Текст книги "Bespelled"

Автор книги: Laura Thalassa

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CHAPTER 5

The ache in my bones is getting worse.

Earlier, I assumed it was exhaustion and the aftereffects of overdrawing my power. I assumed the spells Memnon cast to remove my pain wore off. I assumed, I assumed, I assumed.

But I was wrong.

This is what Memnon had been hinting at when he wanted me to come to him.

I’m starting to feel the effects of the unbreakable oath.

I blow out a breath as I weave my way between the massive evergreen trees, dread gathering in my stomach. I knew there were consequences to not upholding a magical oath. I didn’t realize they made you feel like shit.

I don’t know how much longer I will be able to ignore the vow before I end up begging the sorcerer to marry me, just to ease the pain.

Between the boughs of the trees ahead of me, I catch sight of Slain Maiden’s Meadow. The last time I came here, I wasn’t yet a student. The field looks lovelier now, in the dying light, the sunset painting the dead grass golden.

And there, in the middle of the field, my soul mate waits, his back to me.

Memnon is the sound of straining leather. He’s the smell of horse-sweat, grass, and man. He’s sun-warmed skin and wind-tousled hair. He’s a part of me just as much as Roxilana is, and no amount of magic or anger can change that.

As though sensing my gaze on him, he turns, his eyes lighting when they meet mine.

Memnon kisses me fiercely as he sinks into me. There’s only me, him, the endless grasslands around us, and the heavens above us.

“I am yours forever,” he breathes against my lips. He pulls away to search my gaze, his features bathed in the soft orange glow from my magic. “Forever.”

Can he feel it? The past pressing on us like it has a presence of its own? Does it close up his throat like it does mine? Or am I the only one drowning in these memories?

“Little witch,” he says, watching me as I cross the last of the distance between us. “You beckoned.”

A shiver courses down my back at the low, honeyed sound of his voice.

“We need to talk,” I say, switching to Sarmatian. Out here in these woods, we have more seclusion than my residence hall, but anyone could be listening.

I let my magic pour out of me. The pale orange glow wraps around us like a blanket, forming a magical barrier to block out sound. I don’t incant the spell, but it’s there nonetheless, woven into my magic through my intent alone.

Memnon reaches out, stroking my power like it’s a cat. “I’m listening,” he says, his eyes flicking from my magic to me.

“When the curse was lifted, did you see into my past?” I ask.

The sorcerer’s brow furrows. Whatever he thought I was going to say, this isn’t it.

“I saw your recovered memories from this life,” he responds slowly. “But once the curse moved to your first life and you started to weep, I lost the connection.”

He’d been wiping away my tears and reassuring me I was okay. I’d almost forgotten those details.

“So you didn’t see how that life ended,” I say, just to be sure.

His gaze moves between my eyes and my mouth. “No, I didn’t.”

“What do you think happened?” I ask.

Memnon’s expression grows grim. “I haven’t the faintest clue. That is what I still wish to know. Why you cursed me to endless sleep and what you did after I was gone.”

I can hear other, more personal questions that he won’t voice but still echo down our bond.

Did you regret burying me alive? Did you betray me for another? Did you fall in love with someone else? Were you happy?

“How did I betray you?” I prod him. “Tell me exactly the steps you believe I took to entomb you.”

Memnon’s eyes narrow as he looks at me, a muscle in his cheek jumping. “Selene, if this is some sort of trick⁠—”

“Oh, there’s a trick involved, but it wasn’t made by my hand.”

His brows rise, caught off guard by my response.

“Tell me,” I insist. “How did I fuck you over? I want to know every detail you believe I carried out to place you in that sarcophagus.”

The sorcerer’s jaw tightens with indignation. “This is my life you ruined⁠—”

“No,” I say viciously. “It is my life that you ruined. Two thousand years ago along the banks of the Amazon River, I died to keep you safe from a horrible fate! There was no grand plan. There was no life after you. I protected you, and what did you do when you woke? You blamed me. You attacked me. You betrayed me and everything we once were with your vengeance.”

