She threw her eyes to the wall where he hid, giving a subtle jerk of her chin. Now was his chance to go help the others. Though, there was a fleeting flash of disappointment that crossed her mind, even as she encouraged Cedric to leave. This was her favorite kind of game. Seemed a shame he wouldn’t get to see how well she could play it.
A ribbon of darkness slunk up from the footbed, slithering over the innkeeper’s body like a snake, even as he writhed against the ones holding him in place. He eyed it warily, his mouth going slack as it slid over his chest and looped around his shoulders, then his neck, a necklace of night that came to rest just over his chin—waiting.
Elyria clucked her tongue, flipping the shadowdagger she’d formed from hand to hand. “And to think we breezed right on past introductions, earlier. You are Audaxus, are you not? The man who meets with Varyth Malchior when he comes through this village? Or is that your card-playing friend from downstairs?”
The innkeeper’s eyes went wide, and Elyria thought he understood. But he merely started mumbling under his breath, phrases like “rising sun” and “dark vessel” jumping out in between strings of incoherent words.
“What vessel?” Elyria asked, brow arched. “I’ve had just about my fill ofsanguinagiritual shit.”
He pressed his mouth into a hard line, as though physically restraining himself from further muttering.
She sighed. “Oh, sure,nowyou have nothing to say.” Raising her hand, her shadows lifted him clean off the mattress. Elyria kicked the bed aside with such force that the headboard cracked in half when it hit the far wall.
The innkeeper yelled in pain as she dropped him right on top of the bloody rune, shadows still binding his wrists and legs together, the vicious sound of some small bone splintering like music in her ears.
“Shall we talk about this, then?” She leaned down, her voice low, deadly. “You trapped me in here. Used blood magic to bind my power. Tried to kill me in my sleep. Seems like an awful lot of forethought and planning went into this.”
The man whimpered.
“What is your master trying to achieve here?’ Elyria continued, pointing her shadow-forged dagger at him. “This feels atouchmore personal than just not liking having Arcanians in your midst.”
He said nothing.
“Tell me,” she growled, power pulsing.
The innkeeper’s eyes darted toward the door, which was suddenlywide open, and the fact that Cedric had actually listened to her made Elyria’s shoulders drop in relief.
It shouldn’t have.
Because just as she started leaning toward the innkeeper again, two cloaked cultists burst through the open doorway.
They lunged directly at her, a red crystal scimitar clutched in one of their hands, swinging in a wide arc. Elyria leapt back, narrowly avoiding the cut of thesanguinagiweapon. But the other cultist was right there, running up behind her. Elyria whirled, recognizing the face of one of the women from the tavern. The woman thrust forward, blood magic surging forth like a crimson whip, wrapping around Elyria’s wrist.
Elyria cried out as the tendril of magic bit into her, stinging, cutting through her skin. Blood ran down her hand, dripping from her fingertips onto the floor, her shadowy dagger falling from her grip and dissipating into mist. The cultist woman was so fast.
But Cedric was faster.
He leapt from the shadows like a storm, Ashrender drawn, slashing down, spinning, drawing the blade back up in one fluid motion.
There was a gurgled scream.
Blood sprayed.
And the whip of blood magic cutting into Elyria’s wrist fell away, nothing more than a limp red ribbon drifting to the floor next to the cultist that had summoned it.
The dead cultist.
Elyria pulled her dagger from her waist with one hand, while the other summoned her staff with a burst of shadow from where it rested against the wall. “I thought I told you to go help the others,” she said, gratitude pulsing through her as she drew up tight to Cedric’s side, weaving a wisp of healing magic over her wrist to stem the bleeding. She wouldn’t feed these monsters further with her blood.
“Yes, well?—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish his thought. Not as a feral scream rang through the room as the second cultist—the other woman from downstairs—realized what happened to her comrade. She’d stopped to help the innkeeper, but suddenly her scimitar was arcing through the air, aimed right for Cedric’s chest.
“No!” Elyria yelled, and strangely, it sounded like she wasn’t the only one who did. Pure instinct had her raising her staff just in time to parry the blow, red sparks spraying as the weapons clashed. The scimitar’s path was deflected to the wall beside them, where it embedded itself with athud.
“You fool!” yelled the innkeeper, and Elyria realized that she hadn’t imagined the second voice shouting when the cultist hurled her weapon at Cedric. “He is not to be harmed!”
“Will wonders never cease,” Elyria said, rage pulsing against her ribs as she stalked forward, shadows trailing down the length of her staff as she pointed it at the cultist. “Looks like we actually agree on something.”
