Page 107 of Somewhere down the Ley Line
“Spare me your theatrics, sellsword,” Kaeloth sneered. His expression was almost smug, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Felix felt a fresh surge of rage flood his mind. The mage’s sheer arrogance burned away the last shreds of hesitation.
He pressed the dagger a little closer, just enough. A thin line of blood trickled down her skin. She flinched, and he may as well have been flaying himself alive for how much it hurt.
“Step back,” he snarled. His voice didn’t shake this time. “Step back, or I swear I’ll do it.”
Kaeloth stared at the crimson streak on Isolde’s throat, his eyes calculating. Felix knew the look; he’d seen it a hundred times before. The look of a man trying to decide whether to make the gamble, to call the bluff.
“You think I won’t?” Felix hissed. “You think I’ll let you chain her here to wither and die over decades? No. At least I’ll make it quick.”
Kaeloth’s lips curled, but he did not move, and he gestured at the mercenaries to stay back. “You’d betray her like this? After all her talk of freedom?”
“Better me than you. Death is its own kind of freedom,” Felix said, keeping his voice calm even as his heart cracked down the middle. “Nowback off.”There was no room for weakness here, no second-guessing.
A hundred memories assaulted his mind. Her eyes, her smile, her laugh. The little frown on her face when she concentrated. Kissing her in the rain. The way her fingers twisted together when she was nervous. The way she looked at him, like he was something good. Her body wreathed in magic and power. Her father, telling him to kill her if there was no other way. His reply that he wasn’t an executioner.
And yet, here he stood.
Kaeloth tried to use magic on him again, to no effect. The mercenaries shifted uneasily, swords gripped tightly, their eyes darting back and forth.
“Just kill him already!” the mage barked, throwing up his hands in apparent frustration. The two nearest swordsmen exchanged looks and advanced as one.
Felix backed away, pulling Isolde closer against him. He wasn’t sure if it was for her protection or his; maybe it was both. Her hair was soft against his cheek. It smelled like lightning, and sleep, andher.He couldn’t fucking do it. His eyes snapped shut, and he tightened his hold on the dagger.
Her fingers closed around his wrist, the movement slow but determined, and squeezed. It nearly made his heart stop. Then her hand crawled further up and gripped the chain on her neck. Hope flared in him like a bonfire.
Kaeloth opened his mouth, undoubtedly to shout another command, when the sharp sound of boots rang through the hallway.
Felix spun, dragging Isolde along, just as Garren and Leif burst in, followed by Hawes and a group of mercenaries. Felix recognized the man Isolde had healed, as well as the friend who had begged her to save his life. They looked grim and determined. Hawes raised his voice, booming and authoritative. “Bears! Stand down!” His gaze swept over the room, landing on Kaeloth. “This isn’t our fight.”
Kaeloth rounded on him, eyes blazing. “What do you think you’re doing?” he snapped. “I paid you –”
“And you got more than your money’s worth,” Hawes interrupted coldly. “But we sure as all the hells didn’t sign up for whatever the fuck is going on here.” He spat on the floor. “This ends now.”
The two men closest to Felix hesitated, then sheathed their weapons. The three remaining mages backed away slowly. Mia’s captor released her, and she fell to her knees, spouting a colourful string of curses.
Felix risked a glance down at Isolde, at her white-knuckled hand holding onto the collar around her neck. He covered it with his own, and together they pulled.
37
A song for the ages
There was only darkness at first. Darkness and the scolding, hurtful voice. Isolde did nothing, could do nothing. She existed, but only just. Shapes moved around her, moved her along with them, but they didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
A sharp pain on her neck, and the tiniest fraction of clarity returned. The warmth of his body against hers. Two touches of cold steel against her skin, a promise of suffering and a promise of mercy. Isolde decided she didn’t want either. She ignored the voice, pushing it aside. Felix was here with her, willing to save her from this fate no matter what, and she was not afraid anymore.
Her hand was like lead; moving it up took every last shred of strength she had, but she managed it. Her fingers first closed around his wrist, then on the chain on her neck. His hand joined hers, warm and rough and reassuring, and together they lifted the collar and flung it away.
She surfaced from a deep, murky pond. There was light again, and sound, and air. Isolde gasped for breath as she pulled her entire consciousness back to the here and now. The collar clattered on the floor somewhere behind her. The mageswere staring at her as if frozen. Felix’s hand was on her arm, but she did not turn to him. There would be time later. There would be an endless amount of time.
The Arcaenum knew what she intended. It pulsed with light, with force, and in the blink of an eye, its power surged through her, roaring in her ears, searing her veins. How could she ever have thought she was drained? It wasn’t possible, not here. Here, in this room, she was one with divinity itself.
The floor trembled as Isolde walked forward, the air around her so suffused with power she could taste it. The mages’ stores of magic were small and pitiful next to hers. Even Kaeloth was nothing, a flickering candle to her blazing inferno. It would be easy; barely a thought to rip their threads, to yank them violently out of existence.
But she wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t take their lives. What shewouldtake was their magic.
She tilted her chin up, flexed her fingers. The mages stumbled back, terror plain on their faces. The magic inside them pulsed in their veins. It called to her, begging her to take it, for it did not belong. So she closed her eyes, took a deep, slow breath, and reached out.
It was a simple, small thing in the end. The songs and stories would later tell of a grand display, as the all-powerful, vengeful leytouched brought the mages to their knees. But to Isolde, it was rather like plucking ripe fruit off a tree. Their magic came to her swiftly, willingly. As their power was siphoned away, the mages were left gasping, clutching their chests, eyes wide with disbelief. They each collapsed, as if their minds could not cope with the loss of their magic, but they were alive.
