Chapter 61

61

Cassius

The spell restraining me unraveled, and I leapt to my feet as Ella dropped the bloody slipper from her hand. Horace lay still, blood from half a dozen wounds pooling on a bed of fallen leaves.

Ella looked away, trembling—not with fear, but with fury. Her gown hung in tatters, bruises and bloody lacerations adorning her skin.

This is my fault.

I pulled her close and pressed her head against my chest, breathing deeply of her scent. "Are you okay?"

"I've…I've never killed anyone before," she whispered as she turned to face the body on the ground.

A shadow passed over my soul. I released her and looked down. "You haven't killed him yet."

Ella drew her lips into a thin line as Horace's wounds started to knit.

I retrieved my blade. "He doesn't deserve a merciful death, but I'll take his head, and it'll be done."

She placed her hand on my arm. "I'll do it."

"No," I said raising the blade. "The duty is mine. It is my blood keeping him alive."

Her eyes became stone as her hand tightened on my arm. "I don't care. Horace may have taken your blood, but he took hope from generations of my people. Restoring it begins here. I need to do it with my own hands."

Fates, she was fierce—yet her heart was pure. Could I really take that from her?

I hesitated, searching her eyes. "Ella, please let me carry this for you."

She shook her head. "I'll carry my own burdens. The duty is mine—to my people."

My throat tightened as I nodded. Reluctantly, I handed her the sword. It would be grim work, but if it took her a dozen strokes, so be it. Horace had always been a brute and a butcher. Let him be butchered in the end.

Ella raised the sword high above her head. The blade wavered, but her expression did not. "This is for everyone whose magic you stole."

Then she struck.

I didn't count the blows, but in the end, Horace's head rolled free. Ella's chest heaved from the effort, and tears of anger streaked her cheeks, but her face shone with triumph. She held out the bloody blade. "Is he dead for real?"

"Yes. Neither the mages nor my kind can survive that sort of blow." I knelt and cleaned my sword on Horace's cloak, sickened by the thought of her as his puppet, enslaved to his whims. I'd seen him do it to others.

His death had been too kind by far.

I rose. "We should go. The others may have some way to sense his death. They'll come for us."

"Are they at the castle?"

"No. They were out hunting for you as well. Horace was just the better hound."

A black shadow crossed her face, and she looked up with foreboding. "What happened to the mortals in the castle? When I fled—" Her voice cut off. "My sister is there."

My jaw tightened. Even now, she wasn't worried for herself, but for others. She was better than any of us deserved.

"The slaughter stopped at my word, and I left Aamon behind to enforce it. He may be my second, but he's nearly as strong, and no one will oppose him outright, not with the Triad away." I brushed her hair gently with my fingers. "As for your sister, I sent her to convalesce in the village this afternoon. The Triad had started asking questions again."

Relief flooded her face, and she wrapped her arms around me. "Thank you."

The soft beating of her heart against my chest and the sweet scent of her blood filled my senses—a cruel delight that addled my thoughts. Longing filled me, but I hardened my heart and stepped back. There were questions I had to ask first.

I gripped her arms firmly, locking her in place. "How did you know about the assassins? Were you working with them?"

She gave me a look of despair that twisted my gut. "I tried to stop it, but?—"

"But what?"

She clenched her jaw. "But I made it possible without even knowing what I'd done."

Her voice was barely a whisper on the wind, but it could have just as well been a thunderstorm. The noose of betrayal tightened around my neck, and my body became iron.

She searched my eyes. "I'm sorry, Cassius. I didn't mean to betray you or put you in danger. At first, I was just trying to find my sister and collect information, and then—" Her expression melted into despair. "It doesn't matter, does it? I was a spy, and I nearly got you killed."

"Was it for the resistance? Or for one of the houses?" I asked, my voice low and buzzing with an anger I couldn't repress. "Who was it that ordered my death?"

"The resistance," she whispered, and grasped my arms. "Please, have mercy on my people, Cassius. They don't know the truth. They live without hope for change. If you value what I did tonight, if you ever cared for me, don't seek revenge."

If I ever cared for her. The words cut through my anger and betrayal, flooding me with an icy clarity like the winter wind. The resistance. The Triad. The court and the castle. None of it mattered. Only one thing did.

I lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. "And do you care for me?"

Her pupils dilated, her lips parting in a whisper. "Yes. Absolutely, yes."

My breath stilled as I measured her gaze.

Whatever had happened before, whoever she'd worked for, it didn't matter. That yes was all I desired or needed. I pulled her close and kissed her, savoring the supple warmth of her lips.

We might not have long in the world with Horace dead and the remaining members of the Triad hunting her, and I refused to waste this moment.

My mouth parted hers, and I closed my eyes, savoring her taste and touch and feel. She pressed herself against me, her scent winding through my senses. Her tongue grazed mine, and I wanted to lose myself in her…

But I couldn't. Even now, I couldn't escape my duty. We were perched on the knife's edge of danger with death drawing in.

I gave myself three heartbeats, then broke away. "We should go." I whistled for Tenebris. "There will be a reckoning for Horace's death, and I don't like our chances. We got lucky with him, but as all three of the mages drew their stolen power from the same source, I'm afraid the others will have grown stronger."

Ella nodded. "Then let's finish this."

My stallion emerged from the woods, with her mare at its side, but rather than head toward them, she began walking toward the ruined building at the edge of the clearing.

"Where are you going?" I asked, catching up and restraining her with my hand. "We need to run."

She shook her head and pulled free of my grasp. "I'm not running anymore. Whatever the Triad did to curse the Bloodvale, it's here. I don't know if we can destroy it, but we have to try. It's our best chance of defeating the others."

"What do you mean?

Ella gestured to the old church. "The source of their power is here."

I lifted my gaze, seeing it for the first time free of the lust of battle. My stomach knotted as recognition sank in.

"Can't you feel the signature of their spell?" she asked quietly. "It's like a heartbeat, but oppressive and draining. You must feel it."

With Horace dead, the spell on her voice had broken, and she could speak of what she knew.

I paused, reaching out with my senses. I could taste blood in the air, and I caught the scents of charred wood and dirt and the sweet aroma of her body. An unnatural host of birds rustled and fidgeted in the trees above, and the deep shadows beyond the clearing concealed foxes and bears and deer, all lurking silently. A waiting army.

Ella's army.

I shook my head. "Immortals have no command of magic. The only heartbeat I feel is yours, and that's the only one I care about right now."

She gave me an appraising look. "Then keep me safe while I end this."

Ella moved toward the ruined church, and I followed, stunned. Rather than flee with the Triad closing in, she was going to take their power head-on.

Who the hell was she?

The iron gate had long since been overgrown by ivy. As if sensing her approach, the plants pulled back the gate for her, and it opened with a rusted creak.

I drew my blade and stepped in front of her. "I'll go first. I've been here before."

Her eyes widened. "You have?"

I hesitated at the foot of the stairs, my nerves tingling with tension. "This is an ancient place, from when our clan first came to the Bloodvale. It's where the first king was crowned, and where my brother was to take his oaths of service. But the Triad cursed him and drove him away."

"I heard."

My breath quaked. After centuries trapped with suspicions I didn't dare share even with Aamon, I finally knew the truth—and more importantly, someone else did, too. Ella. For that, I was more grateful than I could explain.

"My brother descended into madness after visiting this place. Whatever secrets lie here, they are what began his fall. It's why I had it boarded up a long time ago."

"But you never knew it was the source of the mages' power?"

Her words iced my skin. My hand tightened around my blade as the fury of my failure wormed through me. "No. If I'd known, I would have burnt this place to the ground with those bastards locked inside."