“Sangremancy,” she whispered under her breath.
A bone cracked in his grip, broke, and Rielle’s pained shriek rent him in two, hot tears burning his eyes as he shook her against the wall, pounded her into it again and again, and again—
He wept but couldn’t stop, and fought it, and tried to fight it—
Racing footsteps from the great hall, and a body collided with him, Jon, who grabbed one of his arms while Marfa grabbed the other as they held him in place, his feet scrambling for balance.
“Arcanir,” Jon shouted at her. “Rielle—”
The sword.
But she tackled him, the back of her thumb pressed into his cheek, the Sodalis ring stinging, and red-rimmed eyes searched his frantically. The violence abandoned his body, its tension forfeiting its claim.
“Rielle,” he whispered, hoarse. “I’m—”
With a sob, she pressed her lips to his, kissed him, clung to him, her broken arm hanging limp from her shoulder, and that broken thing inside him only fell apart, pieces scattering, and he couldn’t put them back, put them together, couldn’t bear to kiss her back, to hold her, to even meet her gaze.
A hollow widened in his throat, and he wanted to apologize to her, a hundred times, a thousand times, beg her forgiveness, but they were only words, inadequate words, and his hands had clenched her, had shaken her, had broken her—
She pulled away, wiped the tears from his cheek with trembling fingers, and shook her head insistently, a teary smile on her face. “That wasn’t you, Brennan. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t.”
The grip on his arms loosened, and both Jon and Marfa stepped away.
With a quivering hand, he reached for hers, and slipped the Sodalis ring off her thumb and into his palm. “Hold on to this, Brennan. You’ll be immune, all right? Just hold on to it.”
He could hear her words, but he could only see her mangled arm, hanging, swaying as she moved, and Olivia ran to her, wrapped her in an embrace, staring at him with wide, horrified eyes.
With a gesture, she healed Rielle. “You’re going to be fine,” she said, hugging her. “It’s over now. It’s all over. You’re going to be fine—”
He couldn’t look, couldn’t face her, this—
Pulling free of Olivia’s hold, Rielle grasped his hand. “Look at me, Brennan.”
He shook his head. He couldn’t look at her now. Great Wolf, he’d—he’d hurt her. His hands had just—so easily, they had—
She darted in front of him, leaned into him, and he stopped, stiff, the press of her against him like ice.
His hands, that had only loved her, had…
“I love you, Brennan,” she said hoarsely, wrapping her arms around him, tightly, resting her cheek against his chest.
How could she just—
He’d broken her arm, and she just—
He curled around her, his weakness taking over, and these arms had hurt her, but there was nothing he wanted so much as to hold her, renew the way they’d been, feel that same way again, and he couldn’t stop the boy in him from embracing everything he’d ever wanted when it was now offered.
“She’ll pay for this,” Rielle whispered, her voice raw as she cried against him.
The Grand Divinus had forced his hand, and he’d been trapped, helpless, a pawn. She’d ordered him to kill Rielle, and if not for the way things had gone, he might have. She could have ordered him to kill Mother, to kill his sisters, his nephews, to kill Kehani, to kill his son, and he wouldn’t have been able to stop. He would have done anything she’d bid, killed anyone, been a shell with no choice for the rest of his life, or hers. And no one would have known she’d commanded it.
Just like that, one woman had nearly taken away everything he cared about.
And for that, she would pay.
* * *
Rielle had never seen him this way before, trembling, broken, crying… and it clenched at her heart.
But in the great hall was the woman who’d ordered this, who’d hurt Brennan, and there was no way she was getting away with it. There wasn’t a person alive who could do this to him and keep breathing.
Who could let mages die like nothing in a competition.
Who could order a murder.
Who could kill her family.
Eleftheria II would answer, for those crimes, and every other.
She cupped Brennan’s face and rose on her tiptoes to kiss him, and although he stiffened, this time he let her, the taut tension in his muscles fading as his arms enveloped her, held her close, the Sodalis ring still clutched in the grasp of one hand. Great Divine, seeing him so broken, so defeated, crying—it had broken her, too.