Memnon looks as though I’ve struck him.

Goddess, but my bones ache, and I’m breathing heavily. All around us, my magic twists and writhes with my churning emotions.

“What?” Memnon finally says, his voice hushed.

“You wish to understand the past and my motives better?” I grab his hands and place them on either side of my head. “See them for yourself.”

Memnon’s hands flex against my skin, wisps of his magic curling out from beneath his palms as though he can’t quite contain his emotions. Down our bond, I feel the first tendrils of his rising horror.

I don’t think he wants to believe me, nor do I think he wants to read my mind. Not now that he knows he might not like what he finds.

“Do it,” I insist, shaking his hands a little from where I still grip them. My eyes are pricking, and I didn’t mean to get worked up over this. I just wanted his help, but this is how I get it without owing him anything. This is how the sorcerer understands that he owes me. The truth of our past—and our first demise—makes everything he’s done to me so much worse.

Memnon works his jaw, his scar tugging a little at the action. His smoky amber eyes hold my gaze for several seconds.

Finally, he bows his head, then nods, his fingers flexing against me again. “All right, Empress. As you wish.” He adjusts his hold. “Repeat after me,” he says. “Pes datapzaka kubiwapsasava vi’savva ziwatunutasa vak mi’tavekasavak ozakos detgap.”

I bare the last memories of my first life for you to see.

I recite the incantation, gripping his hands tightly, my heart beating fast as I prepare to relive this particular memory.

Memnon’s magic rushes from his hands, the blue tendrils of it slipping into my mouth and up my nostrils. I arch my back as it moves to my head, my hands tightening against his.

And then that final, fateful day of my last life unfolds right before my eyes.

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CHAPTER 659 AD, BOSPORUS, CRIMEA

ROXILANA

Roxi…

My eyes snap open, and I stare at the dark ceiling of the palace bedroom, Memnon’s voice ringing in my ears. A deep, inexplicable sense of dread has lodged itself in my marrow. Was it a bad dream that I dragged with me from sleep? Something else?

I take several shallow breaths, trying to get my bearings, then I reach for Memnon. The other side of the bed, where my soul mate should be, is empty.

Memnon? I call down our bond.

All that comes back to me is silence.

He had woken me, I’m sure of it, so where is he?

“Memnon?” I call out softly, thinking maybe he’s somewhere in this dark room. But the space feels empty, and no one answers me back.

Did he stay up late to strategize future battles with his blood brothers and other high ranking officials? It wouldn’t be the first time.

But if he were awake, he would answer me. He doesn’t.

I try again.

Memnon?

No response.

My heart begins to gallop, and the unsettled feeling I woke with amplifies.

Perhaps my husband fell asleep somewhere else. He doesn’t usually do that, but it’s entirely plausible. He’s been overworking and undersleeping, his mind consumed with war.

At the foot of the bed, Ferox, my familiar, lifts his dark head, his form merely a deeper shadow among the rest. My anxiety must be loud if it’s roused him from sleep. I want to tell my panther to be at ease, but I cannot—not when I’m still trying to figure out what has set me on edge.

Out the palace window, I listen to the call of a starling as I steady my breath. Even the birdcall pricks at my skin. Damn this relentless unease.

Throwing my sheet off, I move to the window and rest my hands on the stone sill, drawing in a deep breath of the briny air. I gaze down at the royal harbor and the moonlit shores of the Black Sea.

Another starling call joins the first. If I had woken up less agitated or had I not woken up at all, I would’ve easily missed it.

Starlings come in the winter, not the apex of summer, and they come in swarms of millions, not in lonely pairs.

The groan and creak of wood has me glancing down at what I can see of the vessels moored at our docks.

I frown as my unease ratchets up.

Were those ships there earlier today? It’s too dark to be sure.

