Page 96 of To Save a Kingdom

The tip of Elessan’s blade settled beneath Brooks’ jawbone and sliced.

Tendrils of dark mist bled from the wound. Aliya stared, her eyelids stretched wide.

Brooks’ outline faded, as though shrouded in fog before collapsing and spreading across the floor in waves of blackness.

“Everyone get back!” Elessan’s words held a faint tremor as he scrambled away, waving at the vapor with his sword as if he could dissipate it with simple air currents.

The cloud pooled, swirling at the center until a few moments later, it coalesced and re-formed into Brooks. The last bit to form was the magestone in his forehead.

“Valek!” Elessan swung his blade again.

“Destroy the gem!” Aliya yelled, giving voice to some instinct struggling for recognition in the back of her mind.

Redirecting his attack, Elessan brought the pommel of his weapon into the jewel.

It shattered with an explosion of darkness that caused the flames in the hearth to flicker then reform.

“By Abaddon…” Elessan muttered.

He stumbled backward as Zadé lunged forward, tackling Brooks to the ground and pinning his arms to his sides. “I got ‘im, Elsan! Lock ‘im up!”

Was there any point? He appeared solid enough to throw in shackles, but with what she’d just seen, Aliya wasn’t certain he’d stay that way.

She glanced around the room. Most of Brooks’ soldiers—her soldiers before they deserted—were dead or bleeding out. The few still upright were on their knees, hands over their heads.

Pressing her lips together, Aliya glared at the traitors.

“Your Majesty,” Jalius stepped into view, breaking her line of sight. “Tell me what Brooks did.”

She blinked at him. “I told you already. Weird words, power, fire, then darkness.”

Jalius rolled his eyes. Grabbing both of her shoulders, he shook her. “Specifics. I need details.”

It had all happened so fast…she didn’t remember the exact phrasing. Human magic, with its chanting and strict rituals, had never been her strong suit. Licking her lips, Aliya glanced around the room as she searched. Eyes locking on her target, she pointed. “That book! He used it.”

Dragging the grimoire over, Jalius motioned to her. “Which spell?”

Chewing the inside of her cheek, Aliya flipped through the pages until she came to the one covered in bloody handprints. Furrowing her brow, she sounded out the unfamiliar language. “Umbra vael, keth-ra nu—”

A warm hand slapped over her mouth, cutting her off. “No! Do not read from the text!” Jalius hissed. “You do not know what you may conjure!”

She blinked. Conjuring was illegal, for good reason. One could summon any manner of beings, from unwilling people to servants of the underdark to full-on demons.

Shaking his hand off, she craned her neck to get a better look at the volume lying on the ground in front of her. “Is that what this does? Conjure things?”

Jalius leaned closer, studying the spell before them. “Always assume a dark grimoire has the ability to do such.” He shook his head. “This should’ve been burned in The Purge.”

“The what?” She studied the gnome and the bloody parchment in her hands.

Jalius glowered, his upper lip wrinkling in distaste. “It’s not important right now. It happened centuries ago when the elder mages realized how dangerous conjuring was. They eliminated anyone with the talent for it, along with their grimoires and magical artifacts.”

Aliya swallowed and glanced up, meeting Elessan’s eyes.

He shrugged. “It was well before I was born, or started spending any time in the human realm.”

“Princess!” Zadé said. “What’cha wanna do with this one ‘n th’ other prisoners?” She held Brooks by his hair so he faced her. Someone had put his hands behind his back and slapped on some standard-issue handcuffs. It was too bad they’d ruined the antimonite ones… whatever Brooks had done to himself, the magic-neutralizing restraints would have had the best chance of counteracting it. A gag tight enough to split the Arcane Inquisitor’s lips was rammed between his teeth and tied at the back of his head.

She nudged her broken shackles with her toe. “Is there any way we have another set or two of these lying around somewhere?”