Prisoner (The Scarred Mage of Roseward #2) - Sylvia Mercedes Page 0,109

the folds of his robe together at her throat and looked up into Soran’s eyes.

“What can we do?” she said. “What can we do? We’ve got to stop her!”

Soran looked into her face but hardly saw her now. Red flashes burst on the edges of his vision.

That dress . . . Like something a brothel worker would wear.

It was Kyriakos’s doing.

She didn’t have to tell him. He knew what had been done to her. How she had been used.

He raised his gaze to Ninthalor just as another of the high walls crumbled and fell under the Thorn Maiden’s assault. Good. Let it fall. Let it all fall to the ground and bury the denizens in a ruinous tomb.

“Soran!” Nelle’s fingers dug into his arm. When he didn’t turn, she caught his face, yanking it down, forcing him to look at her. “You’ve got to stop this! You’ve got to!”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t. Not after . . . what he’s done . . .” His heart was a hot, seething stone in his breast.

She blinked up at him, her face deathly pale behind the grime and streaks of blood. Slowly her eyes rounded in growing horror, as though she watched him transform into something ravenous and hideous right there in front of her. But that was also good. Let her see him for what he truly was, once and for all.

Let her see the beast. The monster.

“I escaped.” Nelle shook her head, her mouth hardening, her teeth flashing. “I escaped! Do you hear me? Someone helped me get out before . . . before anything happened. Someone who’s still up there, Soran! Someone who needs your help.”

Her words rolled over him, unable to penetrate the hardness of his mind or the burning of his heart. He shook his head and began to turn, prepared to lead the way back to the waiting boat, to leave the Thorn Maiden to her pleasures.

But Nelle released his arm. “Bullspitting hell! Mage Silveri, if you don’t do something, so help me, I’ll do it myself!”

He looked sharply down at her in time to see her pull her satchel around from her back where it hung beneath the folds of his robe. She flipped it open and drew out her own blank spellbook and quill. Her eyes flashed to meet his for just an instant before she turned, opened the book, and faced Ninthalor. She hesitated, her quill poised over the empty page.

She didn’t know what she was doing. She didn’t have the first idea how to bind a Noswraith. And yet . . .

And yet there was something brimming in her spirit, some force to be reckoned with. That ibrildian magic, so uncanny, so unnatural. So undeniable.

She couldn’t succeed. But in her failure she might accomplish more than many a powerful Miphato ever managed in all his lifetime.

Soran reached out, caught hold of her wrist. She jerked away with a snarl, staggered away from him, and made as though to begin again. “Miss Beck,” he said sharply. “Stop. You may cause more harm than help.” She looked round at him, her expression fierce, and he sighed. “I will do it. I will bind her.”

“Do it then,” Nelle growled, her voice hard, her breathing labored.

Soran nodded and drew the Rose Book from his robes. He saw her eyes fasten on the book with an intensity of interest he didn’t fully understand. Perhaps she sensed the magic pulsing through that fragile binding.

He undid the straps and opened the book to the first page. The magic of the Noswraith spell flared out at him, ready to melt the skin from his face. The book was already strained. Could it withstand the pressure if he read the spell again so soon? For that matter, could he endure it? Every night he labored long to reassert the binding on the Thorn Maiden before she escaped. Every night it was a battle he wasn’t sure he could win.

But now she was free. Manifest and physical. And he? Weakness rippled through his exhausted body. He’d pushed his limits already beyond anything he’d believed possible.

And what of Nelle? She was protected at the moment, for as he’d read the unleashing, he’d woven in a command for her preservation. But if he failed now . . .

He wouldn’t fail. He couldn’t.

Aware of Nelle’s eyes fixed on his face, Soran began to read the spell. Silently this time, and with different emphasis. The same spell, channeled to new purpose. Magic blazed from