I strain my eyes in the darkness, making out a few figures on those docks. The longer I stare, the more figures amass, all of them silent as the grave.

Something’s wrong.

Deeply, deeply wrong.

Memnon? Why won’t you answer? I plead, more to myself than to him.

Does he know something is afoot? Could something have happened to him?

No. I refuse to believe that. I sense him on the other side of my bond, even if his end of it is subdued. He lives still.

Moving away from the window, I pad to the chest at the foot of my bed. I open it, and by feel alone, I grab a shirt and breeches. I don’t dare illuminate the room as I dress in case my worst fears have come to pass.

We have enemies. We have always had enemies. Never more so than now. Memnon has always made sure to be one step ahead of them, but I don’t believe he anticipated this.

As I finish pulling on my boots, there’s a soft rapping near the portiere, the curtained doorway to my room.

“Roxilana!” a masculine voice whispers urgently. It takes me a moment to recognize that it belongs to Zosines, Memnon’s closest and fiercest blood brother. Another insistent rap. “Roxilana! Wake up!”

I’m crossing the room to draw back the curtains when Ferox growls softly. I go still.

Very slowly, I glance at my panther, feeling that disquiet in my stomach. I can see little beyond my familiar’s general form, but as I stare at him, I can just make out that Ferox’s eyes are fixed on the portiere.

I follow his gaze. The wards that cling to the curtained doorway like cobwebs now shine faintly in the darkness, as though they’ve been activated. Zosines must be trying to get in—and he cannot. That threshold is warded against malevolent intent.

Chills skitter down my spine.

I glance back down at Ferox, my body still steeped in unease.

“Roxilana!” Zosines calls out again. His voice is louder, more panicked and insistent.

My familiar lets out another low growl, then drops soundlessly to the floor, prowling forward like he’s homing in on a kill, his belly low to the ground. I slip down our bond and into Ferox’s head, curious about what is alarming him.

I’m not even fully seated in his mind when I first scent blood. So much blood. The acrid tang of it is ripe enough to taste.

“Roxilana!” Zosines pleads. “We’re about to be under attack! We need to get you out now!”

I touch the closed curtains between us lightly, imagining the tall warrior in my mind’s eye. Zosines and Memnon have been fierce friends since they were children; the two are bound by a blood oath and many, many battles. My mate trusts him with his life.

But intuition and observation are telling me something else altogether.

“Asphyxiate,” I whisper.

I don’t see my magic wind around Zosines’s throat, but I hear his surprised chokes and then the clatter of something heavy, followed by the thump of his body hitting the floor. Only then, once he’s sufficiently distracted, do I dare push aside the curtained partition.

On the other side of it, Zosines claws at his throat, trying uselessly to pry away my power. Those who don’t wield magic cannot stop it. Next to him lies a wicked-looking dagger, one he must’ve been holding when he called for me.

Wordlessly, I command my magic to draw the blade to me. The weapon rattles against the ground for a moment before it streaks across the space and into my hand.

Stepping up to Zosines, I kneel next to him and indolently press the blade to his throat.

His dark eyes glare up at me.

“What are you doing?” he rasps.

I honestly don’t have the faintest clue, but panic still laces my blood, and my intuition has never steered me wrong.

I command more of my power to wrap around him, tethering him in place. The last thing I want is for Zosines to get away now that I have him in a vulnerable position.

“Where is my husband?” I demand as Ferox comes to my side, his gaze unerringly trained on the warrior.

“Can’t breathe.” Zosines’s eyes are starting to bulge.

I ease up on the spell. “Where?” I press.

Zosines gasps in a few lungfuls of air. “Safe,” he hisses out. “But you are not. The palace is about to be breached, my queen. There is not much time. We need to go.”

Distress is contagious, and I want to agree, I do.

