Chapter 59

59

Ella

My stomach leapt into my throat, and I shuffled back, my heart racing. I grabbed a broken branch and held it in front of me like a spear—as if it would do anything against the powerful mage. "Stay back."

Horace stalked toward me, his dark eyes brimming with the promise of vengeance. "Surprised to see me?"

I kept my gaze trained on him as I backed away, forcing down my rising panic. The rest of the Triad were bound to be here soon, but if I could stall him for a few seconds, maybe I could reach Chastity.

"How did you find me?" I rasped, my throat so tight I could barely speak.

Horace reached into his cloak and pulled out my glass slipper—the one I'd kicked off on the castle stairs. "You left a trail."

Confusion rocked me. "My shoe?"

He turned the glistening slipper idly in his hand with a bitter smirk. "Objects know their owners, and like a faithful dog, they want to be reunited. The connection is even stronger for magical objects. It's how our tokens work—they're linked to you by the invisible thread of fate."

He hurled the slipper at my feet, and the tip of the heel shattered against one of the overturned cobblestones.

"Your slipper led me straight to you—and now, like a lost shoe, you're going to lead me to your owner." His expression turned savage. "Who do you work for, little witch?"

I was only four strides from Chastity. So close.

Breath shaking, I took another step back. "I work for no one. I am my own."

Horace barked out a laugh. "I think not. You're a puppet. Someone is pulling your strings, or you would never have found this place. Is it the resistance? Or the prince?" His eyes became pure ice. "Or is it one of the others?"

The others?

My thoughts stumbled over themselves. Did he mean the rest of the Triad? Did Horace think one of them was working against him?

Maybe I could use that to buy me time.

"You don't know what you're dealing with, Horace. When—" I cut off my words and reached for my throat, imitating the effects of his own spell of silence.

He froze, eyeing me like a viper. Then a sickening smile spread across his face as he saw my charade. "Clever try, but you won't play me for a fool a second time. I'm going to rip the truth from you—your entire story, scream by scream."

My stomach plummeted. I had no doubt he could do it. I'd implicate everyone who'd protected me and everyone I cared about. No matter what happened to me, I couldn't put them in any more danger.

Desperation rising, I hitched up my gown and hurled myself toward Chasity.

Horace threw up his hand, and a burst of purple light split the night. Pain erupted across my ribs as I flew sideways into the trunk of an oak. The wind exploded from my chest, and I collapsed at its base, unable to pull air into my lungs.

Chastity reared and pawed the air with her hooves, but a second blast sent her reeling.

"Run!" I wheezed as I rolled to the side, my chest aching. "Get away!"

The mare whinnied in protest but took cover among the trees as Horace's magic tore through the air around her.

The mage crouched down in front of me, tiny sparks of purple lightning dancing between his raised fingers. "Alone at last—and this time, I will have the truth out of you."

A warm trickle of blood ran from the corner of my mouth, but I raised my chin defiantly. "Over my dead body."

Horace's gaze didn't waver. "Oh, yes, I'm going to kill you. But how you die is up to you. Swift and painless, or after days of agony. I can teach you suffering like you've never known."

His breath stank, and I grimaced. "I'm good at suffering."

I tried to rise, but he lunged forward and wrapped his hand around my neck. "How did you find this place?"

I grasped at his fingers, trying to peel them away as I croaked, "I don't even know where I am!"

He tightened his grip, and I squirmed as my throat constricted. "No more lies."

"It's the truth," I said, my voice a ragged whisper. "Why is this place so important? Were you an altar boy here once?"

He yanked me forward and slammed me back against the trunk, driving the breath from my lungs. "You think you can mock me? This is the heart of our power—the place where you are weakest and I am strongest. Sooner or later, it will take everything you have, little witch, and I will have what I want."

I kicked at him, but an avalanche of magic poured through his hand, pinning me in place against the tree. It felt like searing iron bands wrapping around me, tighter and tighter.

He grinned. "I can bind your body with my magic just as easily as I can bind your words."

I tried to resist, but his power over me was effortless. The hungering pulse that emanated from the church dragged at my strength and magic, leaving me weak and helpless before him.

"You will give me names," he said in a whisper that could have made stones tremble.

I closed my eyes against his demand, futilely searching for some hidden reserve of inner strength but finding little. Yet, in the dark hollow where my own power had been, I felt something else in its absence—something far greater than myself lingering at the edge of perception.

