AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He would have to hold all of them at once to be sure the Collector had nowhere to hide. He let his power build in the storm.
Eudias opened the clouds, and their combined magic poured down over Patria. They swept among the mortals with the wind, whispering through each mind. Wakeful humans ran for cover, casting furtive glances into the stormy darkness. Lio let their memories, dreams, and secrets scurry past him to safety while he searched their fearful corners for the taint of the Collector’s presence.
All he found were mundane nightmares. Could it really be true that the Collector had no spies at Patria?
Lio was not reassured, not yet. He churned more thelemancy into the storm. He sensed Eudias guiding the latent charge of power.
The clouds ignited. Lio’s heart arced down out of the sky on a burning path and struck deep into the ground. Lightning lit up the twilight, and for that instant, every mind for miles was illuminated by his mind magic.
That was when he saw the one mind that remained dark.
“There!” he shouted over the wind. “Did you see him?”
“Go!” Eudias called back.
With Eudias stabilizing their spell, Lio pulled his mind out of the storm and focused all his power on that single mind that was shadowed by evil.
Lio’s thelemancy spun into a void. He tasted death, and bile rose in his mouth.
He had already stepped before he realized it. He found himself atop a wooden guard tower, hovering over a fallen human.
“No. No, no.” Lio sank to his knees beside the mortal, chasing deep into the man’s mind, reaching for his fleeting life.
It was too late. The man breathed once, and his last words emerged in a voice Lio knew from all his nightmares. Deep, sophisticated, utterly in control.
“Give Cassia my greetings,” the Collector said.
“You will never touch her!”
Lio’s declaration fell on the ears of a dead man. He knelt there, staring down at the Collector’s victim. The man looked about Solia’s age. He wore Segetian colors, now darkened with rain. There was not a mark on him, except for the arcane stain of necromancy.
Lio dragged a hand over his face to wipe away tears and rain. Then he closed the man’s eyes.
Lio didn’t know this man’s name, but he knew who he was. Another mortal bystander caught up in a conflict he could not understand, who had never stood a chance of fighting back. He was just like the frightened father slaughtered in front of Lio on his first night in Tenebra. Just like the innocent man Cassia had seen sacrificed for necromancy while the king looked on.
Did this Segetian sentry have a lover waiting for his shift to end? Children asleep now, who would wake to learn he was gone?
His entire life had been cut short in an instant so the Collector could have the pleasure of taunting Lio. Threatening Cassia.
Lio became aware of Lyros’s hand on his shoulder. They shared a moment of silence, the Blood Union throbbing with their instinctive horror. Death felt wrong when you were immortal. Empathizing with death was sickening when you were a Hesperine.
“We found the Collector’s spy,” Lio finally said, “but not in time to save him.”
“I’m so sorry.” Lyros gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Cassia says, don’t you dare blame yourself.”
“He threatened her,” Lio snarled around his fangs.
Alarm filled Lyros’s aura. “The Collector spoke to you?”
“Do not tell Cassia that.” Lio rubbed his face again. “Not yet. I should tell her myself.”
They were dealing with vast, ancient, unknown magic. And the cost of how unprepared they were was this man’s life.
“Is there anything I can do for him?” Tuura called from the base of the tower.
Lio gathered the man’s body in his arms and levitated down to where Tuura waited with Karege and Eudias. “I’m afraid he’s beyond our reach, diviner.”
She ran a hand over the man’s hair as if he were a dear child. Eudias stared at the Collector’s victim and swallowed hard.
