Page 50

And Cedric moved.

Elyria had seen him fight before, of course. Practicing in the training yard, sparring together, fighting through the Crucible, against the cultists in Dawnspire.

She had never seen him like this.

He was fury made flesh.

Cedric was little more than a wild streak of crimson-stained sunlight, Ashrender lit with sunfyre from point to pommel. Raefe was all but forgotten as the sanguinagi turned their attention to the sun god charging into the room, aiming their scarlet bolts of magic at his heart.

Elyria didn’t even have time to feel fear. Not when the magic hissed into steam the instant it met Ashrender’s searing sweep. Sparks showered where the sword clashed with crystal weapons, shattering them in a matter of hits, then sliced across torsos, plunged into abdomens, and cut, and cut, and cut.

A cultist lunged at Cedric’s flank with a crystal spear formed in his grip—sharp, spiked.

It never even got close.

A deep orange-red burst of fire exploded across the sanguinagi’s chest, hurtling him backward. Xander, Elyria realized as her eyes followed his flight across the room, watched him crash into the back wall, then slide to the floor with unseeing eyes, the metal medallion on his chest melted.

“To your left!” Raefe barked, and dully, Elyria thought he must have woven a sliver of healing magic around his leg because he wasn’t bleeding anymore.

Cedric pivoted without looking, catching another cultist’s blood-crystal blade on Ashrender’s edge. The woman screamed as her sword shattered into glittering shards, pieces of glass tinkling against the marble floor when they fell around her feet.

She backed up, taking one look at the sunbringer before her and the flamecaller behind him, then turned on her heel and ran.

Raefe readied himself to launch after her, but he didn’t have to. Not when the sanguinagi was suddenly screaming again, not a sound of distress or disappointment like before, but one of panic and pain—of terror. She doubled over mid-stride, her body heaving, her scream shifting into a howl, barely human.

“Shit,” Cedric muttered, and Elyria wasn’t sure if she heard it aloud or in her head. She didn’t think she could hear much over the sounds of snapping bones, of those agonized howls. She watched in horror as the woman spun back around, claw-tipped hands tearing at her hair, carving lines down her face, on either side of bloody, vein-filled eyes.

“What the fuck is this?” Raefe shouted, and it was only then that she realized the same thing was happening to the remaining handful of sanguinagi, as though the shifting tide of the battle had triggered this horrifying transformation.

A quick glance up at Malakar beside her revealed the sorcerer was watching his twisted creations with fascination, delight sparking in his black eyes, and disgust pulsed through Elyria.

The beastly cultists lunged at Cedric and Raefe in a flurry of claws and teeth. Raefe clapped his hands together, then drew them apart, revealing a long rope of orange fire strung between his palms. With the flick of his wrist, the fiery whip shot out in a sweeping arc, taking the creatures’ legs out from under them. They hit the ground hard, and Ashrender followed an instant later, Cedric’s strikes clean and efficient and so, so fast as he separated head from neck—once, twice, thrice.

Raefe took care of the final cultist-turned-monster with another flick of his flaming whip, turning feral screams into whimpers and whimpers into silence.

“Hmm. Disappointing. I suppose there are always improvements to be made. I shall have to keep what I learned here in mind,” Malakar said, surveying the scene before him with a cluck of disapproval.

“Let her go,” Cedric growled, wiping black blood from Ashrender as he stood.

Blade still aloft, Cedric lurched forward . . . only to stop in his tracks as Elyria let out a hiss of pain, the shadow collar around her neck cinching ever tighter.

“Ah, ah, ah.” Malakar arched a dark brow, his black gaze piercing, assessing, calculating as it raked over Cedric. “I would be very careful about what you do next, boy.”

“It’s over. Release her, and I will make your death swift and painless.”

Elyria swallowed a scoff.

“Relatively,” Cedric added down the bond, and it took everything in Elyria not to release the choking sob trying to crawl up her throat. Or maybe it was a laugh that she was trying to push back down. She wasn’t quite sure. This entire thing—her entire life, really—just seemed so ludicrous at this point, she wasn’t sure there was anything to do but laugh. It was a clarifying thought, despite the muddiness still creeping in across her consciousness. She really must have lost a lot of blood by now.

Still, it wasn’t so much that she couldn’t muster the wherewithal to tell Cedric, “He won’t kill me. He doesn’t know what will happen to his power if he does.”

A visceral sense of relief flooded down the bond, and Elyria felt the inner corners of her eyes pricking once more. He could hear her. He could hear her.

Warm golden brown started to break through his gilded irises as Cedric continued inching toward Malakar. The rest of his face, however, betrayed nothing. “You’ve lost. Release her.”

The dark sorcerer smirked. “Have we?”

Elyria’s ears picked up the faint sounds of shouting from outside, and she drew in an unsteady breath.