The faint scent of blood catches in my nostrils, and I remember all over again how even sequestered in our room, Ferox could smell the iron tang of it. Zosines said the palace was about to be breached, but violence has already happened here.

My gaze roves over him, and I notice then the fresh speckles of blood on his clothes. Violence he must’ve partaken in.

I lift my eyes. The rest of the hallway is eerily silent, save for the soft hiss of torches in their sconces. In the distance, I can hear something else. Voices?

Refocusing on Zosines, I gather my magic and force it down his throat. “Only the truth shall cross your lips,” I incant.

Zosines jerks and fidgets against the magic holding him in place. He’s seen enough of my power to fear it.

“What is happening?” I demand. As I ask it, I retract my magic completely from his throat.

He presses his lips together.

“Speak.” My magic bears down on him. “Now.”

“A coup, you cunt,” he bites out.

My blood runs cold. A coup.

“Where is Memnon?” The question is more pressing than ever, now that I know there’s a price on his head.

Zosines laughs. “Wherever the fuck that crazy bitch Eislyn took him.”

Eislyn…took him? During a coup? To hide him? He wouldn’t have allowed that. Not when his closest family and friends are here in the palace under attack. But then again, I haven’t heard from him since I woke.

“Is he alive?” I ask.

Zosines snickers, and I focus on that callous reaction. “I doubt for long.”

I can’t breathe. Not when I’m drowning in panic.

Later. I can be sad later. He’s apparently alive for now. With Eislyn. Probably in that land beyond the land.

My fingers twitch a little as I fight the urge to hunt my soul mate down.

“Why is this happening?” I demand.

“The Romans held this territory for a century before Memnon took it. They want it back.”

There are enough clues sprinkled about. “Who made a deal with them?”

Zosines’s throat works as he fights against the words. He pulls futilely against the magic binding him in place.

“Memnon’s plans would’ve killed us all. I wanted what was best for our people.

“Who did the Romans make an offer to?” I press. Someone was promised something.

“Me.” The word rips from his throat. “They came to me. Eislyn brokered the deal.”

I didn’t think it was possible to feel worse about the situation, but I do. Eislyn turned on Memnon as well. Unbelievable. I always assumed it was me she’d fuck over.

In the background, I can hear more voices. They sound louder, bolder. Whatever precious time I have, it’s slipping through my fingers.

“Tell me the rest of the plot.”

Zosines laughs weakly. “You cannot hope to outmaneuver it.”

I pull the warrior’s dagger away from his throat. There’s a flicker of curiosity in his eyes, maybe a little victory, as though the futility of my situation is finally sinking in.

I study him, meeting those dark, devious eyes. Now I’m not mistaken—triumph does flicker in them. Unfortunately for him, he cannot see the thick plumes of my magic wrapping around us.

Adjusting my grip on his dagger, I shove the blade into his side.

He begins to scream, but it does him little good. My power swallows up the sound.

“Stop fucking with me, and tell me the full plot,” I command, “and maybe I’ll heal this wound.”

He gasps, but an unholy excitement dances in his eyes. “You’ll pay for that later, my queen,” he vows, spitting out my title like it’s an oath.

I twist the knife, and Zosines screams between clenched teeth.

“Answer me.”

“Half of Memnon’s top warriors were in on it. Itaxes, Rakas, Tasios, Palakos, Thiabo, Dzoure—and more,” he gasps out. “You were both to be drugged at dinner. Once you were sedated, the plan was for Eislyn to take Memnon away—she had very specific plans for him—and you were to come with me. But you left dinner early, so here we are. There are five hundred Roman soldiers and mercenaries ready to descend on the palace—if they haven’t already. Another thousand mercenaries, mainly Cimmerians, are at the ready, should anything not go smoothly.”

I try not to feel as hopeless as Zosines is making the situation sound. Memnon has single-handedly defeated worse odds. It’s not over yet.

“What else?” I ask.

