Page 177

It made Cedric’s skin crawl, nonetheless.

“Sunbringer,” said Malakar, a smile creeping over his face. “How good of you to join us.” He hovered above the Line now, untethered from the ground, floating with no wings.

Cedric scoffed. “Did you expect I would not? You deserve to die a hundred burning deaths for the destruction you’ve wrought today. And then a hundred more for everything you did to her.”

Malakar’s shoulders rose and fell in some bastardized version of a shrug. “Progress requires sacrifice. Those whose lives were lost today will have helped forge a better future for all Arcanis. We receive their gratitude gladly.”

“No one is offering you thanks,” Elyria snarled.

The smug expression on Malakar’s face fell. “They will.”

Cedric took a single step closer to the Line. “You will not live long enough to find out either way.”

“And what makes you think you can destroy a god, little king?” Malakar’s black gaze locked on the twin crowns atop Cedric’s and Elyria’s heads. “Once, we craved that power you wear too. No longer.” He lifted a hand, dragging his pointer finger through the air. When he dropped it, light stained the space in front of him in the shape of an eight-pointed star. Malakar swiveled his wrist, curling fingers in toward his palm, and the star shimmered—solidifying, curving.

The dark sorcerer plucked a shining silver crown from the air and set it upon his own head. “Look at us,” he hissed. “We can create a thousand Crowns of Concord. We can do anything. We will take what we want—from this place, from the celestials, from the world entire.”

“You took my wife.” Cedric’s voice shook with barely restrained wrath. Glowing orange-red color crept along Ashrender’s length, the sunfyre blazing in his palm as hot as any forge. “You made her bleed.”

“A sanguine, ad sanguinem,” Malakar said. “From blood, to blood. It all comes back to me in the end. Your grandparents knew this. It is time you learned the same lesson.”

Cedric and Elyria both dove to opposite sides as Malakar soared toward them, raw power pulsing off his celestial body. Tendrils of magic poured from his palms, lashing at them both simultaneously. Elyria tore into the air with a pump of her majestic wings. Wasting no time, she called the shattered pieces of the obsidian platform to her, then sent the shards careening toward the dark sorcerer. Blue-green light streamed from the gashes the sharp stones cut into Malakar, and he hissed his displeasure.

His attention diverted to her, both he and his power shot into the air in pursuit.

Elyria flew.

Staff still gripped in hand, she used her wild magic to tear chunks of rock from the walls, the floor. She captured the ones calmly floating in the ether above the Line and threw them all at Malakar as he chased her down.

Cedric watched helplessly from the ground as Malakar deflected half of them with a flick of his wrist and avoided the rest with a step through the air. And when he emerged from the shadows a third, fourth, fifth time, laughing—a dark, grating sound—Cedric realized the dark sorcerer was simply toying with Elyria.

Eventually, though, he got tired of playing.

Malakar’s power swelled, surging ahead of him, cutting Elyria off. It wasn’t like ribbons that wrapped around her, capturing and restricting. It was a hollowness, a light-spun void. It sucked Elyria in, dragging her down, pulling her toward him.

And no matter how hard she beat her wings against it, she drew ever nearer.

Elyria cursed, wielding her staff like a bat, trying to beat back his power. It did nothing. She was only feet from him now. And when Malakar reached a hand out, his starry fingers twitching as though aching to grab her, Cedric’s furnace burst open.

Sunfyre erupted from him as he braced himself, leaned back, and launched a flaming Ashrender at the mad celestial sorcerer.

It soared through the air, the blade red-hot, and Malakar roared when it lanced his gut.

White-gold fire danced from the place where sword met flesh, catching his celestial robe on fire.

And the makeshift star god fell to the ground in a blazing heap.

Silence descended upon the cavern. Even the roiling mana of the Line seemed to settle and calm. Elyria fluttered back down, eyes pinned to Malakar, splayed on his side, Ashrender’s hilt sticking out from his front, the sharp blade jutting out of his back.

It was too easy.

It was too easy.

Because just as quickly as Cedric’s sunfyre had washed over Malakar’s body, it snuffed out.

Cedric and Elyria gaped—tense, disbelieving—as Malakar stood up, then looked down. Despairing incredulity bounced down the bond between them as the dark sorcerer curled a midnight hand around Ashrender’s hilt . . .

. . . and withdrew it from his body with a squelch.