She won’t do this ever again, to you or to anyone. I’ll make sure of it. I’ll protect you.
As she pulled away, the duchess took hesitant steps into the hallway, her shocked gaze tracing the cracks in the wall relief, the broken painting frames, and the bloodstains on the floor as she neared them. She paused some five feet away, her mouth falling open, and she took a breath but didn’t speak.
Behind her, his sisters entered the hallway, with onlookers gaping, and Una raced right past her mother and threw her arms around Brennan.
He flinched, but then twisted to wrap Una in his embrace, too.
“Are you all right, Bren?” Una cried, glimpsing his face before burying hers in his chest anew. “I’ve never seen you like that, and—”
“I’m all right,” he whispered to her. “I’m all right now.” He held them tighter, both her and Una, in his arms.
“What happened?”Una asked. “You looked—”
“He was blood-controlled,” Rielle said. Since sangremancy was banned by the Divinity, there was hardly any information about blood-control, which allowed a sangremancer to control a body as completely as a mentalist could control a mind.
The Divinity hunted sangremancers ruthlessly, sending their best agents from the Hensar after them, and kept all knowledge of sangremancy forbidden.
And yet, the head of the Divinity herself had used it against someone. Against Brennan.
“Blood-controlled?” the duchess repeated. “Someone tried to blood-control my son?”
Within moments, everything about the duchess hardened—her face, her bearing, her fists.
Brennan craned his neck back to look at her. “Mother… Mother, don’t—”
As the duchess turned her hard gaze to him, she softened, only for a moment, and then that moment was gone. She was stone. “Nobody hurts my son. Nobody.”
The duchess spun on her heel and strode into the great hall.
“Let’s finish this,” Brennan said to her, taking her hand, and she nodded, trailing after the duchess into the great hall, past his sisters and his nephews, with Jon, Olivia, and Marfa close behind them.
Mac Carra, the Grand Divinus, and the Divinity itself had gone too far to get away with the wrongs they’d done.
And right now, she had to stop them.
She’d have to bring charges against the Grand Divinus and pray that both Daturian and the crowd would back her up. And if the Grand Divinus didn’t go quietly—
She’d have to be prepared to face the Grand Divinus, who’d been Magister Samanta Vota, and was an immensely powerful force mage.
“— the meaning of this?” the duchess demanded of the Grand Divinus in the vast great hall.
“These are lies,” the Grand Divinus shot back, standing from her throne with a pounding of her palms on the armrests.
“They’re not lies!” Rielle shouted back at her, her voice echoing. Despite the trembling inside of her, she prayed she’d sound confident, and Brennan’s hand in hers gave her comfort.
“I stand by everything Master Lothaire has said,” Brennan told them, his sisters standing behind him. He looked out at the crowd. “The Grand Divinus blood-controlled me—”
“A convenient excuse for your actions!” the Grand Divinus interjected dismissively.
“—and ordered me to kill my own
fiancee.” He opened his hand and revealed the Sodalis ring. “It is only by the power of this arcanir ring that I am able to resist the Grand Divinus’s commands.” He stared her down.
“The Grand Divinus used sangremancy—forbidden magic—to control him,” Rielle added. “This is a crime of the highest degree, and I demand justice.”
Mac Carra laughed, his rumbling guffaw trailing. “Everyone knows he chased you from the Marcels’ villa, jilted you, and you were seen for days at an inn. You’ve brought your quarrels here, and now make up wild stories to save face.”
His words were designed to make them angry, too stupid to reply coherently.
“Is that your defense, Most High?” Brennan asked drolly. “You can present it again at an official hearing.”
The Grand Divinus scoffed.
“You’ve led the Divinity of Magic, which is meant to help the world, in a direction that is complete antithesis to its purpose,” Rielle continued.
Both Jon and Olivia moved to stand beside her and Brennan.
