Chapter 60

60

Cassius

I rammed my shoulder into Horace's chest and sent him rolling across the forest floor. Rage blinded me to everything but protecting Ella. I drew my sword and lunged in for the kill, striking like a viper. "I'm going to carve out your fucking heart!"

Lightning ripped across my body, flinging me backward, searing flesh and clothes alike. I collided with a shattered tree trunk, then hurled myself sideways as a second flash shot toward me. It detonated behind me, and my vision danced with spots, my ears ringing. I took cover behind a tree and shook my head to clear it.

I fucking hated fighting mages .

While my kind were stronger and faster, speed and precision weren't enough to dodge lightning bolts and fireballs, and our heightened senses were little more than a skull-splitting liability. You had to think three steps ahead if you wanted to win. I'd learned that the hard way during the Uprising.

I leapt over a fallen log as a sparking bolt of magic clipped my blade. The sword burst from my grip, clattering across the ground, and I shook my singed hand.

Apparently, after three hundred years, I was a little rusty.

"What do you think you're doing, Cassius?" Horace roared.

"You shouldn't have fucking touched her," I growled. "You're a dead man."

Horace went red in the face, and I gave him a come and get me gesture as I slipped deeper into the woods, taking refuge behind another tree. If I could lure him away from Ella, she could reach Tenebris and escape.

A lightning bolt lanced the trunk I'd used for cover, cracking it in half in a shower of sparks.

"You can't be serious." The corrupt mage laughed as he stalked toward me. "You'd dare challenge me over that witch? You're more fool than I ever imagined."

I ducked through the trees, my movements precise and silent and as swift as an arrow. In two breaths, I was standing directly behind him.

"The foolish thing was not killing you centuries ago." I seized the bastard and hurled him against a tree, his face ricocheting off the bark with a grunt. I was on him in another heartbeat, driving blows into his kidneys and splitting his jaw.

Horace slammed his hand against my chest, and molten pain tore through me as a burst of magic flung me into the air. My ribs and forearm cracked when I hit the ground, and my spine groaned, a hair's breadth from snapping.

Somewhere, Ella screamed.

As my broken bones and torn tendons began to knit together, I flipped over and searched the woods for her.

Please don't follow.

She darted out from under the cover of the trees toward Horace. Dread cleared the throbbing pain from my mind. I could take this punishment, but she was mortal. Getting her free was all that mattered.

"Run!" I roared.

Yet Ella didn't heed my words.

Horace stumbled to his feet as she rushed forward. She swung her fist through the air—and then, to my astonishment, the forest itself moved. The tree beside her slammed one of its limbs into Horace's back.

I watched in shock as his body rose into the air and crashed to the ground in a hail of bark. She struck with her hand again, and a second tree brought its heavy branches down.

By the gods.

It wasn't just animals. She could command the trees themselves.

Astonishment dulled my senses, and I stared in awe.

The hesitation cost me everything. By the time I grabbed my sword and climbed to my feet, I was too late. Horace released an unrelenting cascade of power and light into her body.

Terror ignited inside me like gunpowder, and I charged forward, lunging for his heart with a feral roar. Horace turned. The tip of my sword skimmed across his chest, then sank into it, a little too low for the heart.

He gasped in surprise, and I kicked him back to free my blade. I raised it for the killing blow, but a wave of power lifted me off my feet. A second later, I crashed into the dirt, a relentless pressure crushing the wind from my lungs. Invisible chains wrapped around me, and as I fought to rise, my limbs barely moved.

"Get out of here, Ella!" I said, using the last of my air. But she didn't answer.

Horace staggered upright, clutching his chest as trails of crimson ran from the wound and dribbled from the corner of his mouth. "You fucking fool," he rasped. "You could have had it all."

Not all. Not her.

I pushed against his magic, fear for Ella driving me to the edge of madness, but the spell didn't yield. It was like an invisible iron cage had been crushed around me.

"Did you really think you could defeat me?" He lurched closer, hand pressed over his wound. "This is why your kind serves us ."

I spat. The die had been cast long before.

