Together they intoned the last of the protections so Anatolie couldn’t cause Blue any more pain.
I send you back from whence you have come,
Never to cross over or shadows become.
Blue shook his head repeatedly, the red beginning to fade from his eyes.
Belle lifted her head and screamed in agony. Anatolie had done exactly what Isai had prophesized. He’d redoubled his efforts to strike at the female, forcing her to comply with his demands. Belle stalked Julija, trying to get around Isai, who kept turning to face the cat, making sure to keep his body between Belle and her intended victim.
Belle began to whirl about in circles, becoming more and more agitated. Discipline allowed Isai to finish the spell to place a barrier in Blue’s mind.
Scatter, dissipate, disperse, dispel,
I free you now from evil’s spell.
The moment the shield was there, he leapt into Belle’s mind and attacked Anatolie.
The cat screamed and launched herself at Isai, mostly to get through him to Julija. Isai caught her in his arms and tossed her back across the cavern. In her insubstantial form, Belle was light. She nearly hit the wall on the other side of the chamber.
Anatolie fought hard to stay in the cat, directing her back to the attack, lashing at her over and over with stabbing pains through its skull. Belle rushed them again. Blue intercepted, slamming his body into hers to drive her off her feet, giving them a few moments without distraction.
I see you, Carpathian. Anatolie used the shadow cat to speak. The voice sounded eerie and high-pitched.
“Strained,” Julija whispered. “He’s a good distance away and he’s guessing.”
“Answer him. Take the forefront. I’ll boost your energy, so it seems seamless and easy for you to communicate over such a distance.”
“It is easy,” Julija informed him with a little sniff of disdain.
Father. It is true I am mostly Carpathian, but you made me that way. You insisted on a Carpathian mother and that gave me the power of the mages and the power of the Dragonseeker. For that I must thank you.
As long as she talked to her father, he was distracted from his brutal attack on the shadow cat. That gave Isai time to study her father’s position.
You cannot defeat me, daughter. Come home and all will be forgiven.
I will be punished with pain the way you are punishing these animals for doing exactly as you programmed them to do. They found me and attacked, yet you continue to punish them.
The stabbing pain in Belle’s head eased as Anatolie considered how best to answer his daughter. He wanted her to comply, and harming the cat was clearly making her aggressive toward him.
I don’t want to hurt you or these animals. You need to come home.
Isai kept very still, studying the other man. He didn’t want to give away the fact that he was boosting Julija’s energy and that she had the capability to defeat the high mage in the battle for the cat.
Isai knew Xavier had known the threat to him came from the Carpathian people, nowhere else. He had been the one to befriend them centuries earlier and give them the foundation for their safeguard spells. He had thought to always be their benevolent master, but the Carpathians weren’t a lazy people. They’d begun to develop the spells themselves, adding to the basics Xavier had taught them. Coupled with their fighting skills and their ability and willingness to pool knowledge, Xavier had begun to fear and envy them.
Xavier’s grandson, Anatolie, perhaps his greatest masterpiece, was no different. He had created Julija to serve him. To serve the other mages. They needed Carpathian blood to keep them alive well past years of longevity. He hadn’t thought that she, with what he considered to be very diluted mage blood, would become powerful in her own right. It had to have been disturbing to him that she was born with the high mage’s mark, but he’d dismissed that as a birthmark only because it suited him. Once he realized that she had the potential to be far more powerful than he was, Anatolie was bound to do everything in his abilities to either get her back or kill her.
You know what will happen if I come home. Crina hates me. She makes my life a living hell. She left me locked up for over a week with nothing to eat and little water to drink. You’ve seen her, and you’ve never stopped her.