The warrior groaned and sat up. “A little banged up, but I’ll live.”
“Perfect.” She turned to Francisco, who looked shocked. “Brother, can you get everyone down to the first floor safely?”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah, but what are you going to do?”
“I’m going on ahead to get what we came here for,” she said.
“Be careful,” Francisco said, eying her warily. “We’ll meet up with you at the bottom.”
Chapter 24
Explosions rocked the tower as she descended the stairs. The walls creaked and groaned, and hairline fractures spiderwebbed along the stone structure. When she made it a few levels down, she saw why.
When her father had punched a hole through the floors, he had shaken the very bones of the tower. Falling debris had knocked down walls and doorways, and other parts of the ceiling had caved in as well. In one of the newly revealed rooms, she watched cracks spread along the surface of huge glass vessels, each with a different-colored fluid inside.
Liquid leaked through the tiny fractures and dripped onto the table, and when the different chemicals came into contact with each other, a flash of white light blinded her, and the blast knocked her off her feet.
She groaned as she stood, although she barely felt the pain through the buzz of the blood magic still roaring inside her. Other explosions rumbled up from the lower levels where other volatile ingredients must have been responding similarly to being disturbed by the tremors in the tower.
The whole goddamn place was going to come crashing down if this continued. Sephi liked the idea of seeing this bastion of evil reduced to rubble, just as long as she and her friends were outside when it happened.
Before she could even think about leaving, she had to get the Whispers from her father.
Four floors below, she found the remaining warlocks. They were fewer in number than when they’d retreated from the sanctum. Some of them must have had the good sense to flee, not wanting to risk their lives any further for her father’s mad desire for the Whispers.
The five who were left huddled around Asterion where he lay on the stone floor. He was still moving. A part of her was pissed that he was still alive, but another part of her drooled at the prospect of plunging her blade into his black fucking heart and watching the life fade from his eyes.
He deserved worse for causing her mother’s death, but Sephi would have to take solace in avenging her death with her own hand.
She didn’t bother to hide herself as she advanced on the dark mages. The power throbbing inside her filled her with a hideous strength, and she planned to use every ounce of it to give these assholes a taste of their own medicine.
If these fuckers liked blood magic so much, she would show them just what it could do. Healing wasn’t the only spell she had learned from the Whispers.
Her father saw her coming before the others did. “Kill that bitch!”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking about you, Dad,” she called out.
His warlock minions turned to face her. Some of them grinned like she would be easy meat. They had no idea what was coming for them.
Before they could take a menacing step in her direction, she was already casting the first spell she’d learned from Zekariah himself. Her hands modified the glowing symbol she created to include multiple targets.
Sephi let the spell fly, and all five of the warlocks screamed in pain as the blood inside their veins boiled. Her father watched in surprise as his daughter incapacitated the rest of his Occultum army in one fell swoop.
The warlocks’ skin blistered and turned ugly shades of crimson as their own life force scalded them from the inside out. They tore at their flesh, trying to get at the source of their pain, but they couldn’t do anything to stop it.
Their bodies swelled up and huge rents tore open along their veins, releasing superheated steam. The sanguine mist filled the air, stinking of copper and death. One by one, the warlocks collapsed on the stone floor. Some continued moving. Some didn’t. Either way, they posed no more threat to Sephi or the rest of Esper.
The intensity and complexity of the spell had drained most of her ill-gotten power, leaving just a sliver of energy left. It was enough to keep her limbs feeling strong and her mind alert, but something inside her urged her to harness more. The dying warlocks’ blood vapor hung tantalizingly in the air. She could drink it up and replenish her magic in a heartbeat.
The power of blood was seductive, offering her strength like she’d never felt before, but she wouldn’t let herself give in to its siren song again. That road led to madness.
Sephi walked past the fallen warlocks toward her father. He scrambled away from her on his hands and knees like a whipped dog. It was a good look for him, weak and beaten.
“Where are you going?” she taunted. “Is the mighty Asterion running from a fight? Where’s all your power now?”
She caught up to him easily and kicked him in the ribs so hard he flipped over onto his back. He looked up at her with that horrible burning blue face, and she saw fear in his eyes.
The fall had clearly hurt him, probably fracturing a few bones, but he didn’t look completely broken. Sephi figured it was the power of blood magic raging inside him. Now that she had experienced it, she understood why these dark mages were so damn hard to kill.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said.
“What? Kill you?” She shook her head. “Like I would ever show you mercy now.”
“But I’m your father, Persephone.”
She laughed. “Oh, it’s Persephone now? A minute ago, I was a bitch.”
He reached out a hand toward her in supplication. “Forgive me, child. That was before I knew you practiced the dark arts like me. That changes everything.”
“No,” she said. “That was a one-time thing.”
He barked a harsh laugh. “It’s never a one-time thing. You’ve felt its power now. You know what it’s capable of. What you’re capable of. Now you understand the power our kind can harness and all the wonders it can perform.”
“Boiling the blood in your enemies’ veins isn’t what I would call a wonder.”
