Page 92 of Blood Feast

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

“Tell him the Hesperines known as the Black Roses did what we could for his people tonight.”

“I will make sure my lord hears of your deeds.” The soldier ran for the stairwell, cradling his bleeding hands against his chest.

Cassia raced toward the next warrior. His left eye socket was a bleeding mess. His right eye, rimmed in white, darted back and forth, searching the darkness.

“Don’t be afraid,” she said again.

She moved from one wounded man to the next, murmuring Hespera’s reassurances to them, just as Hesperines had always done for her.

Lio’s magic ebbed and surged around her. Knight leapt and circled, avoiding the Hesperines’ most skilled enemy with the same speed and agility that made him deadly to immortals. The Gift Collector dodged each swing of Final Word, keeping his stake clear of the staff’s heavy blows. The pain of their mental battle twisted his face. But the agony that echoed in Cassia’s head was Lio’s as he ground down the necromancer’s next dream ward.

She focused on the one task she could control and forced herself to keep sawing at the ropes, keep showing the soldiers Mercy. There had been no glory or honor for them, only subjugation and humiliation at the hands of enemies far too powerful even for Tenebra’s best warriors. But they were alive, and one by one, she sent them out of harm’s way.

They struggled past Mak and Lyros, who were locked in a brutal dance with their two opponents, their weapons glowing with the rust-magic now. Mak grappled at close range with the pickaxe wielder. The Gift Collector with the hatchet fought on against Lyros, one arm useless at his side. She glimpsed a gash on Mak’s arm that wasn’t healing and a tear in Lyros’s black battle robe that leaked blood onto his silver sash. She could not tell who was wearing down whom.

The last captive’s leg was bent at the wrong angle. She slung his arm around her shoulders and helped him stand without putting weight on his shattered calf bone. He felt so light to her, this mortal whose life would depend on her across the last fewpaces to safety. She held her dagger at the ready in her other hand.

Knight’s yelp tore at her heart. She looked to see him tangled in the necromancer’s chain, struggling to get up. Stone clanged on metal, and the Gift Collector’s weapon locked with Final Word, a hand’s breadth from Lio’s face. No wooden stake now. Cassia recognized the carved dagger in the necromancer’s grip. A relic blade like the one Miranda had used in her twisted experiments for Kallikrates.

Lio!Cassia called helplessly in his mind.

Get the mortal to safety.

Her skull throbbed with vicarious agony. It took all the Will she possessed to keep going. At last, she and the soldier reached the stairwell, where two of his comrades who could still walk were waiting to help him.

She spun to face the battle, Rosethorn in her hand. Why had she never let Kella teach her how to throw a knife? Through the wavering flames, Mak and Lyros were cast in bronze and fighting two statues that never seemed to break. Lio was the tall, dark shadow in front of the magefire, his magic rending thoughts, his staff cracking bone. Still she wavered on the edge of the skirmish.

The Lustra reached out to her from below. At her call, it would rise up and tear this tower from its foundations. Not protection, but destruction.

A phantom pain drove into the front of Cassia’s shoulder. She watched blood bloom on Lio’s robe, and her entire vision seemed to fill with red. The stone dagger was buried to the hilt in his flesh.

He spun his staff and slammed it into the crook of the necromancer’s arm. The man lost his grip on his dagger. But already too close under Lio’s guard, he drove his stake into Lio’s side.

Cassia screamed with rage, her fist tight on her dagger hilt.

A quiet magic caressed her palm. She looked down at Rosethorn. She had rubbed her fingers raw on the ropes, and her blood trickled down the blade.

She reached for that safe, familiar power. She felt all four of the weapons stir with the same energy. Just as she had in Nike’s forge, she Willed her magic through her dagger and into the other three artifacts.

Black roses snaked along Lio’s staff, and he let out a shout of surprise. The rabid vines tore the stake from the Gift Collector’s hands and kept growing. The necromancer leapt back, but not fast enough. The roses crawled over the floor, snared his legs, and snapped him off his feet.

His head cracked back against the stone. Lio wrenched the dagger out of his shoulder, and then a bolt of thelemancy drove out of him. Through their Union, Cassia felt the last of the Gift Collector’s mental defenses crumble. His poisonous thoughts flew in fragments through Lio’s mind. Cassia clutched her head, nearly doubling over with the pain in her skull.

The second heart stopped.

She looked for Mak and Lyros’s opponents. The hatchet wielder was impaled on Lyros’s spear against one pillar, a vine of thorns tearing apart the Eye of Hypnos on his breastplate. For the third time, a mortal heart went quiet.

The Gift Collector with the pickaxe fled toward the edge of the tower, pursued by the carpet of black roses spreading out from where Cassia stood. He was ready to leap when Mak caught his throat in a powerful grip and dragged him back from the edge. He tossed the man down onto the deck and let the roses have him.

The last beat of his pulse brought silence.

Mak surveyed the carnage. “So. That’s what the enchantment does.”

THE BURDEN OF VIOLENCE

Cassia stood there, shaking.

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