The cursed woods.

Their magic had a whisper of its own, and I felt it calling to me—a vast reservoir of strength, just beyond my grasp.

Let us help.

Horace's demands faded away as I reached out with my soul, desperately seeking a connection. I'm here.

I strained, trying to pull their strength into me but not knowing how to. Despair shuddered through me, and I cried out, "Help me!"

The world around me shifted.

A myriad of sensations that weren't my own flooded through me—birds bursting into the sky and the cold night air rustling the leaves above. I felt the grass in the clearing stir and the roots burrowing beneath the earth.

A thousand connections came to life, entwining me with the magic of this place, and the truth of my power dawned like the sun breaking the horizon.

I didn't have to whisper, or ask, or command. The forest had awakened within me, and suddenly, we were one.

My breathing steadied and my heartbeat slowed as Horace's shouting came back into focus. "I command you to tell me the truth!"

I opened my eyes, and my lips turned up. "You want to know who I work for? I work for this land. And I'm going to cleanse it of your filth."

"Insolent bitch." Horace's hand cracked across my face, but I barely noticed it. I was lost to myself. Instead, I felt the limbs of the tree above me like they were my arms and its branches as if they were my fingers. I flexed them as I would my own hand. Wood groaned, and fragments of bark rained down.

Horace looked up in a single, beautiful moment of surprise. Then I seized full control of the oak and swept one of its limbs straight into his chest. He flew into the air and crashed to the ground ten yards away, twisting in pain.

The spell pinning me to the earth dissipated, and I staggered to my feet.

Horace started to rise, so I reached through the ground, joining with the tree beside him. I brought a heavy branch down like a hammer, stomping him into the dirt.

"You're a thief, Horace. I am a whisperer, and I have the strength of an entire forest in the palm of my hand." I seized control of another oak and slammed the mage across the clearing. "And the forest is angry."

Horace's body tumbled like a rag doll's until he crashed into the iron fence enclosing the churchyard. I strode toward him, my expression dark.

A cruel grin cut his face, and he yanked a splinter of wood from his bare neck. Blood spurted, and dread coursed through me as the wound closed. "You think you can hurt me, Ella? I've been drinking the blood of immortals for centuries. You can't kill me or overpower me, and there is nothing you possess that I can't take away."

"We'll see about that." I poured my magic into the tree beside him and swung, but Horace flipped up his hands and unleashed a blast of purple lightning. The limb exploded in a shower of bark and splinters.

I threw up my arm to shield my face as they raked across me, tearing through my skin and gown like knives through warm butter.

A second bolt ripped into its trunk, and it split with a deafening crack. My connection to it vanished, leaving a dull absence in my chest where our bond had been. Rage exploded through me at the sudden loss.

I called the forest down upon him, but Horace danced around the edge of the clearing, dodging limbs as gracefully as the courtiers twirled at the ball. A crackling storm of lightning bolts ripped through their grasping limbs. He extinguished the trees one by one until none remained that could reach him.

Burning cinders drifted down, covering the clearing and the dead trees with a rain of ash. Horace grinned. "The trees may obey you, little whisperer, but I will teach you the true meaning of obedience!"

He whipped his hand up, and a burst of magic yanked me to my knees. I reached for the power of the forest, but he'd killed every tree that could strike. I gasped and fought against it, but the chains of his magic held me firm.

Horace's eyes flared with a cruel light as he approached. "Do you wonder now why the immortals bow before us? Because they are nothing compared to our power. You are nothing."

He stopped in front of me, inches from my grasp but impossibly far away. "We taught the immortals what it meant to submit, and I'll teach you the same lesson. I'll make you beg for death, even as you serve me in every way I demand. You will debase yourself for me and learn the true price of defiance ."

Panic flared. I strained against the prison of his magic, but the harder I pushed, the tighter the bonds grew. My heartbeat hammered against my chest, threatening to drive all sense from my mind. Then there was another beat, shuddering through the ground beneath me. Thunderous and violent, it grew louder and louder until it became the earthshaking cadence I knew all too well.

My eyes rose as Tenebris exploded into the clearing. And upon his back was the dark rider.

My breath stilled as Cassius leapt, becoming a black angel against the sky. He seemed to float there for a second, his cape fluttering in the air. Then he slammed into Horace in a blur of fury and darkness.