He pulled his palm from his chest and looked down as thickening blood drained out. He chuckled. "You got closer than most, I'll give you that. But seeing as you gave me your blood this morning, this scratch will be an old scar in minutes."

Bitterness twisted my gut. My kind's blood would save him and doom Ella in the same moment. The Fates were fucking cruel.

Horace twisted his hand, and suddenly, the pressure choking my throat eased slightly. "Tell me who that witch is."

"She's mine," I growled, unable to keep the beast from my voice.

Horace glanced at the crumpled blue shape lying in the clearing, and a sadistic smile crossed his lips. "She belongs to no one now, save the maggots and the flies."

My chest crushed inward. It couldn't be. She was stronger than his magic. She had to be.

Until she'd appeared, I'd been a ghost haunting the halls of a castle I didn't want. She'd restored me to life, and now I'd ended hers by choosing the shackles of my duty over my heart. I should've taken Ella and fled like my brother had.

My mouth turned bitter. What was I fighting to protect each day when I rode into the hills? Not her people, and certainly not mine. Nothing but a corrupt palace built on a hill of corpses.

I should've let the Triad and the kingdom burn.

Horace's magic wrenched my head around to face him. "Who did she work for? Was it you or one of the others? Malthus? Thalindra?"

Horace loved his secrets, and not knowing the truth would drive him mad. It was a poor consolation, but if I were lucky, mutual suspicion would tear the Triad apart.

I pulled my lips into a cruel smile. "I guess you'll never know."

"What a fucking waste." Horace glowered as he rose. "Perhaps the next king will know his place."

Fates help the next king. I'd served the bastards long enough.

A deep, resigned calm came over me, and I closed my eyes, no longer fighting the bonds of his magic. A faint wind drifted across my skin, bringing with it the scent of charred trees. The relentless ringing in my ears began to fade, and another sound brushed against my perception. A pulse.

My senses sharpened instantly. Ella was alive.

Her breath rasped in and out, shallow and labored, and beneath that, I heard the subtle sound of leaves crushing against the grass. Not just alive—she was crawling.

Renewed purpose ignited within me, along with dread. I had to keep Horace's attention long enough for her to get away. My eyes snapped open. "Is this what you did to my brother? Did he tire of your corrupt rule?"

"Figured it out at last, have you?" Horace laughed as he crouched beside me and patted my cheek. "Your brother was almost as much of a disappointment as you are. He thought he might change things after your father died, but we taught him how dangerous change can be."

Rage flared, and I slammed against the bonds of Horace's spell, my hand moving a fraction of an inch. "What the fuck did you do to him?"

Horace chuckled. "Thalindra thought killing him would be a waste of royal blood, so we gave him a choice—learn to obey like a dog or spend the rest of his life as a monster. Poor self-righteous fool. He chose the monster. If he's still alive, he's probably far across the border, cowering in some den in the woods, more animal than immortal now."

Words that would have once enthralled me simply grazed off my mind as the sounds of Ella's movements pricked my senses.

Footsteps. But instead of moving away, they were coming closer.

Panic took me. She needed to run . We were in the middle of smoldering trunks. There were no trees here for her to command—only death, waiting to claim her.

I strained against the bonds of Horace's spell. "Get away from me!"

I prayed she'd realize the words were for her, not for him.

"You should've been grateful to us for giving you the crown, yet you've thrown it all away." Looking at me with contempt, Horace slid a wicked knife from the sheath on his belt. "You'll envy your brother's fate by the time I'm done with you."

I spat.

Horace's lips curled up, a sadistic glint in his eye as he twisted the blade in his fingers. "I think I'll start with the girl. I'll make you watch as I carve her up and make her corpse dance like a puppet on a string. How would you enjoy that, Your Highness?"

My heart stilled as Ella stepped up behind him. "I don't dance for bastards like you," she said.

Horace wheeled around and raised his blade, but Ella drove the shattered heel of her glass slipper straight into his eye.

He screamed and stumbled back with his hands clasped over his face. She swung again, this time ramming the sharp heel into the side of his neck. Blood spurted over her arms, but she struck over and over until he crumpled and fell to the earth.