Sweat has begun to bead on his forehead, and his breathing is coming in short, shallow pants. “The royal family and any loyalists were to be killed. We can’t have anyone avenging the fallen king and causing unrest.”

Terror rolls through me then. Tamara and Katiari, Memnon’s mother and sister, are certainly at the top of the list.

“What do you get out of it?” I ask.

The corners of Zosines’s mouth twitch and spasm as though he’s trying to hold a gloating smile back. “I would be king.”

Ah, there it is. He sold his dearest friend out for power.

His mouth continues to twitch.

“Anything else?” I prod.

Finally, he adds, “You. I would get you as a war prize.”

My eyebrows lift. Me? It’s such a preposterous thought.

“Why?” I finally ask.

The look in his eyes shifts, turning…covetous is the best word for it. I’ve seen that look from him before. I just never paid it much attention. The man has six wives—already more women than he must know what to do with. If he had it his way, I would be the seventh.

Revulsion moves through me. He clearly never thought this through. I’d curse him to death sooner than he could lay a finger on me.

The distant sounds of commotion grow louder. I think…I think I hear the massive palace doors groaning open. Shit.

“Besides you,” I say, “is anyone else coming for me?”

Zosines laughs. “Everyone is coming for you. Memnon and your allies are dead. Those who would follow you have perished. Some still sit in that dining hall, their corpses rotting away in their chairs. Their bodies will remain unburied, their flesh left out to rot. But if you come with me, I can save you. I can make you queen once more.”

Queen? That’s what he intends? If it weren’t for the truth spell, I would doubt his words, especially now that I have buried a dagger in his side.

He must want me for my power. He must think that his benevolence sparing me from certain death tonight will make me feel indebted to him. Such are the ways of Sarmatian warriors. That’s just not my way.

“This is your only chance to live,” Zosines adds.

His words are punctuated by distant battle cries. The soldiers are inside.

I search his eyes. “You think I am scared of the Romans? Of death? Or that I would cling to my throne if Memnon didn’t sit beside me?” I shake my head. “I would follow him to the ends of the earth. I would follow him even into death. But I think you shall go there first.”

With a flick of my wrist, the power that encircled us now rushes for his head.

Snap.

His neck breaks, and my magic releases him, his body going limp on the ground.

I glance up when I hear the sounds of furniture crashing and wood splintering. The soldiers must be raiding the bottom floor of the castle. The cries of the encroaching legion are getting louder.

I straighten. I need to get going if I wish to stop Eislyn before it’s too late, but first…

I look down the hall to where Tamara and Katiari’s room is. The curtains of the portiere are partially ripped away. My heart beats faster and faster. There’s no time left, but I need to be sure.

Ferox steps in close, his head nudging my hand so that my palm rests on it.

I’m here with you, the gesture seems to say. I draw in a deep breath then head toward their room. Halfway there, I can hear the slow drip of something.

I’m not even to the doorway when I see Tamara’s body in the shadows of her room, her torso slumped against the wall, a bloody, gaping wound in the center of her chest where someone ran her through with a sword.

My knees nearly give out, and I have to stumble the rest of the way to Tamara to stop myself from falling. I pass through the still-intact wards shielding the room and fall to her side, cradling her cold body in mine. Her head slumps listlessly against me, and though the shouts and screams are closing in, for a moment, I cannot bother with them.

This is a Sarmatian queen, a woman who led armies into battle and made life-and-death decisions on behalf of her nomadic peoples for years before Memnon took over. She deserved more than a traitor’s blade through her chest.

I continue to hold her body against mine, even as I hear boots on the stone stairs. My eyes scan the room, looking for Katiari, Memnon’s younger sister, dread coiled in my belly. I have to cast an illumination spell to see the rest of the room.

Beneath the soft orange glow of it, I see the slumped body of Katiari. She lies on her back, four arrows jutting from her chest, a pool of blood beneath her.

