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Carla cracked her whip again, but one of the knights charged toward her, his sword raised. Mid-strike, she decided to switch target, cracking her whip across the knight’s plated head. Instead of going through the knight, the whip struck solid matter with a hard, metallic thunk. When the knight reached her, it bull-rushed her with its shoulder, knocking her onto her ass.
Carla scrambled away from the ghostly knight, crab-walking backwards until she could pick herself up. By that point, another knight was heading toward her, its sword drawn. She wasn’t sure which one of them to strike, or if her whip even had any effect on them.
While she was distracted, I pulled the Ether in closely around me and lashed out at Carla with all of my might. A wave of magic that distorted the air as it raced toward her, blasting past the two knights closing in on her. Carla’s eyes widened, and as the wave hit her chest, it picked her up and hurled her several feet through the air.
She landed on her shoulders and rolled, coming to a complete stop, face down, her whip vanished.
Seeing her downed like that, defeated, vulnerable… I couldn’t help entertaining the intrusive thoughts that entered my mind. I could’ve sent those knights to finish the job, to run their swords through her and make her pay for her hand in all this.
But I couldn’t go through with it because I wasn’t like her.
I wasn’t like them.
And neither was Lucien.
Lucien.
I turned to look at him just in time to catch him crossing blades with his father. Both men were entwined in a fight at close quarters, their phantom blades cracking as they met each other, their cloaks billowing. All it took was one look, though, to know that Mason was winning.
His sword was more powerful, he had quicker reflexes, and whatever damage Lucien was doing to him was healing almost instantly. I couldn’t tell whether Mason was simply that strong, or if the crown was empowering his abilities. Either way, Lucien didn’t look like he was going to last another few moments in this fight, and Mason had just knocked him on his ass.
I did the only thing I could do—I turned my knights on Mason.
The three ethereal creatures charged. When Mason spotted the first one coming toward him, he turned, bringing his sword down in a lethal arc that sliced through the knight as if it was made of smoke. The knight instantly evaporated.
The second knight didn’t fare much better, meeting the same fate only a few short moments later. I only had one left, and Mason was making short work of them.
“This is your best, Ethera?” he asked. “This is all you have to throw at me? You’re even more pathetic than your parents were.”
“My parents weren’t pathetic!” I screamed. “You murdered them in cold blood because they were better than you, and so are we.”
“You and Lucien? Look at him—he can barely get himself off the floor.”
“You’re forgetting about me,” said Max, and with a groan, he shoved the large display cabinet housing the Codex Magica.
The treaty itself was written on parchment paper, but it was sitting inside of a protective casing that wasn’t just solid in here, it was also magical. Mason turned around just as the cabinet fell, striking him on the shoulder and making him stagger and stumble toward me.
Seeing that he hadn’t quite fallen, I took a few steps back, trying to keep distance between us. Somehow, he managed to find some kind of footing, and he used his momentum to come speeding toward me, his sword aimed directly at me.
The red glow in Mason’s eyes was murderous, the shimmer of his blade empowered by the crown on his head, but just before he reached me, Lucien stepped between us. I heard the blade go through him, saw Lucien’s cape flutter, and then there was silence.
“Lucien!” I screamed, but my voice became instantly drowned out by the demonic shrieking that issued out from in front of me.
I had to cover my ears again, to shield them from the sound. It was discordant, painful to listen to, as if the sound itself were trying to dig into my brain through my skull. This time, I didn’t close my eyes, and what I saw happening in front of made me lose my breath.
Shadows were spilling out Lucien, wisps of dark smoke billowing up and away from him and encircling the room. Mason backed up, his sword by his side, his eyes wide. He was watching the dark figures as they swirled around and around the place like huge, black snakes.
Lucien then tossed the Infernal Engine aside. When it landed on the ground, I saw the hole Mason’s sword had made in the puzzle box when he had run it through. That was where the demons were coming from.
“What is this?!” Mason yelled.
“You’ve destroyed it,” Lucien said.
“How could I have destroyed it? That’s impossible!”
“You wanted power. You wanted that crown. This is what your power got you.”
Mason’s eyes darkened. “Control them, then,” he yelled. “Do it, now!”
