The Blood Curse

by Annette Marie

Clio’s mouth hung open. He hadn’t woven that circle. He hadn’t activated a gemstone weaving. The spell had just appeared.

  Hovering in front of his hand, the circle rotated and the runes changed color—glowing red, green, blue, purple, orange. As power crackled through it like electricity, the whole circle and all the markings in it flashed to bluish white.

  Bolts of pure lightning ripped out of the spell circle and launched at the Iridian soldiers. Half of them leaped frantically away. The other half trusted their shields to protect them.

  Eight daemons crumpled to the ground, their bodies burnt and smoking, flesh ripped open.

  Clio braced her hand on a nearby tree for support. Was that even magic? She’d never seen anything like it. Even with her asper, she had no idea how the spell worked. It had blasted through the duplicates of Lyre’s defensive weavings like they weren’t even there.

  The terrified Iridian soldiers backpedaled, some of them angling toward the ley line. Smirking, Madrigal lifted his bow and loosed an arrow. It struck the ground beside the chimera nearest the ley line. A beam of golden light burst from the arrowhead and slammed the five closest daemons away from the line.

  Over a dozen of Irida’s elite soldiers, protected with advanced shields, would be slaughtered by two master weavers.

  Her hand rose to her throat, fingers closing over Lyre’s chain. She lifted it, checking the remaining gemstones for something, anything, that might save them.

  In the clearing, Madrigal pulled another arrow.

  She pinched a ruby between her finger and thumb. An illusion spell. But of what? No way to know, but if Lyre was carrying it on his main spell chain, it had to be intended for dire circumstances.

  With furious bellows, the remaining soldiers raised their swords and charged the two incubi. Clio snapped the ruby off, activated the spell, and threw it into the clearing.

  Light flashed, startling Madrigal and causing Lyceus to look over. A web of magic shot across the ground, racing beneath the feet of every daemon and casting a wash of golden light over them.

  Another flash, and suddenly there were forty daemons in the clearing instead of ten.

  The illusion had created doppelgangers. As the nymphs and chimeras recoiled from their illusory doubles, the fakes mimicked their movements. The chaotic tangle of daemons and illusions was dizzying.

  Gripping Lyre’s bow, she threw herself into the mayhem.

  With everything cast in a golden hue, the duplicates and the originals all looked alike. But not to her—and not to the other four nymphs. They scarcely hesitated before turning on Lyceus and Madrigal. Their lookalikes charged too.

  Clio rushed in behind the distracted incubi, a spell already forming in her hand—but not an attack. She skidded onto her knees beside Lyre and used her cast to cut through his shirt just below Lyceus’s hand. Lyre fell from his father’s grip and hit the ground with a wide-eyed gasp.

  Lyceus’s head jerked around, his amber eyes darkening. Crouched beside him, Clio swung Lyre’s bow as hard as she could—smashing it into Lyceus’s ankles, the weakest point in the master-weaver shield.

  Lyceus pitched sideways, falling into Madrigal.

  Clio grabbed Lyre’s uninjured arm to haul him up, but he was already stumbling to his feet. Clutching each other, they bolted toward the ley line. Clio led the way, cutting through the illusions while dodging the real daemons. The ley line loomed only a few yards ahead.

  Agony exploded in her shoulder. She crashed to the ground and before she even realized she’d been hit, Lyre had grabbed the arrow and ripped it out. He threw it away as the spell activated, the whirl of golden magic snaking harmlessly across the dirt instead of her flesh.

  Sagging from the pain, she twisted around. As Madrigal shot down another nymph to clear a path, Lyceus strode toward her and Lyre, his hand rising, fingers spread for another cast.

  Lyre reached over his shoulder, snatched a black-fletched arrow out of his quiver, and closed his bloody hand around the arrowhead. Red light shone between his fingers. Teeth bared, he threw the bolt.

  It landed point first in the ground halfway between them and Lyceus. The incubus stopped, his attention fixing on the arrow.

  The eerie red glow pulsed once.

  Lyre clamped his arms around Clio.

  It pulsed again.

  He launched to his feet, pulling her with him.

  It pulsed a third time.

