Black Oak. But instead of throwing the ashes onto its textured trunk and reciting the Dominion Blessing, Lukas drops the bag to the ground, yanks me around, and grabs hold of my arm as he clamps his mouth down on mine. My feet skid against the forest floor as he presses me against the tree’s rough trunk, and the tree’s essence recoils violently from us.
I whimper dramatically and pretend to fight Lukas, but he holds on tight, “forcing” his mouth onto mine as he reinforces my internal shield and draws hard on my power.
I mock struggle against him, finally wrenching myself free. “Stop!” I plead with a beseeching look toward our guards who stand in an arcing row nearby. Predictably, they turn away, clearly both surprised and uncomfortable. And somewhat amused.
Lukas’s hold on me tightens, his face twisting into an intimidating snarl. “You don’t tell me to stop. You are my fastmate. Shall I take the lash to you like I did last night?”
I’m trembling, and it’s good. Even though the trembling is from nerves set alight because I know what we’re about to attempt.
“You listen to me,” Lukas snarls as he leans toward my ear and surreptitiously reaches for his wand. He leans in closer, whispering spell after spell after spell after spell too low for the guards to hear, flooding his lines with both his magic and mine.
Then Lukas pushes me roughly aside, whirls around, and throws his wand arm out in a sweeping arc.
Dense vines shoot from his wand’s tip in a fusillade of spears, raying out to impale every guard straight through their heads before they have a chance to raise their wands.
The guards fall to the ground in heavy thumps, but one manages a sharp, rasping cry that I know will carry.
Lukas and I exchange one fiercely determined look as I scuttle around the tree to retrieve the sturdy boots that Lukas had Thierren leave there for me. I cast off my flimsy shoes and pull on the boots.
Lukas grabs my hand, and we set off at a fast clip through the woods.
A male voice booms out from the direction of the estate. “That way!”
Fear slices through me as Lukas and I sprint up a rocky incline, rapidly gaining a higher vantage point as we crest a wooded hill. A clearing just beyond two sizable boulders allows us a sweeping view of the gardens below.
A large number of Level Five Mages are running toward the spot where we entered the wilds, wands raised, several more leaping astride broken dragons and rapidly tracking us.
Fear crests inside me. “Lukas—there’re too many of them. We don’t have enough of a lead to—”
A huge explosion booms and rocks the world into nothing but a flash of blinding blue light.
Lukas throws his body over mine protectively, pressing us both onto the ground, a dark negative of the blast spotting my vision. My heartbeat slams against my ribs as no new blast sounds and we rise and look out over the scene.
The entire estate and its surrounding grounds churn with bright sapphire flames. Dragons shriek. Soldiers scream as vivid blue flames and indigo smoke rise high into the air.
I tense and gasp, not believing what I see next. Close to twenty black-clad Vu Trin soldiers stream in around the inferno, storming the estate from its eastern side, hurling stars and picking off soldiers and broken dragons with streaks of blue rune fire and whirring rune weapons.
Through the dark blue smoke, I catch a glimpse of a Mage soldier throwing out a hard jet of water from his wand. It knocks two Vu Trin down just as the Vu Trin soldier advancing behind him throws a glinting silver star that slices straight into his neck. She darts forward and slashes his back with a sword at the same time that he’s hit by a barrage of silver stars from his opposite side. The Mage arcs back and falls to the ground in an explosion of sapphire fire.
A ferocious roar sounds above, and I jerk my head up as six sapphire Noi dragons pierce the storm clouds like arrows aimed at the estate, jets of golden fire spearing down to take out the remaining soldiers and dragons.
I gape at the roaring inferno, astounded. Vu Trin soldiers at the explosion’s periphery shout to each other in the Noi language as their sapphire dragons circle and land.
They’re all dead, I dazedly realize.
Vogel.
Most of the Mage Council.
Aunt Vyvian.
Lukas’s entire family.
Gone. They’re all gone. Everyone who attended