Page 105 of Fated In Ruin
Malachi and Riordan attacked in tandem, but Romulus's magic was unlike anything I'd encountered, taking on a whitish glow, as if he was somehow mimicking Riordan’s fire. There was a gut-wrenching crack when Riordan’s wrist snapped, his grunt of pain, the sour reek of suffering.
Romulus wasn't just stronger—he was possessed, feral for our blood. Each spell he cast carried the weight of some strange, ancient magic that made my bones ache.
I looked down at the stained, cracked concrete beneath me.
Our blood. He was spilling our blood all over the floor.
“You're too late,” he laughed, deflecting Riordan's red tipped fire while simultaneously pinning Malachi to the wall, choking the life out of him. “The transformation has already begun.”
What the fuck was he talking about? What transformation?
I pushed myself up, ignoring the stabbing pain in my ribs, the way I could barely draw a breath, and spooled up every drop of power from that dark lake I could muster. The blast was off kilter, poorly aimed, but caught Romulus in the shoulder, ripping a hole through skin and muscle, staggering him enough for Blake to make a perfect throw.
Where magic had failed, steel succeeded, Romulus grunting as the blade sank in to the hilt, his power wavering, releasing Rohr and Malachi.
My magic seethed like a horde of living flame, a hungry, smothering swarm he repelled at the last possible moment, leaving a trail of blood across his arm, flesh torn down to the bone.
But not red blood.Black.
Black as my magic.
Black as Blake’s shadows.
Romulus fixed his boiling stare on me, bared his fangs like a beast of prey, an inhumane growl climbing up his throat before Malachi launched himself across the open space—twenty feet he flew—until his hands wrapped around his former friend’s throat and they both crashed to the floor.
“Stay away from her, you fuck.”
Malachi’s face was a twist of feral wrath and violence, his voice little more than a rasp, then they disappeared beneath a writhing cloud of vapor and shimmering glamour, the edges heaving violently as they battled.
“We have to find Ravok,” Riordan hissed. “We don’t have time for this bullshit.”
“Romulus might be the key to Ravok’s power,” I hissed right back. “What the fuck did he mean, before…the transformation has begun?”
“Fuck if I know.” Blake swiped at the blood streaming down the side of his face. “But we came here to finish this, so we have to keep searching.”
I circled the swirling mound of glamour and shadow, then Romulus burst out—tossed through the air like a doll, so close his clawing fingers brushed my nose on the way past. He hit the wall with a crunch of bone and I grinned.
“Feels like shit, doesn’t it, asshole?” My arm was already drawn back, the cold blade of my knife balanced between two fingers. With one deft move, the knife spun in a straight line toward Romulus’s exposed, pale throat…only to clink harmlessly off the stone wall as he vanished.
“Fucker.”
“He’s stronger than I remember, too.” Malachi’s split lip was already swelling, and he’d have a nasty black eye. “But he still fights dirty.”
“How can he and Ravok be so strong?” Blake picked up my knife and handed it back to me, hilt-first. “According to Eldric, Ravok should have taken weeks to recover from being in stasis that long.”
“No idea.” Malachi gazed thoughtfully at the frosted walls, the spilled blood, then shook his head. “But we need to find out.”
“This is a problem for later,” Riordan snapped. “Is Ravok here or not?”
A low shuffling hissed from outside, then the doorway to the warehouse filled with staggering thralls, some missing limbs, all of them rotting apart as they stumbled toward us, decaying bodies still driven by some overriding directive.
We drew together into a knot, Blake’s arm sweeping me into the center.
“No, I’m not getting any blood signature,” Malachi muttered. “I should be able to pinpoint his location, but…he’s either not here, or he’s shielded.”
“Iron?” Rohr suggested, pulling up his magic, casting a host of writhing creatures between us and the approaching thralls.
“Not enough iron in the world to smother that fucker’s power completely, or sever the blood bond. No, this is something else, or he’s thousands of miles away.”