He smiled. “But it is. No one could stand against you with power like that. Not the Council. Not the Occultum. Not anyone. Don’t you see? This is what Zekariah wanted for us, to be strong and to shepherd the weaker species toward our vision. To reshape the world the way he did.”
“I don’t want any of that,” she said. “I just want to be left alone. And to make you pay for killing my mother.”
“Technically, you killed her,” he said.
Sephi slid the Heretic Blade from its sheathe. Its black blade swirled with the Black Soul’s corruption. “Say that again, you piece of filth. Pretend like it’s not your fault.”
Her father shied away from the blade. “Okay, forget I said anything. What I’m trying to get you to see is that together, with you reading the Whispers and me using their power, we would be unstoppable. We could do anything you want. You and I could be a family again. The strongest family Esper has ever seen.”
She shook her head. “I had a family, and you stole it from me, you son of a bitch. Goodbye, Dad.”
Sephi plunged her dagger at her father’s heart. Quick as a snake, he lashed his whip at her. The metal barbs studding the leather punctured her skin as it wrapped around her wrist, and he yanked her arm sideways so that her blade clanged harmlessly against the stone beside him.
Ignoring the pain, Sephi tossed her dagger into her free hand and slashed through the whip, releasing its grip on her. The blood dripping down her arm dried and cracked as her father harnessed its energy, and a powerful bolt of energy blasted against her chest, flinging her backward.
Her back hit the cold stone floor, and pain rocked her entire body. She groaned and tried to get up, but her father’s hard boot stomped down on her chest, pinning her.
“You stupid child,” he said, glaring down at her. “I gave you one last chance to join me, which is
more than I give anyone. Turning me down will be the last mistake you ever make. And believe me, I’ve watched you make a lot of mistakes growing up. Not the least of which was when you—yes, you—killed your mother by casting the wrong spell. I mean, really. How difficult is a simple sparkler spell?”
“Like this?” she asked, weaving the spell quickly with the last shred of magic inside her.
A multi-colored burst of light exploded in her father’s face, and he stumbled back. Now that she was free, Sephi wouldn’t waste the opportunity.
She lurched up and stabbed her father in the stomach, right in the same spot he’d blasted Echo, then pulled the blade out again. The wound erupted in dark fire as the corruption of her blade sought to devour him. She stepped back and waited for the darkness to engulf him completely, like it had done to everyone else the blade had cut, but something strange happened.
Her father’s own darkness swirled out of him, seeming to fight against the corruption of the Heretic Blade as if her father’s defiled soul was as dark or darker than the Heretic’s. She wasn’t sure what was happening exactly, but the struggle between the two forces had her father rooted in place.
She plunged her hands into the warring darkness, hoping it wouldn’t kill her. Black tendrils like smoke swirled over her wrists, making her feel nauseated and dizzy, but that seemed to be the extent of its effects. Either way, it was too late to back out now.
She tore at her father’s robes, and she felt the hard lumps of the Whispers through the fabric. Reaching inside, she fished out the pouch holding the crystals. The bag was bulky but weighed next to nothing as she fastened it to her belt.
Sephi gazed at her father, who still fought her blade’s corruption. Well, if the corruption won’t kill him, a knife in the heart will.
She lifted her blade to end her father’s miserable fucking life, and something hard slammed into her skull.
The world went fuzzy, and her knees gave out beneath her. She knelt on the floor and clutched her head, feeling like someone was ringing a huge bell between her ears. The nausea from touching the corruption intensified, and she emptied the contents of her stomach on the floor.
Someone other than her father was beside her, tugging at her belt. When her vision cleared, she saw Moros standing over her, holding the Whispers in his hand.
Unlike her father, Moros’s fall had banged him up badly. His face was a swollen mess of bruises, and one of his horns had lost its sharp tip. The Nyx’s shoulders slumped, and his breath rasped from his lungs in ragged pants. His free hand pressed against his side, where he must have had broken ribs, and he seemed to be favoring his right leg.
“Moros, what the hell, man?” she asked groggily.
“I’m just taking what’s mine,” he said.
Before she could gather her wits enough to respond, he staggered toward the end of the hall where the stairs descended.
Sephi groaned and tried not to pass out. Every part of her ached in a chorus of pain. She hadn’t held anything back in her fight with her father and his warlocks. Her magic reservoirs were empty, and her muscles burned with fatigue.
She cursed herself for not being prepared for Moros to take the Whispers from her, although she had thought he was dead. He certainly looked like he was one step from death’s door as he shambled away from her. His condition didn’t offer much comfort to Sephi. He looked like she felt, like twice run over dog shit.
Still, she should have planned for the possibility that he was alive. Of course he was, considering her luck. Nothing could ever be simple or clean. Every damn victory she earned ended up being short-lived.
She glanced at her father, who had collapsed on the floor. His body was still trapped in the struggle between evil forces she didn’t understand, which was good because she doubted she had the strength to finish him off now. She would just have to let nature take its course.
Right now, she needed to go after Moros.
She was in no condition to fight, or even move, really, but she had to figure something out. She’d come too damn far and suffered too fucking much to let the Nyx just walk away with her prize.
