Page 218 of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

“What’s the plan?” Sebastian asked, eyeing the guards.

I considered our options. We were outnumbered, but not outmatched. With my power combined with the Heirloom’s, Sebastian’s surprisingly effective combat magic, and Thorne’s steel, the guards would quickly fall.

“Sebastian, can you create a distraction? Something to draw their attention while Thorne and I rush them?”

Sebastian nodded. “I think I can manage that.”

He closed his eyes, concentrating. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the ground around the temple began to tremble. Vines burst from the earth, thick as a man’s arm and covered in wicked thorns. They writhed and twisted, forming a living wall that surged toward the guards.

Chaos erupted as the guards tried to fight off the attacking plants. The mages began casting, balls of fire materializing in their hands to burn away the vines. While they were fighting off enemy plants, Thorne and I charged forward.

I summoned shadows as I ran, forming them into blades that extended from my hands. The first guard who turned to face me died before he could raise his sword, my shadow blade slicing through his throat. The second managed to parry my first strike, but my training with Kazimir paid off as I ducked under the man’s counter and drove my blade up through his chin and into his brain.

Across the courtyard, Thorne moved like a whirlwind of death, his daggers finding gaps in armor with uncanny precision. Three guards fell to him in quick succession, their bodies crumpling to the ground before they fully registered the threat.

One of the mages spotted me and turned, abandoning the vines to face this new threat. He hurled a fireball at me, the heat of it searing the air as it passed. I dodged, rolling to the side and coming up with my shadow blades at the ready.

The mage began another incantation, his hands weaving complex patterns in the air. I didn’t give him time to finish. Drawing on the Heirloom’s power, I sent a wave of shadow magic toward him.

The shadows engulfed him, wrapping around his body like a cocoon. I clenched my fist, and the shadows constricted. The mage’s scream was cut short as his rib cage collapsed, blood spurting from his mouth.

I turned to find my next target, only to see Sebastian engaged with the remaining two mages. His plant magic was holding its own against their fire, vines sprouting faster than they could be burned away. But he was on the defensive, unable to press his advantage.

I moved to help him. The mages saw me coming, one of them turning to face me while the other continued to battle Sebastian.

The mage facing me was older, his face lined with experience. He smiled coldly as I approached, clearly confident in his abilities.

“Lady Arabella,” he said, his voice carrying easily across the battlefield. “Your father will be so disappointed.”

I faltered for a moment, recognizing him from a newly emerging memory. I knew him. “Magister Caine. You were at the tower that night, with Amaryska.”

The night my mother died. The night they took my memories.

Rage surged through me, hot and fierce. The shadows around me darkened, responding to my emotions. Through my bond with Kazimir, I felt an answering surge of darkness, as if my anger had called to his.

“You remember,” Caine said, sounding surprised.

“I had help,” I snarled, advancing on him.

He gestured sharply, and the air around me suddenly thickened, becoming heavy as lead. I struggled to move, my limbs fighting against the magical weight pressing down on me.

“A simple gravity manipulation,” Caine explained, as if lecturing a student. “Effective against most opponents.”

I gritted my teeth, pushing against the spell with my own magic. The Heirloom flared hot against my skin, and I felt its power surge through me, breaking Caine’s hold.

His eyes widened as I straightened, shadows swirling around me unhindered. “Impossible,” he breathed.

I struck, not with shadow blades this time but with pure dominion magic, the kind Kazimir had been teaching me. It hit Caine in the chest and sent him staggering back. Before he could recover, I was on him, my hand at his throat.

“For my mother,” I whispered, and inverted my healing magic, sending it coursing through him in a wave of destruction.

Caine’s scream echoed across the courtyard as his body withered from the inside out, blood vessels bursting, organs failing, skin shriveling against bone. In seconds, he was reduced to a desiccated husk, his eyes wide with shock and pain.

I let the corpse fall, turning to find Sebastian and Thorne finishing off the last of the guards. The remaining mage lay dead at Sebastian’s feet, his body wrapped in vines that had pierced him through in a dozen places. “The entrance to the tunnel should be inside the temple,” he said.

I nodded, stepping over Caine’s remains without a backward glance.

The temple had once been a grand structure, dedicated to Solandra, the goddess of light and healing. Now it was little more than a shell, its roof long gone, its walls crumbling.