“Magisters are supposed to demonstrate perceptiveness, resourcefulness, and willing to sacrifice, and that is what they have always been tested for—with exams, demonstrations, duels to first yield.”
Murmurs of assent flowed through the crowd.
“But these Magister Trials have twisted those qualities into coldness, cruelty, and eagerness to murder.” She glared at Mac Carra, who glanced away. “We were expected to stand by while others suffered, ignore them to fulfill an ‘objective.’ For what? A mantle? Membership to a legislative body that expects us to kill each other and for innocent people to die? Where is the benevolent Divinity of old? The one every new mage wants to join with stars in her eyes?”
“You know nothing of the strength it takes to thrive in this new world,” the Grand Divinus shouted.
“Who would thrive? Not Master Sen Taneie, who your newest ‘magister’ killed for a body part, to advance in a competition,” she yelled back.
“The world has changed!” the Grand Divinus shot back. “There are Others among us, Immortals”—she jerked a nod at Marfa, whose eyes narrowed—“who prey on us, who don’t belong in our world, and we must each be prepared to be ruthless. The world needs magisters to cleanse this infection.”
“We must be strong to fight those who do us harm,” Rielle answered. “And that hasn’t changed. Before the Rift, there were people who harmed others and people who didn’t. And now is exactly the same, except Immortal people are included, too.” She took a step forward, narrowing her eyes. “You want to control the world with fear, fear of these ‘Others’ as you call them, but you don’t believe in that fear yourself. You just want to use it to grasp for more power. Because if you did believe in it, you would have granted aid to my king against the Immortals ravaging our people.”
The Grand Divinus shook her head. “It is you who failed in that regard, by not arriving to this trial in time.” She walked off the dais toward the door in the back of the hall. “Enough of this. My guests, I apologize for this embarrassment. The Magister Trials are over,” she said, then turned to the healers. “Healers, take her to the infirmary.”
Daturian stepped before the healers again and conjured a diamond wall before them that hit the floor and dissipated. “These charges must be investigated,” he declared, his voice booming as he stepped forward. “I motion that the Most High be placed under arrest until the investigation can be completed. Divine Guard, see to your duty.”
As some of the Divine Guard moved to action, the Grand Divinus cast a repulsion shield, her gaze darting about the hall.
“These charges are false!” she shot back, flailing an arm as she looked through the open doorway, where some Divine Guards lay from when she and Marfa had broken in. “Master Lothaire attacked my Divine Guard—there they are, in the hallway. It is treason, high treason,” she said, but her Divine Guard approached her, and she strengthened her repulsion shield into a repulsion dome, keeping them all at bay. “Mac Carra! Arrest the traitor.”
As Mac Carra turned to Rielle, his broad shoulders taut, he held out his hands, ready to cast. “Right away, Most High.”
Chapter 59
Rielle stood in the hushed great hall, across from Mac Carra, as Brennan ushered his mother, sisters, nephews, and Samara out. He argued their myriad protests until they agreed to leave, and take their carriage back to the villa. Others in the hall left, too, shuffling for the exit, leaving only half the crowd.
Good. Whatever happened here would be dangerous. Too dangerous for innocent bystanders to be nearby, especially if they had a choice to leave.
It was time to duel, and it would end in blood. His.
She faced Mac Carra as he held his arms out at the ready, and as soon as his fingers moved, she was already casting the deep-freeze spell.
An aura of frost thickened the air around her like mist the density of oil. Mac Carra’s floating stone golem charged toward her, but in the ten-foot aura of the deep-freeze spell, it slowed, fractals of ice creeping up its body until it was covered almost entirely.
Mac Carra pulled up a stone wall to fall before him, dispelled the golem, and a shadow cast over her an instant before she shot a pillar of fire over her head and through the boulder he’d conjured. Against the heat of her fire, it was obliterated.
As Mac Carra’s stone wall hit the floor of the great hall, it dissipated. She closed on him with her deep-freeze aura, holding the pillar of fire above her as one boulder after another fell—and disintegrated against her pyromancy.
