Prisoner (The Scarred Mage of Roseward #2) - Sylvia Mercedes Page 0,110

the page and poured into his mind, poured out from his soul. He sent it racing, scorching through the quinsatra up to Ninthalor’s ruined walls, and his awareness went with it.

He saw the Thorn Maiden amid her hellish work, glorying in gory delights. He saw the fae and faekind throw themselves at her, hurling weapons and magic to no avail. They could not stop a living nightmare. Nothing could stop her except . . .

“Helenia,” he called out.

Even as her many arms tore into her foes and ripped into the tall buildings, the figure standing at her core paused. The womanly face and form turned, the gaping holes where her eyes should be, searched. And she saw him.

Well met, my love. Her voice lilted through the screams of her prey, bright and sweet as birdsong. Have you come to stop me already? But I’ve only just begun!

“You’ve done enough, Helenia,” Soran said. He saw himself standing in the ruinous courtyard, surrounded by death and destruction. His physical body still stood down on the road, reading the spell, but that body scarcely mattered.

The Thorn Maiden approached. While her many limbs continued to tear and destroy, she fixed him with her eyeless stare and moved with a murmuring grace of leaves and petals, her form becoming more like the Helenia he remembered with every step. She drew close enough to reach out with one thorny hand for his face, but her fingers slid right through the image, for she was physical here and he was not.

“It’s time to return,” Soran said. “Come back to me. Now.”

She smiled, her face lovely and dreadful. He saw the human face of Helenia flicker briefly across her features. I think I will not.

She lashed out at him. This time her fingers, long and branched and claw-like, streaked through both the mortal and the spiritual worlds. But Soran was prepared. Though his physical body shuddered on the verge of collapse, in spirit he sprang nimbly aside and drew from the quinsatra realm a noose of brilliant, burning magic. With a deft flick of his wrist, he sent it flying over her head, down around her neck and shoulders. Catching hold with both hands, he yanked it tight and pulled the Thorn Maiden off her feet.

She crashed to the ground. All her various limbs jolted and dropped hold of the bodies and stones and walls they’d clutched. They undulated wildly, smashing into rocks and knocking rooftops in. The Thorn Maiden twisted where she lay, her neck breaking and reforming but unable to escape that shining snare.

She snarled up at him, and her face was horribly human amid the briars. She spat rotten leaves from her tongue.

Beware, my love! she hissed. I will find you! I will find you!

Soran yanked the noose one last time, testing to make certain it was secure. Then he took a single step back . . . far back, out of that ruined yard, out of that death and destruction and gore . . .

. . . back to where his physical body stood, still reading the spellbook.

The words glowed blindingly from the page, and sweat poured down his face, through his hair. Had his hands not been coated in nilarium, he might not have been able to hold onto that pulsing volume.

A roar tore through the pulsating magic, striking his senses with a bolt of pure, almost childlike terror. Soran choked and nearly lost the flow of the spell. Hastily he caught hold and fixed it in a temporary stay. Only then did he look up from the page. Up to Ninthalor.

Up to where a writhing storm of briars poured out from the broken walls and slithered and crawled and mounded down the narrow road. Straight toward them.

“Soran?” Nelle stood beside him. Her hand clutched his arm. “She’s coming!”

He nodded. Then, keeping a finger between the pages so as not to lose his place in the book, he turned, gripped Nelle’s hand, and started to run. “Back to the boat,” he barked, dragging her along behind him. “She cannot cross running water, not in her physical form. Hurry!”

Nelle panted, and an occasional whimper burst from her throat. But she kept pace with him down to the dark shore, down to where the boat waited. Behind them the Thorn Maiden ripped into the landscape, trailing a noxious cloud of rose perfume in her wake.

Nearly falling as they approached the boat, Nelle caught its gunwale, braced herself, and helped Soran push it out into the