Carefully, I release Tamara and move to my sister-in-law’s side, touching her skin lightly. It has the same deathly chill clinging to it as Tamara’s does. The Sarmatian princess is gone as well.

A disbelieving breath shudders out of me. She was not just a sister by marriage but by love and choice as well.

I am a child again. Soldiers have invaded my home, killed my family. My sobs turn into an anguished cry.

Roman sympathizers did this. Rome once again took from me.

I can hear them at the end of the hallway, knocking over braziers and ripping at the hanging tapestries.

Poisonous rage builds in my veins, devouring my grief and turning it into something darker, deadlier.

I am reliving old pain, but I am no longer a child, and these men shall suffer.

Another cry rips from my throat, but this one sounds feral, wrathful.

I rise, Ferox near my side. I place a hand on his head.

I whisper a spell aimed at my familiar. “Impenetrable armor for your body,” I incant.

My magic billows over the great cat, coating him in a protective ward. Heedless of the few seconds I have left, I turn the same spell on myself, my power moving down my form and readying me for battle. It won’t hold forever, these spells never do, but it will protect us for now at least.

There are a dozen or more sets of feet rushing toward the end of the hall where we are, likely drawn in by my scream.

Quickly, I place a curse on my mother-in-law and sister-in-law’s bodies. “Skin like death, liquefy the innards of any who dare touch these corpses.” My voice breaks on that final word. My mind knows these women are gone; my heart cannot fathom it.

I cast the bodies one last grim look. The soldiers will try to desecrate their remains. I smile malevolently at the thought of the pained death that awaits such fools.

My power gathers beneath my skin, my muscles and joints throbbing from it. Rage makes even that pain feel good.

I glance at my familiar. “Ready yourself, Ferox. Everyone beyond this room is an enemy. Kill whatever you can.”

I step out of the room as the first of the Roman soldiers closes in on me. This soldier is a youthful man with rich, golden skin and thin, lithe legs.

His eyes widen a bit when he sees me, and he slows just a little. Behind him are more than a dozen others. I raise a hand, my magic gathering.

“Annihilate.”

BOOM! The entire castle trembles as power explodes out of me, blowing the soldiers in front of me apart. Bloody limbs fly, smacking into other soldiers farther back, knocking them down.

All that’s left of that golden-skinned man is a bloody splatter mark on the ground.

I stride forward as more soldiers pour into the hallway off the stairs.

I waited too long to leave this place, but I no longer care. My rage burns in me, scalding my magic.

I storm down the hallway while Ferox rips out the throat of a soldier struggling to push off the mutilated torso of a fallen comrade.

More magic gathers. “Annihilate!”

Another explosion. More scattered bodies. Those pretty Roman helmets are blown from the heads of their soldiers, or else they’re blown away with the severed heads of their owners still inside them.

The sight of the scattered remains of soldiers soothes something primal in me. I never thought of myself as particularly malicious, but apparently, for my soul mate and my family, I am. Ruthlessly so.

So focused on the carnage am I that I don’t notice the first arrow that strikes me. It hits me in the right shoulder, and though it doesn’t so much as tear the fabric of my warded tunic, the force of it still nearly knocks me off my feet.

Archers. There are archers inside the palace despite the close proximity of this space. The thought has me casting out another annihilation spell. Bodies burst apart and dust falls from the ceilings, and the walls shake. I don’t care if this whole, massive place falls on our heads so long as it takes these men out with it.

I try not to think about the grief and sorrow that claw up my throat at what I’ve lost this evening and what I might still lose.

Need to get to Memnon. Gods, I need to get to him. I still haven’t heard from him, and I sense little down our bond.

There are many places Eislyn could’ve taken Memnon, most of them entirely inaccessible. But if she and my mate are still here in this realm, then there is one place above all others where she would take him.

When I get to the stairs, I blow apart another cluster of soldiers, the spell taking out a large section of the stone steps with it.

I descend down what remains, recasting the ward I placed on Ferox, who clings close to my side.

