rolled back. The blade was coming up. The man was going to cut his head off. Everything in Kylar cried out for help.
A boom sounded somewhere below the range of human hearing, but Kylar felt it wallop his stomach like a thunder crack. His vision went blue-white with magic. He could see the magic streaming through the air as fast as an arrow, a wall of magic.
The castle itself rocked and everyone fell. Everywhere he looked, Kylar saw the same stunned looks. Roth was sprawled on the stairs, his sword still in hand, mouth wide.
Kylar suddenly felt one of the magic bonds holding him snap. He looked toward the others and saw that the magic—it looked like a storm of blue-white rain falling sideways, flying invisibly through walls and people—was spattering against the bonds, collecting around them. The bonds were as black as the wytches’ vir, and the blue magic hissed and spat wherever it touched the black.
Then the blue magic latched on to the wytches’ magic and roared up the black tendrils like wildfire climbing a hill to the wytches holding them.
Shrieks burst from three of the wytches and the bonds holding Kylar disappeared as three living blue torches lit the room. But Kylar’s eyes were drawn to himself. The ka’kari was covering him like a black skin, and everywhere the blue magic pelted him, the magic danced like a puddle in the rain, then disappeared—and the ka’kari swelled more powerful.
The Devourer ate magic, too.
Then the magical shockwave was gone.
There was the briefest silence, then Roth screamed at the wytches who hadn’t been using the vir—the two wytches in the room still alive, “Get him!” Roth plucked his sword from the stairs and swung it at Kylar’s face.
Incredibly, the wytches obeyed instantly. Bonds leapt into place around Kylar’s arms and legs. Everywhere the bonds touched Kylar, in response to his will, the ka’kari swelled, twisted through them, shifted, sucked, and devoured them.
Kylar threw himself back against the bonds even before they were completely dissolved. He burst through them with all the strength of his Talent as Roth’s sword slashed the air inches from his throat.
He tore through the shriveling bonds and flew back clumsily, his feet tearing free last, tripping him. He twisted in the air and threw a knife with his off hand.
A soldier grunted and hit the floor.
Kylar landed below the second flight of steps, flat on his back. The impact knocked the wind out of him, but even as he slid across the floor his sword was moving. Highlanders stood to the left and right of him and his sword flashed twice, cutting through boots and ankles on either side of him.
Three highlanders had fallen, but others were already attacking. Kylar flipped his feet over his head and stood, gasping but ready to fight.
64
S olon tried to climb down from the statue. King Logan Verdroekan had been one of the earliest kings of Cenaria, perhaps mythic, and Solon couldn’t remember what he’d done, for all that it must have been heroic to have Regnus Gyre name his son after him. And he must have been special to get a statue of such size, holding his sword aloft in defiance. Solon had chosen it not for its metaphoric significance but simply because he wanted every meister in the garden to see him. Every meister that had used vir within five hundred paces in the few seconds he’d been able to hold Curoch was dead.
Curoch lay on the stones beneath him. Feir was snatching it up and wrapping it in a blanket. He was shouting at Solon, but Solon couldn’t make out the words. He still felt as if he were on fire. Every vein in his body was tingling so fiercely it was hard to even feel Verdroeken’s stone sword under his fingers. Solon had perched on the dead king’s shoulders and held onto the stone sword for balance, holding Curoch aloft the same way when he’d released the magic. He shifted his grip, his legs shaking, and suddenly fell.
Feir didn’t quite catch him, but he at least broke his fall.
“I can’t walk,” Solon said. His brain was burning, his vision flaring every color in the rainbow, his scalp felt afire. “It was amazing, Feir. Such a tiny piece of what it can do . . .”
Feir grabbed him and threw him over his shoulders as a lesser man might lift a child. He said something, but Solon couldn’t quite make it out. He said it again.