Page 34 of Turncloak

A filthy Tarsan curse, designed to kill—but not in the clean, painless manner of ammorten. Halant not only wanted him dead, but wanted him to suffer, wanted him to squirm long enough to be questioned.

More shards flew in Levan’s direction, and he spun and dodged and ducked with effortless speed, grateful for the combat training Miret had instilled in him, grateful he did not rely on magic as the only source of power.

Behind Levan, the tavern wall was a hissing, perforated mess. Miret sought refuge under the table and threw up a shield, a fundamental pacifist even when his kin was in peril.

“Siv ammovra,” Halant snapped, impatient enough for the cleanest killing curse now.

Levan lifted a squat table by the legs, using its top to absorb the curse before tossing it to one side. “Sen vertigloran.”

As he cast the fresh magic, the enchanted hold on Çernasti dropped. But instead of a disorientation curse, Levan’s wand spat out a stream of colored light, spiraling and squealing through the air like a firework.

Magic was taunting him.

Behind the bar, Çernasti muttered a slew of incantations. A coil of blackened rope dropped from the rank ceiling, hanging like a levitating serpent as Çernasti looked between Halant and Levan—as though deciding who to lasso.

In the moment of hesitation, Halant seemed to realize none of this was worth the hassle and lifted his needle-sharp wand to his mouth.

“Pivar—”

The necromancer was about to portari back to Nomaden.

Hells, how was he powerful enough for two thousand-mile trips and a resurrection within a quarter hour without replenishment?

Levan charged like a bull, lowering his head and slamming into the taller mage’s ribs. Halant, willowy as he was, crumpled beneath the sheer force of it. The cinnabar wand clattered across the sticky floor. Levan wrestled and wrangled the other mage’s thrashing limbs until he was straddling him in a way Harrow might envy.

Pointing his wand at Halant’s throat, Levan had no idea what to do. Perhaps he might still be able to compel.

“You’re coming with me,” he said lowly. “Do you understand?”

Nod your head.

Halant instead began to hum the national anthem of Laudon, making flatulent noises every third syllable.

The riding crop of dread really struck Levan then. He was supposed to be the most powerful mage in the Bloodmoons, in Atherin entire.

Halant twisted suddenly, reaching for his cinnabar wand. His fingertips almost grazed it when a scuffed brown leather boot stamped down on his wrist.

Miret bent to retrieve the necromancer’s wand, tucking it behind his brown belt with a disapproving sigh. “What now, Levan?”

All at once, the Disciples broke into a sprint, aiming straight for Levan as though to topple him from their deity, to prove their loyalty once and for all.

Gritting his jaw and hoping for the best, Levan grabbed Miret by the bony ankle and muttered, “Portari, Rezaran crypt.”

The tavern winked out around them, folding itself into a canvas of blinding white, a swooping in the stomach, a rush in the head, and then they were elsewhere.

Elsewhere—but not the designated crypt.

They arrived in the alley where Levan and Saffron had met for the first time, where she’d found him repeatedly severing and reattaching the hand of an innocent Brewer, where he’d caught sight of her white-blond curls and known that she was the mage Harrow’s prophecy had foreseen. Where his world had rearranged itself in a single moment.

Levan and Halant landed awkwardly, the former still straddling the latter but at an odd angle, giving the necromancer purchase to roll free. Halant lunged for Miret, who still had his cinnabar wand. Levan knocked out the necromancer with a sharp right hook to the temple, and Halant crumpled to the cobbled ground.

Miret sighed a long-suffering sigh. “You have a rather fluid interpretation of no unnecessary bloodshed.”

At this, Levan bristled. Everything about this night was gritty, wrong, like sand beneath his skin. “I don’t take orders from you, Miret.”

Miret, who had never been wounded by something so trivial as a harsh tone, simply smiled. “Yet you care what I think. And I’d like it to be known that I do not approve.”

Levan fought the urge to scowl like a sullen youth.