The palace temple, then. That’s where I must go.

Down on the first floor, the sounds of battle cries and anguished screams are louder. And when I catch sight of the melee, it takes my breath away. A few loyal Sarmatians fight back against the soldiers, but they’re vastly outnumbered. The Romans are also cutting down innocent palace servants who have no battle training and smashing or carrying out royal items, most of them relics of the rulers who lived here before us.

As soon as I’m noticed, the atmosphere in the main area of the palace shifts entirely.

“The queen!” someone shouts.

I can’t place the voice, and I have no clue whether it’s from friend or foe. But then I catch sight of Rakas, one of Memnon’s named betrayers. He’s pointing his sword at me and shouting orders.

All my rage is directed into an unnamed curse, one I aim for that traitorous Sarmatian man. The pale orange magic that barrels toward him is threaded through with oily black stains. When it hits Rakas, it lifts him into the air, great plumes of orange smoke upwelling beneath him. Never have I made such a spell or committed such a feat as lifting a person into the air. This is fueled by rage and pain and my power’s own sentience.

The fighting slows, and people stop to stare as Rakas writhes above them, slashing his sword at thin air to try to break himself free.

The cursed magic still swarms around him, hugging close to his skin, and it’s only once it’s sunk into him that I clearly see his flesh begin to boil and bubble until all at once, his body explodes, bits of cursed flesh raining down on the room. People begin to shriek as the curse lands on them and burns their own flesh.

The Roman soldiers are screaming, horrified. They signed up for war, not witchcraft. Some run, but most cast new, deadlier gazes on me. That’s when the fighting begins in earnest.

I blow those nearest me back, then cast two more annihilation spells. Many, many bodies go flying.

Beneath my impassioned feelings, I begin to feel the drain of my magic. It’s running out; it will run out. Rather soon if I keep attacking as I am. It’s hard to care. Not when my cheeks are wet and a soul-deep ache has taken root inside me.

The moment the room recovers from their panic, a dozen arrows rain on me and Ferox. My familiar yelps when one of them hits his flank, and I lash out, my magic slicing a whole row of soldiers nearest me.

The temple, I remind myself. I need to get there if I have any hope of reaching Memnon.

I raise my arms to the room. “Incinerate.”

Fire billows from my palms, blowing out at those nearest me. Soldiers catch fire, and smoke and the acrid smell of burning flesh fill the room.

I cannot think about those I’m leaving behind. It’s a bloodbath in the palace, and Memnon’s forces have either been slaughtered or co-opted by the enemy. Any hope of us winning this fight will come only once I have my husband at my side.

My arms shake as I carve a bloody path for myself and Ferox. My panther lunges at anyone who comes too close, ripping out throats and slashing legs. I’m feeling the first true strain of my power. Sweat drips from my brow, and⁠—

I choke as an arrow lodges in my back, throwing me forward. Another hits me near the armpit.

The protective ward I cast must’ve disintegrated.

A soldier rushes me, sword swinging. I jump out of his way, but his blade slashes me across the abdomen.

I gasp, then rush out, “Impenetrable armor for my body.” The ward returns once more.

It’s too late though. Blood is seeping between my fingers and dripping down my back, and there are dozens of soldiers closing in on me.

The temple, I remind myself. Just need to get to the temple.

Closing my eyes, I draw on my pain and my blood and then the blood of anyone nearby. My power reaches out, drawing on the suffering and building in my veins. Dazedly, I release it, only half noticing the people it rips apart.

The temple. The temple. It’s become a chant.

Ferox sticks close, and I can feel his inquisitive, worried gaze on me as I manage to pass through the double doors and leave the palace, my power blowing the enemy back many arm spans.

Several more arrows hit my body, though they bounce off my skin and clothes and clatter uselessly to the ground, leaving nothing behind except for ugly welts. Unlike the two others I carry. They protrude out of me almost comically.