The shrieking stops. I blink as Sophos steps closer, confused as a new sound fills my ears. Music—calm and soothing.
Get up, Ana.It sounds like Leon’s voice, but it’s too close. Like he’s speaking right inside my ear.
Get up and fight.
I leap to my feet, the music still playing in my ears, and reach inward.
A golden glow shimmers at my fingertips. Sophos stops advancing, looking wary, and I feel the fizz of his magic trying to crawl into my ears and deafen me. But the music only gets louder, blocking his attempts.
Heat boils through my veins as I let my rage overwhelm me.
“If you love the gods so much,” I say to Sophos, “say hello to their power.”
I release a searing beam of sunlight from my palm.
Sophos gasps something—a holy oath, maybe—as he throws up his sword to block the beam. It melts the metal right down to the hilt, the handle glowing so hot he throws it down with a yelp. He turns and runs from the platform, but I send my magic burning after him. It hits him just as he jumps from the steps, catching him in the shoulder.
He releases a strangled scream as he falls, slamming against the ground. Then he’s still.
“Help!”
The Holms family, some of the few villagers left in the square, are cornered against the sanctuary wall by one of the cleavers. Una is standing between the soldier and her children, and I can see Hale trying to summon magic, but he’s exhausted his power.
My heart thunders in my chest, and I lift my hand, wondering if I can kill the cleaver from here without harming my friends. Then a black blur vaults over the platform toward them. At the sound of footsteps, the cleaver spins, only to be impaled on the end of a blade.
Leon kicks the body away as it falls, and I almost fall over myself, relief flooding through me.
“I think that’s about all of them,” he says.
I blink, not sure I understand him. That can’t be it.
Yet from where I stand, in a sea of corpses, I realize that no one from the Temple is left alive.
Except there’s someone missing.
I search for the purple robes, which should be clear as day even among the scattered bodies. But I can’t find them. I move to the far edge of the platform, jumping down to the spot where IknowI saw Sophos fall.
He’s gone.
Chapter31
Morgana
The prisoners’ families have already started returning to the square, searching for their dead around the blood-soaked platform. I can’t bear to watch as a mother cradles the limp body of her son, Liam, a boy I once played with in the fields around the village. I want to go to her, to tell her how sorry I am that I couldn’t save him, but my legs don’t seem to work.
In fact,nothingseems to work. I waver, my muscles sagging under me, until a strong hand takes my arm and leads me away from the platform.
“Ana,” he says. His familiar smell helps bring me back to myself, and I look up into Leon’s eyes, letting them ground me. “You need to hide your face now,” he says, gently tugging my hood back up.
“He got away, Leon,” I say, still dazed. “Sophos, he’s gone.”
“I know,” he says gently. He doesn’t say “I told you so” or remind me that he warned me against using my power for precisely this reason. Instead, he brushes my hair back under my hood, examining me. “You’re going to be okay, Ana.”
“I heard your voice,” I say. “In my head, with the music. How did you do that?”
“That would be Hyllus,” Leon says. “You were too close to Sophos for me to risk breaking up the earth under the platform—you could’ve gotten hurt. But when I saw Sophos using his aesteri power, I asked Hyllus to counteract it with his sensic magic. He can make people hear things that aren’t there, and I knew he was strong enough to block Sophos out. I might have also suggested he give you a little motivation while he was at it.”
I look around, searching for the rest of the unit.
