CEDRIC
They emergedfrom the void together—light and darkness, shadow and sun, surging forth as one. The throne room was nothing but blood-spattered marble and felled bodies, riotous screams and clanging steel.
Well, now it was more.
Now, it was fire and fury.
Cedric leapt from Elyria’s shadow with a yell, his boots striking stone and Ashrenderigniting. Golden flame rippled down the blade as he swung wide, cutting through a nearby cultist in a single blow. The room brightened with the blaze, his magic like a beacon, searing throughsanguinagiweapons, red crystal falling in shattered pieces to the floor as he cut, and cut, and cut.
Beside him, Elyria swept one hand upward, the other holding her staff like a spinning baton. Her shadows surged forth—a tidal wave, a beast of smoke. The two cultists nearest to her didn’t even have time to scream before they were smothered under its hold.
And with that, the battle paused. Just for a moment. A heartbeat. A breath. Just long enough for every pair of eyes in the room to turn to them.
And then, it was as though the fourth quarter of hell had broken loose.
Cultists rushed the two of them, steel and blood meeting flame and shadow. Cedric ducked under a crimson blade, catching asanguinagiman’s wrist and slashing a burning Ashrender across the cultist’s gut. There was a hiss of pain—the man’s? His own?—as a bloody shard flew past Cedric, grazing the side of his face.
“You’re good?”Elyria’s voice was a balm to the sudden rage rising in Cedric as a warm bead of blood dribbled down his cheek.
“I will be.”He met her gaze from across the throne room, a swift clash of emerald and gold-ringed brown before she swung her staff, fortified with spikes of shadow—a dark spear much like the one she had used to mete out justice to the innkeeper in Dawnspire. The jagged tip collided with a nearby cultist who had started getting the better of one of the king’s royal guards, sending thesanguinagisprawling. Behind the guard, who gave Elyria a grateful nod, Dentarius hovered over a prostrate King Callum with bloodied hands.
Slowly, the assault was lessening. The number of remaining cultists thinned, the number of bodies strewn across the wide throne room commensurately ticking up. Cedric let the flame lighting up Ashrender fade away, even as he kept his sword at the ready.
From the corner of his eye, Cedric saw Nox covering Kit’s back as the fae sent a huge blockade of ice across the floor, clearing multiplesanguinagi, as well as several fallen bodies, from its path. On Cedric’s other side, Sephone fought a duo of cultists back toward the doors, lightning crackling over her skin. One of her opponents stopped to look at the turning tide of the fight, then promptly turned tail and ran from the room.
But they weren’t all running.
Whirling, Cedric thrust Ashrender through the shoulder of a womanwho tried to attack him from behind, a menacing-looking glaive in her hands. It wasn’t crafted from blood magic, just a fierce weapon of stamped steel, and Cedric found himself admiring it as the cultist dropped it with a cry.
“Boys and their toys,”Elyria said, and Cedric didn’t need to be looking at her to know she was smirking as she observed him.“Later, Your Highness.”
“What have I told you about calling—”Cedric turned back around, freezing in place when his gaze found her, half a grin still lingering on her face as a curved red blade arced toward her head. He was already roaring Elyria’s name—out loud, in his mind, in hers—when her own sensibilities seemed to catch up. Her eyes were wide, a beam of red-tinted light streaking over her face as the weapon came down...
But Cedric wasn’t the only one roaring.
A blur of black smoke came screaming from the shadows. With a horrified shriek, the attacking cultist was blasted back, stumbling away from Elyria. Their crystal weapon dropped to the floor as they succumbed to the onslaught of shadow and teeth and claws.
Sid was here.
Time slowed to a crawl as Cedric looked at the raging beast before him, so far from the sweet cub he’d met just a few weeks ago. Sid was absolutely massive—a sleek black panther, shadows rolling off her long body. Her claws were made of slivered darkness, and her fangs glinted as they drove through leather and bone, piercing flesh and spraying blood.
When the shadowcat looked up, maw dripping with the remains of the nowextremelydead cultist, Cedric would’ve sworn he saw a familiar-looking smirk in her emerald-green eyes. But then a red-robed figure darted between him and the cat, and Sid was shadow once more, leaping after the escaping cultist.
“You. Traitorous. Mother. Fucker!” Tristan’s voice drew Cedric’s attention, and he found himself racing across the throne room to where his friend was fighting?—
“Thibault?” Cedric’s voice caught in his throat. “What are you two doing?”
Tristan blocked a blow of Thibault’s sword, pushing him back witha grunt. “This bastard betrayed us all. He works for Malchior. He fucking killed Hargrave!”
His heart clenching in his chest, Cedric searched the ground where, sure enough, Hargrave’s lifeless body lay amidst the bloody wreckage.
Cedric’s stomach plummeted.
“Dawnspire?” he asked, his voice a harsh whisper as Thibault and Tristan drew apart.
Thibault’s grin was bloody, his eyes wild. “Sorry, Ric. I must do as my lord requires. And for whatever reason, he wanted you there. Wanted them gone and wanted you to witness it.”
Some volatile combination of anger and realization zipped through Cedric’s center, the furnace in his chest growing hot. “He wanted to break me.”