He retreated up the dais, casting a fire elemental toward her, and it floated into her deep-freeze aura, its heat cutting through like a knife through butter.
But she advanced on him, the edge of her aura freezing his feet, and she dispelled her pillar of flame. Cladding her body in a flame cloak, she fed it more and more anima as the fire elemental charged her.
Her heat blazed hotter and hotter, steaming against the deep freeze, and as the fire elemental reached her, it fizzled out like a candle flame plucked between two fingers. As he gestured another boulder, she recast the pillar of flame above her before the boulder even formed, drew Thorn and lunged for Mac Carra.
Thorn’s arcanir blade cut through her deep-freeze aura, dispelling it as well as the diamond shield Mac Carra tried to conjure.
Thorn’s point anchored in his chest, and she twisted the blade as she pulled it free, and plunged it again lower, into his gut.
She rent it free and darted a step backward, and he immediately began the healing incantation.
No, you don’t.
She thrust the tip toward his head.
Angling, he tried to avoid it, but she caught him through the neck.
He lunged for her, but as she leaped back, he only managed to grab the blade, which she pulled through his hand. Holding his bleeding neck, he crumpled to the floor, his only sound choked gasps.
The great hall rumbled.
The walls and floor shook, and she scrambled for balance as dust and debris plummeted from the frescoed ceiling.
The quake took her off her feet, but her back fell against Brennan’s chest as he grabbed her and steadied her, looking up at the ceiling. “We’re leaving,” he bit out.
Leaving? What was going on?
“It doesn’t… smell right,” he hissed, while chunks of stone broke off from above them, falling to shatter upon the floor to the chaos of screams.
Marfa was at her side. “Drago-maestru,” she breathed, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.
Drago-maestru? A Dragonlord?
“Maestru… all run.” The quiver of her voice and the pallor of her face were utter fear.
Sections of the ceiling collapsed, baring the cerulean sky and the darkest shadow of massive, omnipotent blue wings, membranous and wide, blotting out the sun.
Behind them, a loud crash and screams came from the doorway, where a huge piece of debris now blocked the exit.
Claws buried into stone above them as
a massive head ducked into the great hall, with innumerable pointed white teeth each the size of the biggest sword she’d ever seen.
Walls collapsed and the screaming crowd ran for the edges as the dragon set one massive foot onto the dais, onto Mac Carra, with a crunch.
Its enormous triangular head swiveled from side to side as it searched the crowd, its rocky blue scales almost the same shade of cerulean as the sky it had descended from.
It opened its maw, and the most deafening choral voice spoke words in something too transcendental to be language.
Images of a black tower, beautiful and magnificent, something that once could have been the ruined Tower of Khar’shil, appeared in her mind, where a massive black dragon perched at the top, overlooking a huge city of gigantic buildings and dragons flying over them. Larger than all the others, the black dragon spread its enormous wings, flapped them with great beats, and took to the air. The entire city burned, and the black dragon’s anguish, its anger—was so magnificent and terrifying—
She shuddered, and kept shuddering, and couldn’t stop her bones or teeth from rattling, or any part of her from trembling, as massive golden eyes slitted in her mind, searching, scouring—needing—and she didn’t know what, but if she didn’t find it, she would die.
The massive cerulean-scaled head prodded people in the great hall, some who shrieked, some who screamed, some who were utterly still and quiet.
And then it turned to Jon and Olivia.
No.
Never.
Not while I draw breath.
Stepping forward, away from Brennan, she cast a flame cloak on herself, then cried out to the dragon.
* * *
Brennan blinked out of his shock as the love of his life cast a flame cloak on herself and advanced on a dragon.
A dragon.
Beside her, Jon drew Faithkeeper and moved in, his stance as wary as the look in his eyes.
Rielle shouted at the dragon.
It turned on her, its massive blue-scaled head large enough to eat her in one bite, and it narrowed pale eyes at her, spoke again in that terrifying harmony, a curt word. Censure that bled pain in his mind.
Court of Shadows Page 50