  Lyre threw them into the ley line, and the moment before they fell into the Void, the arrow exploded—a screaming eruption that turned the whole world crimson.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Pulling her legs closer to her chest, Clio buried her face in her knees. She wanted to cry but she didn’t have the energy. She was supposed to be keeping watch but she just didn’t care anymore. She had nothing left.

  Leaning against the stained brick wall beside her, Lyre was in an almost identical position—knees drawn up, arms folded on top, head pillowed on his arms. Asleep, or close to it. She’d told him she would keep watch. If he’d known she was too tired, he would have tried to stay awake.

  He needed rest more than she did. Whatever state she might be in, it was nothing compared to the sick emptiness that had haunted his eyes since they’d escaped his father. He looked like his soul had been ripped out of him.

  She scarcely remembered their desperate leap through the ley line or the exhausting trek into the city afterward. They hadn’t dared to linger, not even to heal their wounds. With the “signal traps” Lyceus and Madrigal had set around the Brinford ley lines, they’d had to run for it and hope the incubi pair were too busy butchering Bastian’s soldiers to follow immediately.

  She and Lyre still weren’t safe. There were ways, mundane and magical, to track a daemon’s movements and she had no idea which ones Lyceus might know or employ. They shouldn’t have stopped at all, but they’d gotten lost in the unfamiliar industrial district. Too weary to keep going, they’d hidden away in an abandoned factory.

  Forcing her head up, she propped her chin on her arms and squinted to bring her asper into focus. Not even a glimmer of magic. She relaxed her vision again, saving the last dregs of her strength.

  Maybe they should have gone back to the Overworld. She wasn’t sure why Lyre had jumped them to a different Brinford ley line. Maybe he hadn’t had time to think and he still perceived the Overworld as too dangerous.

  Or maybe he’d known exactly what he was doing. Returning to Aldrendahar meant heading back into the storm, and who knew what the situation in the city was like. The safer option would have been returning to Irida, but that was just too much to face.

  A shudder rolled through her body and she gasped back the sob climbing up her throat. She had to keep her composure. Jaw clenched, she scrutinized the dim interior of the factory, full of rusting machinery and conveyor belts, distracting herself with questions about what had been manufactured here and why it had been abandoned. Patches of sunlight moved slowly across the floor as the minutes turned to hours, and her eyelids grew heavier and heavier …

  She jerked upright with a silent gasp. The factory interior was pitch black, the machinery no more than hulking shadows. Where had the sun gone? Had she fallen asleep?

  Scarcely breathing, she blinked her asper into focus and scanned the cavernous room, straining her senses. The only magic in sight was Lyre’s glowing aura. He lifted his head, scouring the building just like her. Her skin prickled, chilly unease sliding along her nerves.

  A soft skittering sound, then large golden eyes appeared above a conveyor belt. Trilling quietly, the small dragonet hopped onto the conveyor, her dark body almost invisible.

  Light bloomed—a tiny spot glowing above a gloved hand.

  Face covered in a wrap, decked in weapons, Ash stood beside his dragonet. Clio’s breath escaped her lungs in a rush, and she sagged forward, chin thumping on her knees. Even a small dose of adrenaline had left her weak.

  The draconian glided around the conveyor and sank in
to a crouch in front of her and Lyre. He studied her from head to toe, then gave Lyre the same thorough appraisal. When they’d last parted, Bastian had been escaping with the KLOC while two incubi closed in on the Ra embassy. She cringed, waiting for his inevitable barrage of angry questions.

  Ash pulled his wrap off his face, leaving it to hang around his neck. “How bad is it?”

  The question was quiet, no anger in his voice. Not quite sympathetic, but there was understanding in those dark eyes—the empathy of someone who’d been at rock bottom and knew what it felt like.

  “Bad,” Lyre whispered, his voice so hoarse it was almost unrecognizable.

  “Bastian?” Ash prompted when neither of them said anything more.

  Clio swallowed painfully. “He’s dead.”

  “And the KLOC?”

  Another long pause.

  “Lyceus has it.” Lyre’s gaze shuttered, that hollow look intensifying. “He may or may not know how to use it. I don’t … I don’t remember what I told him.”

