“Do we think she’s going to pull that out in battle? Her army is made up of vampires—if she conducts the spell, she loses all her people. She loses the war.” I couldn’t see Declan’s face, only hear his voice through the mirror.
“She might lose the war…” Lennox swallowed. “But it wasn’t war she wanted in the first place. She wants vampires gone. Eliminated forever. Luce, you need to figure out if that would work. If—if we can’t kill Keziq, if we can’t break the spell between Keziq and Luka, we need that spell.”
“Can that spell—can it sever the spell between Keziq and Luka?” Kara’s voice piped up from the background.
“No—I already asked Hecate—it won’t have an effect on spells already in effect.”
Lennox nodded, gnawing on her bottom lip.
“Even if I prevent it from happening during the war—I can’t stop it forever. I can’t eliminate magic forever.”
“So we need to eliminate both of them, Adreona and Keziq,” Luka said from Lennox's side.
“Obviously,” Kara’s voice filtered in again.
“Eliminate everyone who feels strongly for her cause,” Luka continued.
“Declan, it’s time to call on your friend, we can’t wait any longer to meet up with him. We need insight about howmany of them want to fight for Adreona and the Vanir—and how many are doing so only because they got lumped into Adreona’s fight with no way out.”
“I understand where you’re coming from, Lennox.” He scrubbed at his neck. “But this is a dangerous game. I’m still unsure if the risks are worth the potential reward.”
The mirror shook. The sound of glass shattering shuttered through the connection as Lennox looked over her shoulder.
“What’s happening?”
Lennox moved out of the mirror. I scrambled, trying to see anything, straining my ears to hear the muffled shouts. “Lennox! Lennox!”
I took the mirror in my hands, shaking it like it might give me a better view of what was happening? “Lennox!”
The mirror in my hands shattered.
57
LUKA
I gripped my sword so tight the groove of the pommel bit into my palm.
“Where did they come from?” I raised my sword, blocking the male’s blow. The clang of our swords rang through the snowy forest.
“No fucking idea,” Lennox grit out as her blade sliced through another soldier. There was no sign of Adreona or Keziq. Not yet, anyway, but their soldiers were everywhere. All of them dressed in black with the red Blood Court seal I knew so well adorning their lapels.
“We should have seen them coming!” Lennox shouted over the fray.
I shouldn’t be surprised they didn’t wait for us to arrive at their borders. We should have known Adreona wouldn’t wait, that they’d show up sooner rather than later.
But there was nothing we could do about it now.
At least they didn’t appear to bring any Dhampirs with them.
Each time I killed a soldier another one appeared. They had Lennox and I surrounded.
My sword arced through the air, slicing clean through a soldier’s arm.
Blood spurted on my face; I wiped it away with the back of my arm as I charged toward another soldier.
This is what we had been preparing for. We’ve been training for this day, for this moment. My sword sliced through another soldier. They fell to the ground at my feet. Their blood stained the snow crimson.
We could do this. It’d be a good learning experience for us all. We’d learn from it. Figure out how to be better prepared for a surprise attack.
