Page 233 of Blood Feast

I know.

Miranda is about to break through the roses with him. Was it enough time?

His knuckles were white where he held his staff.Yes. I have her right where I want her.

They were so close. Cassia steadied their avowal cup in her hand. “Lio is ready!”

“Our wards are braced for the breach,” Lyros called back.

She sensed her regrown barrier wither. No more time to shore it up now. She channeled all her determination into her final thorn wall, fortifying their last line of defense.

I will need you.Lio said.Just like when we fought Kallikrates together at Rose House, and again at Paradum.

I’m with you, my Grace.

Are you willing to channel more magic than you ever have before?

No holding back now.She opened herself to another wave of power and let it shudder through her. Somehow, she also felt stronger than at the start of the battle. How could that be?

She felt Lio smile.

Searing heat ate at her arcane senses, and she gritted her teeth. Smoke drifted between the tight weave of her vines. Then a glimmer of light.

She flooded the thorns with her dual magic. War magic fired back. She felt the breach grow, inch by agonizing inch, although she couldn’t see it from her and Lio’s position inside the dome. Mak and Lyros’s wards enfolded them, an unseen darkness gathering against the glare of fire magic.

The power of a dozen fire mages exploded through Cassia’s thorn wall. Hot air gusted in. Stone cracked. A hole exploded in the dome in front of her, spraying her and Lio with fragments of stone.

Miranda faced them through the smoke, a weed hook in one hand and a long mattock in the other.

Did she think turning Cassia’s tools against her would frighten her? It didn’t. But the sight of her pendant around Miranda’s neck, resting over her own blood on the Gift Collector’s leather breastplate, filled Cassia with a deep, instinctual rage.

Hold onto that beautiful anger,Lio said.It has always been part of your power.

Her fury took shape as rose vines that clawed out of the ground at Miranda’s feet and bound her ankles. Mak and Lyros stepped, flanking her. The hounds descended from the dome in a single leap.

Rooted the spot, Miranda couldn’t evade them. She twisted where she stood to hook her blade around Lyros’s spearhead and parry Night’s Aim. With her mattock, she blocked the Star ofOrthros. Lightning sizzled at her feet, destroying the roses and forcing the hounds back.

Cassia snapped more roses around Miranda’s limbs. They burned to ash the instant they touched her.

She dipped her fingers into her and Lio’s blood, ready to pour more power from their avowal cup.

Mak and Lyros’s Union Stones carved red paths in the air as they attacked again in tandem. Lio’s staff pulsed slowly with the same signal. Wait.

Cassia held the wild power inside herself. Time to trust her Trial brothers. They had to engage Miranda at close range, if Mak had any hope of wresting Rosethorn from her.

Without warning, another wave of fire rolled toward Cassia. She raised thickets of black roses to fill the gap in the dome, like stakes on the field of a siege. The fire burned through two of them, but fell to embers before the third. She had to focus on defending their mind mage now.

Her thorn walls rose and fell before the fire and lightning that rained down. She stopped breathing the choking air. The dark shapes of the hounds leapt and circled in the chaos, harrying her into the reach of Mak and Lyros’s weapons. More fire spells rolled off the shadows on their skin as bright adamas cut at Miranda.

A crack of lightning split the ground and forced Mak into the air. As he levitated, Miranda sliced her weed hook toward Lyros’s neck.

He leaned backward with Hesperine balance. The curved blade swept past his face. Then he lunged forward and drove his spear into the weak point between Miranda’s breastplate and shoulder armor.

Her blood scented the air, but she didn’t even scream. With his spear buried in her armpit, Lyros wrenched a blade out of a scabbard at her belt.

Merely an ordinary knife. He used it to slice off her belt. It fell to the ground, scattering weapons. An awl rolled away, and a billhook landed at Cassia’s feet.

“You think I would make it so easy for you?” the Collector asked.

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