  Clio’s heart constricted and she wanted to wrap him in her arms until the life returned to his amber eyes.

  Ash’s stare flicked between them. “What else?”

  She steeled herself to speak the words, as though it wouldn’t become real until she said it. “Bastian attacked Aldrendahar, in Ra territory. He … the King of Irida was there, and …”

  “The Iridian king is dead too,” Lyre finished for her.

  Ash absorbed that information in silence. It probably didn’t matter to him. He only cared about keeping the shadow weave away from Hades.

  “Well,” the draconian finally said. “The second worst daemon possible now has the KLOC. But Samael doesn’t have it, so there’s that.”

  Lyre snorted without amusement. “If that’s your idea of good news, it’s pretty weak.”

  “From what I can tell, Lyceus has been keeping information about your ‘secret spell’ to himself. No reason to assume he’ll change tactics now.” Ash rose to his feet. “Our target has shifted, but the goal is still the same. And Lyceus will be easier to find.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Lyre protested. “Going up against Lyceus to get the KLOC? You have no idea what that means.”

  “It’s that or wait until Samael finds out about it.” Ash held out his hand to Lyre. “Suck it up, incubus.”

  Lyre’s jaw flexed. He grabbed Ash’s hand and the draconian pulled him up, then steadied him when he swayed. Their eyes met and Ash’s blazed with a look Clio remembered well—a steely challenge, daring her to give in, to give up.

  “He may have won,” Ash said, “but you haven’t lost. Not until you stop fighting.”

  Clio looked away, pretending she hadn’t heard the quiet but fierce words not meant for her ears. After a long silence, Lyre stepped toward her. She looked up to see his hand extended, his other arm pressed against his ribs. Dried blood stained his clothes and skin, but she’d removed the arrow from his forearm and healed the injury after arriving at the factory. He’d done his best to patch up her arrow wound as well.

  “Let’s go, Clio,” he murmured.

  She took his hand, her fingers curling tightly around his, but she pushed up from the floor before he could pull her. Wobbling on exhausted legs, she looked between him and the draconian. Ash’s eyes unyielding, Lyre’s exhausted but not quite as haunted as before.

  Lyceus, one of two daemons they’d been desperate to keep the KLOC away from, now had the weapon. She had no idea how they would reclaim the shadow weave from the head of Chrysalis and patriarch of the deadliest weaver family in the Underworld.

  But they were going to try anyway.

  “Powerful men are predictable,” Ash said, all business as he shut the door of his bachelor suite. The space was too barren for him to live there, and Clio suspected it was a hideout more than an actual home.

  Lyre moved stiffly to the wooden chair and sat, one arm wrapped around his side. She collapsed onto the mattress, her legs aching and her shoulder burning. Leaping off Ash, Zwi hopped on top of the kitchen cabinets and folded her wings, surveying the room.

  “They follow patterns and routines,” Ash continued as he pulled off his heaviest sword and strode to a stack of boxes in the corner. “Bastian was difficult to track because he was well outside his regular patterns, but Lyceus doesn’t want to draw attention to himself.”

  He unearthed a handful of clothes and tossed them to Lyre. The draconian paused for a moment, frowning at Clio, then turned an even deeper frown on his stash of supplies. After a moment, he pulled out a black t-shirt and flipped it toward her.

  She picked it up. Clean, but about five times her size. It was probably a loose fit on the muscular draconian.

  “All I’ve got. I’ll bring something back for you.” He headed into the kitchen—three whole steps over the tiny floor space. “Once we figure out where Lyceus is and what routine he’s following, we can plan our next move.”

  As Ash pulled a few cans and boxed food from the barren cupboards, Lyre shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  “Ash, I don’t think you’re getting this. Lyceus is the single deadliest daemon in the three realms. There is literally no one more skilled or powerful in magic than him.”

  “No one is invincible. Everyone has weaknesses.” The draconian flipped an old knife into his hand and jammed the blade into the top of a can. “I’m an assassin, incubus. I know a lot of ways to kill someone without cutting them open.”

  “If you’re thinking of poisoning him or something …” Lyre frowned. “That’ll be difficult to pull off.”

  “I’ll worry about that part. What I need from you is insight.”

