Page 151 of Enchanted Shadows
“I need to get in there,” I told her.
“Not without me you don’t,” Miles said from next to us. I hadn’t even heard him arrive.
“I need you to drop the shadows and let us in there,” I told her. “You trapped them, let us help. Let us finish this.”
She gave me a nod.
I kissed her, a quick hard peck which promised it wouldn’t be the last. And another I brushed to her temple, just so damn glad she was alive.
She was going to pass out at any moment. We just needed to get in there. And on the off chance her shadows wouldn’t drop when her consciousness did, we needed to be able to see what we were doing in there.
“I don’t know how to control the tree,” she rasped.
I moved toward the tree, picking up the sword which had hurtmy wife. I vaguely realized I had grabbed my own sword, it was still in my right hand, but in my haste, I hadn’t grabbed a shirt. Two swords, one in each hand, no shirt. Minor details I could live with. I was about to use enough power that I wouldn’t feel the cold.
At first, I wondered if this new sword was the one which housed the dead queen’s magic, but with just a glance I could tell it wasn’t. It didn’t have the thrum of magic I’d felt in that sword, nor the large gem in the hilt like that sword.
“What’s your plan?” Miles asked quietly.
“Get in. Murder.”
“Simple but efficient then,” Miles declared. “Perfect.”
Without thinking, I moved my hand to touch the bark of the hydrangea tree. A flash of the homes in Agria danced in my head. The way they built their homes into the land of the area.
With both these lands and the powers given to us, we all needed to learn to work with nature, not against. So I lightly trailed my fingers on the bark of the tree and whispered, “Please let us in. Let us help finish this.”
Almost immediately, roots began moving.
“Kess,” I hollered. “Drop it now.”
“They’ll be free,” she argued.
I shot Miles a look and couldn’t help the murderous grin which crossed my face. “Good.”
The roots moved and shifted, not entirely, but left us a small hole in which to enter the cage. I immediately stepped in, Kessara’s shadows falling the moment I did. Miles stepped in beside me, and the tree shifted back, closing us in.
CHAPTER 49
There was one moment of stillness. A moment between when the cage of roots closed back around us, and we sized one another up. Bram had been cemented to the ground by Kessara from the looks of it. Calix was standing, and though he looked tired, he looked in better shape than she did. Had he been tied down by her magic somehow, or merely contained by the cage?
I barely registered that warning in my head before Bram scrambled to his feet right next to me. He put his hands up in surrender. “I’ve been helping.”
“Helping who exactly?” Miles seethed.
His attention stayed on me. “Your wife was leaving us clues, but I was finding them before he did and destroying them. Burning them with my power.”
Which likely only further delayed this confrontation we found ourselves in. Didn’t he understand that she had done it for a reason? How in the hell did he think that excused his actions? Actions that not only attacked my wife, but the queen of Wylan also. But no, I didn’t have time for this. I didn’t have time to standhere arguing with Bram with Calix Cyncrest still within reaches of shadows. “You’re still complicit.” I tightened my core and shifted my weight before moving toward him and punching outward, all my force with it.
He didn’t fight back at all, so I connected brilliantly with his temple, and Bram immediately slumped to the ground.
I was fairly certain he was losing consciousness, but I didn’t have time to confirm that with my eyes. Before I was even done punching Bram, I sent out strands of my power toward Calix, but they were met with a wall of shadows. Shadows I expected would rush in once Kessara’s fell. But, seeing how exhausted she was, I couldn’t ask her to keep her hold on these men a minute more. Seconds from burnout, her hold was guaranteed to falter.
Kessara had said Calix was nearing burnout, but with the strength and burn of his shadows along my skin, I wasn’t as certain. She had been leading them on this cat and mouse chase and from the sounds of it, both had been the mouse at some point. While Kessara had been utilizing both Enchantments to trap them, Calix had only used one. And likely not enough to truly harm Kessara. He didn’t want to kill her, he just wanted her as his.
That thought had me lighting up.
“Back-to-back,” I commanded Miles, handing him over Calix’s weapon.
