Page 26 of Blood Feast

I’m all right.He was on his feet again at immortal speed, tightening his veils around the mortals.

Was that a trammeling spell? The kind that halts a Hesperine mid-step?

Light flashed again, and his concealing spells shredded.And a revelatory spell.

“Get down!” he called aloud, remembering Rudhira’s advice. He and the villagers threw themselves behind the only cover, a dip in the uneven ground.

A ball of fire sailed over their heads, sending a wave of heat over Lio’s scalp.

Where is Rudhira?Cassia asked.

I don’t know.Lio flared his senses around him.

Rudhira and his group were nowhere near. Lio was all that stood between that mage and the villagers.

The man in flame-colored robes rotated his hands, gathering another ball of his volatile magic.

Before the core of fire was fully formed, Lio drove his magic toward the mage’s mind. Searing pain lit in his own head as he worked his thelemancy through the fiery battle wards surrounding the mage. He had broken through the dream wards in a Gift Collector’s mind. He would not quail before a pyromagus’s defenses.

The mage let out a grunt of effort. The fire grew brighter.

Lio unleashed more magic. White-gold light glared in his eyes, making the world disappear, and pain drove deeper into his skull. But through the fire, he caught hold of the mage’s thoughts, disciplined structures built around a thirst for violence. Tonight, he would finally experience the thrill of killing a Hesperine.

Or so he thought. Lio, his skin burning, collapsed the mage’s lifetime of training like a house of cards. It took one blow from his full power to reduce the man’s intelligent mind to ruins.

The mage crumpled to the ground, the remnants of his fire fizzling out in the wet grass.

Lio had an instant of relief before alarm hit him in the chest. Cassia’s emotions.

He sucked in a breath.What’s wrong?

Her aura honed into determination.Nothing Uncle Argyros and I cannot take care of.

Where in the Goddess’s name are you?

Martyr’s Pass,she said with far too much grim delight.Helping the Stand teach some possessed heart hunters just how well protected Orthros is.

Lio swore. His blood boiled with the wrongness of it. His Grace was out of his reach and facing the Collector’s pawns. But his rational mind knew he and the villagers were in a more precarious position.

He looked around him through the spots on his vision. They were only halfway to the fortress.

He reached for Rudhira’s aura again, but all he felt were two fiery presences. Bleeding thorns. There were more war mages between them and Castra Patria.

“We must stay calm,” he said to the eight frightened mortals looking to him for guidance. “We’ll return to the village, where the Stewards’ wards can protect us.”

The elderly couple nodded, and their neighbors seemed to take their approval as reassurance. Lio made sure the fall hadn’t harmed them, then stepped them all back toward the village.

His heart seemed to hammer a thousand times in that instant, waiting for a mage to trammel him again. When he set foot on solid ground and saw the village around them, he heaved a sigh of relief.

Until the volley of flaming arrows flew down from the sky. Twelve soldiers in Lucis’s colors stood on the nearest hill, already drawing their bows again.

A dozen points of magefire struck the wards, and a dozen points of darkness flared where they landed. Mak and Lyros bared their fangs, their bleeding hands joined, as shadows rose from their auras to strengthen their spell.

Solia helped the elderly couple up, her aura dangerously warm. Lio feared that if the enemy broke through the defenses, she would draw her sword or even reveal her magic.

He swept out a veiled probe of thelemancy, testing the archers’ minds. What he sensed sent a chill through him.

The Collector’s rage whispered through their thoughts.You’ve returned. I’ve been waiting.

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