Page 204 of Blood Feast

Lio landed behind Skleros with Cassia. Mak and Lyros appeared on either side of him, flanking the Gift Collector. Between them and Miranda, there was no way out for him.

Miranda’s smile was more like a snarl. She swept her digging fork back and forth in the space in front of her, holding them all at bay. “Why not make it a melee, then? I can take four Hesperines and this spurred carcass, too. I’ll teach all of you what I’m made of.”

Everyone moved at once. Miranda lunged at Skleros, a manic gleam in her eyes. Lyros snatched up his spear and threw it in a single motion just as Mak swung his morning star high. Lio went low with his staff, aiming for knees.

Cassia ripped roses out of the ground to bind Skleros’s legs so he couldn’t dodge the four weapons striking at him.

Miranda screamed in fury and pivoted mid-attack to block the Star of Orthros. Skleros crouched, and Lyros’s spear sailed over his head instead of into his heart. Final Word was about to make contact with the back of his skull when magefire nipped at Lio’s feet. He cursed and levitated, missing his target.

“How dare you fight at my side!” Miranda shouted. “I won’t let you steal my kill.”

Shock rolled through Lyros’s aura. Even he hadn’t calculated for this. The Black Roses weren’t the kill, and Skleros wasn’t the thief.

Magic slammed into Lio’s chest, propelling him upward. His back struck a pillar, and his head slammed back against the stone. Miranda’s spell held him there, a weight on his chest, a burn in his lungs. Another deadly mix of warding and fire magic.

She released him. Stunned, he couldn’t manage to levitate. He hit the ground. Pain blasted through his knees, and his teeth sank into his tongue.

Gingerly, he touched the back of his head, and his fingers came away bloody. Trying to focus his double vision, he looked for the others. Miranda had hurled all four of them to opposite corners of the chamber and encircled them with flame wards again. Cassia yelled his name and sent roses slithering around the confines of the spell. With the four of them separated, none of them had a hope of breaking out on their own.

Skleros circled Miranda. “You should let them help you. You’ll last longer.”

“Not a chance. I’ll kill you with my own hands, and I’ll enjoy it.”

Skleros laughed. “You should know better than to try.”

“You should know better than to harm my people.” She spun her digging fork. “Do you know what this is?”

He sneered. “A weapon for a pawn like you.”

“It’s one of the few things that survived the fire at Mederi Village. Did you think I wouldn’t find out you chose that target for Lucis’s army? That you told the army from Cordium where the refugees were hiding?”

“I was counting on it. Learn your place, bitch.”

“I’ll show you our places in the game.”

Skleros and Miranda drove each other back and forth across the length of the room in a fast, ugly fight. Every time Skleros’s axe blade came at Miranda, Lio feared she would be destroyed, and her secrets with her.

Lio could find no way into the maze of dream wards over their minds. Miranda rebuffed him with the power of six mind mages. All he could do was watch through the wavering flames that trapped him, helpless to protect the one Gift Collector they needed alive.

Cassia struggled to risefrom the rose vines that had broken her fall. She saw Mak and Lyros on their feet. But her legs wouldn’t hold her weight, screaming with the pain of Lio’s shattered knees.

His gaze found hers from the other side of the chamber.I’ll survive.

All her Grace instincts screamed that Miranda had hurt him. Again. Raw power blasted out of her and battered the flame ward around her. But that accomplished nothing except to make her arcane senses burn.

Miranda leapt onto the fallen sun disk to evade another swing from Skleros’s axe. He pursued her, his spurs clanking on the bronze. Their weapons clashed, and the grinding of steel against iron made Cassia’s teeth ache. Then Miranda’s digging fork fell, banging across the disk.

“No!” The word shocked Cassia even as it came from her mouth. She didn’t want to care if Miranda lived or died. But she did.

Miranda whipped out a stone dagger. The ancient artifact she had used in her necromantic experiments on Lio and Cassia.

Skleros stood over her, his axe blade aimed downward. “Well, you are desperate if you dare show your relic blade in a fight with another Overseer.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Miranda panted.

“You have spent your short existence showing mortals how afraid they should be of the game. Haven’t you learned proper fear by now?”

Through the mix of betrayal and fury and pain Cassia shared with Miranda, she found one shard of clarity.

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