  “Insight?”

  “Into Lyceus,” Ash clarified impatiently. He pulled out the hot plate and dropped the cans on top of it. “When hunting, you don’t wander around the woods at random. You study the trails and go where your prey is likely to appear. The more you can tell me about his behavior, the more time it’ll save me.”

  “I don’t know his routines. I barely know him at all.”

  “Anything is better than nothing. The faster we move, the better our chances of catching him off guard.” The draconian dumped two boxes into a pot and poured an arbitrary amount of water into it. “If we take too long, he might start experimenting with the KLOC.”

  Lyre nodded with a distracted air as Ash braced the pot over the sink then flicked his fingers, lighting an ebony fire under it. In the sink. Clio stared.

  “Uh …” Lyre nodded toward the pot. “Isn’t that bad for the sink?”

  Ash gave the incubus an expressionless stare that clearly said, “As if I care.”

  Lyre cleared his throat. “Okay, what do you want to know about Lyceus?”

  “Where is he most likely to go?”

  “He’s either still here, searching for me, or he’s gone back to Chrysalis.”

  Leaning against the wall, Clio shivered at the memory of Chrysalis’s sterile white corridors, harsh and bright to hide the darkness the building housed.

  In the middle of rubbing his hand through his hair, Lyre lifted his head. “Unless …”

  Clio looked at him sharply.

  “Unless Lyceus doesn’t want to take the KLOC into Asphodel,” Lyre muttered, his eyes losing focus. “If he plans to keep it secret, he might have taken it to the Ivory Tower.”

  “The what?” Clio asked blankly.

  Lyre looked at Ash, even more grim. “In Kokytos.”

  Clio huffed, annoyed at his vagueness. “Where?”

  “Koh-kigh-tus,” Lyre repeated more slowly. “It’s a city in the Underworld. A city-state, actually, independent from the surrounding territories.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” she suggested cautiously.

  “Kokytos is composed entirely of the corrupt, illicit, criminal, crooked, and nefarious. The worst of the Underworld, all packed into one lawless haven.”

  “I don’t mind it.” Ash poked a spoon into the steaming contents
of the pot. “No one pretends to be anything else. It’s refreshing.”

  “I suppose you’d fit right in, wouldn’t you?”

  “Why would Lyceus go there?” Clio asked Lyre.

  “The family keeps our repository of knowledge in a location independent of Hades.” He drummed his fingers on his knee. “In Kokytos, the best protection in the Underworld is up for sale, if your budget is big enough. The Ivory Tower is part of a sort of fortress in the middle of the city where the richest, nastiest daemons have set up their refuges. Crime lords, gang leaders, war criminals …”

  “And some infamous mercenaries,” Ash added as he dispelled his sink fire with a wave. He dished a soupy mixture into two bowls, and judging from the smell, it was supposed to be oatmeal. But when he poured beans on top and handed her a dish, she doubted her assessment. It didn’t look like oatmeal.

  Ash passed the other portion to Lyre, then dug into whatever was left in the pot. Jumping onto his shoulder, Zwi investigated his meal.

  Clio halfheartedly poked the mixture with her bent spoon.

  “If you don’t like it,” Ash said around a mouthful, “starve.”

  Lyre was already shoveling the food down so fast he probably couldn’t even taste it. Sighing, Clio scooped a spoonful into her mouth. It was hot. That was the only good thing about it.

  Swallowing with effort, she reluctantly reloaded her spoon. “Next time, can I cook?”

  Ash shrugged and kept eating.

  While she slowly forced down the meal—disgusting as it tasted, it was hot and filling and her body needed it—Ash questioned Lyre about Lyceus’s habits in Chrysalis and the Rysalis setup in Kokytos. Finishing his portion with some help from Zwi, the draconian tossed the pot into the scorched sink and grabbed his huge sword. He swung it over his shoulder and buckled the baldric.

  “Give me your lodestones,” he said to Lyre, extending his hand. “I’ll charge them while I’m out.”

  Lyre paused with his spoon poised above his almost empty bowl. “How are you going to charge lodestones?”

  “The same way I charge mine all the damn time. Shut up and hand them over.”