward the other side of the room. Staying in one position would be certain death.

The mages now surrounded an altar where the temple’s sacred sickle rested before a bronze brazier. In unison, they thumped their chest with their fists and held out their palms. The altar flame rose from the brazier in seven tendrils that whorled around each other.

Lio’s Union Stone flashed from the top of his staff. Now.

Mak and Lyros’s wards thickened the air, an invisible darkness. Cassia’s roses broke through the floor and grew over every door and window.

Lio focused on the Aithourians’ mental defenses. Seven clean strikes, and they would no longer be a threat. He reached into himself for his power.

But there was more than mind magic welling up within him. The ghosts of Castra Augusta were always just behind his eyes. Every suffering animal. Every crying child. Every parent and grandparent and spouse who had watched someone they loved die, knowing they were next.

Lio finally let out the cry of despair that had been building in him night after night. The echoes of their final moments overflowed from him and poured into the fire mages’ minds. Still the seven men were not enough to hold so much pain.

Their mental defenses crumbled as easily as the castle had. They screamed like the dying villagers.

These men weren’t helpless and harmless like Miranda’s victims at Castra Augusta. Lio bared his fangs and flooded them with another wave of the pain their Order had caused.

One by one, they fell to their knees below him, clawing at their heads. Their fire spells spun out of control, finding anything they could to feed on. Every banner on the walls and offering at the altar caught fire.

Through the visions of slaughter in Lio’s mind’s eye, he saw Cassia’s face before him. She clutched his shoulders.

Lio, what are you doing?

He gritted his teeth.Following the plan.

Lyros said to stop the fire mages with your mind magic, not this!

He didn’t specify how I should break their minds.

“Cassia!” Lyros barked from somewhere beyond a wall of flames.

She glanced over her shoulder. Lio didn’t take his eyes off the mages, but at the corner of his vision, Skleros raced toward a door, the sacred sickle in hand.

Lio dug into the corners of the war mage’s minds and filled their every thought with the image of Neana’s face. Then he drove Azad’s despair into their hearts.

The men crumpled to the floor, weeping pitifully. “Neana,” her enemies sobbed.

---