Summoning the last wisps of strength, she forced herself to her feet. The effort made her dizzy, and the world seemed to tilt on its axis for a moment. She stayed upright and conscious through sheer stubbornness alone.
Moros was just turning down the spiral of the stairs, and she followed, focusing all her attention on putting one foot in front of the other.
“Get back here, you goat fucker.”
Chapter 25
What followed had to be the slowest and saddest chase in all of Esper’s history. Moros limped ahead of her, and she shuffled after him, managing to keep pace with him but never gaining ground.
Francisco’s reanimated corpses had more life in them than Sephi and Moros. She would have laughed at how ridiculous this was, but she couldn’t spare the energy. Even a slight chuckle might kill her at this point.
Explosions rumbled through the tower, and chunks of ceiling fell around her. She almost welcomed the prospect of the place collapsing down on her. At least then, she could get some rest. And Moros and the Whispers would be buried right along with her. Mission accomplished.
But she didn’t want her friends to die here. They deserved better than that.
She briefly wondered how they were doing. With their injuries, they had to be moving slowly, but at the pace Sephi crept along, they would probably catch up with her soon enough. That would be nice. Then maybe they could carry her out of here while they took care of Moros. Maybe she didn’t have to catch the Nyx at all. Maybe she just had to buy her friends some time to reach her.
The thought gave her strength and kept her legs moving. She edged around the hole in the floor and saw the first floor of the tower beneath her. The bodies of the dead still lay scattered along the stone floor. That fight felt like a lifetime ago.
Being so close to the exit, she knew she had to do something to slow Moros down. It was now or never.
“Hey, goat,” she called, not liking how weak her voice sounded.
Moros kept staggering forward without looking back.
“Don’t ignore me, asshole,” she said. “I know you can hear me.”
“Save your breath, mage,” he said, sounding as bad as she did.
“Hey, I’m more than just a mage. I thought we were friends.”
He finally looked back at her. “We were never friends. You were a means to an end. Nothing more.”
She shook her head wearily. “Well, that’s hurtful.”
“Maybe, but it’s true,” he said.
“Can we just stop and talk for a second?” she asked, putting her arm out to lean against the wall.
To her relief, Moros stopped walking. “There’s nothing you can say to me that will alter my course. I’m taking the Whispers back to my people. End of story.”
“Look, I know you’re worried about someone using the Whispers to control the Nyx, but I can promise you that won’t happen. I won’t let it happen.”
He shook his horned head. “Your promises aren’t worth the breath you speak them with. Mages cannot be trusted. Besides, that’s not the only reason we need the Whispers.”
“Then tell me what you want from them,” she said. “Maybe I can help you.”
“You won’t help my people,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “Why, because I’m a mage, and mages can’t be trusted?”
His golden eyes burned with fury. “Because you’re a mage, and mages have been waging war on the Nyx for thousands of years. What’s in the Whispers can give us what we need to turn the tide in our favor, and I doubt you’ll help me destroy your own people.”
“What war, Moros?” she asked. “I know you said mages hunted the Nyx down in the past, but—”
“Not just in the past,” he said. “Now. Today. It’s still happening.”
“Then why don’t I know about it?”
He shrugged. “Do you know every
thing your precious Council is up to? Perhaps you should ask your own people instead of me. There is a war going on. Just because you don’t know about it doesn’t mean it’s not happening. My people are still being killed by yours, forcing us to hide like rats beneath the earth. But no more.”
“So you want revenge?” she asked. “How boring.”
“Not revenge. We want freedom.” He lifted the sack of crystals. “This will give us that freedom.”
She sighed. “You speak like we’re enemies, Moros, but I don’t consider you one. I bear you and your kind no ill will. Hell, I didn’t even know you existed until recently.”
He nodded. “It’s strange to think that my people’s oldest enemies don’t all know about us.”
“It’s the truth, Moros,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “The other mages said the same.”
Her brow furrowed in confusion. “What other mages?”
He shook his head. “That’s not your concern.”
“Wait, have the Nyx been kidnapping mages?” she asked.
He smiled and stood up straighter, like he was proud of the fact. She also noticed he seemed stronger and he wasn’t favoring one leg anymore. Panic gripped her chest. Maybe letting him rest had been a bad idea.
She thought she was being clever by slowing him down, but was it possible he had tricked her into giving him time to recuperate? She remembered the way his cuts healed during the fight in the sanctum. If the rest of his body could heal the same way, she would never be able to catch him.
She could only hope that her friends would reach her before Moros recovered enough to escape. Or worse, before he was strong enough to kill her. The only thing she could do was keep him talking.
“You are kidnapping mages,” she said. “Why?”
He shrugged. “It didn’t start that way. We captured a raiding party of mages. I believe you call them Purples.”
“Violets,” she said off-handedly.
“Whatever fucking color,” he said. “They came to our homeland sniffing around for us, and we subdued them. After extensive interrogation, we found out about the Occultum’s search for the Whispers, and about the Whispers themselves. Then we started kidnapping mages to find out more, even snatching up some warlocks.”
The Lost Tower Page 21