“If you side with me, you can keep your pretty princess over there. Start a new world of Leifs.” Malysa laid out everything that Ceis’f had ever wanted. “It would be a new paradise.”
Cyrene narrowed her eyes as she stepped forward into view. “Liar.”
Malysa’s head snapped up. “Ah, there you are.”
“I’ve come to stop you.”
Malysa grinned. “I thought you might say that. But haven’t you realized yet, Domina? There is no stopping me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Cyrene said, menacingly removing Shadowbreaker. She could feel the hum of the Tendrille blade and the call of the full honeycomb. But it would have to wait until later. She would probably need it against Malysa.
“I find your resistance amusing. It only feeds my creatures. All the blood. All the suffering. All the death.” She smiled cruelly. “Once we have cleansed the world of your kind, then we will live in peace once more.”
“You don’t want peace.” Cyrene continued to move forward. “You want war. You wouldn’t even know what to do with peace. If you won here, then you would just find another world to terrorize. It would never stop here.”
“Uh, uh, uh,” Malysa said. She wagged her finger at Cyrene. “No further.”
Cyrene didn’t stop walking. She had no intention of listening to what Malysa had said. But she took one more step and ran smack dab into a barrier. It was so solid that it felt like stone, but it was completely see-through. A real work of art as far as magic was concerned.
And she could sense nothing through it. Not how powerful Malysa had grown since she saw her a few days earlier. Or what else might be on the other side. Cyrene used the energy that normally brought down a barrier, and it did nothing. She inverted the energy, as she had done on the guards. Again, nothing. She frowned. What in the Creator’s name kind of shield was this?
Malysa cackled. “And you try to claim that you are a Doma? Do you know we were taught that little number in our third year? I suppose Benetta trained you the best she could. But still, you are inadequate.”
Cyrene gritted her teeth as she worked her magic on the shield.
“And don’t worry about your little friend. She would have cried out, but I’ve silenced her for the time being. She kept trying to interfere with our fight,” Malysa said. “I couldn’t have that. So, right now, she’s a statue.”
Cyrene glanced up at Avoca and realized she hadn’t moved an inch. Not one since Cyrene had come inside. Creator! They were so outmatched. She was powerful, but Malysa was infinite. She’d had thousands of years to master her craft. Cyrene had had two. Just two.
“I’ll make a wager with you,” Malysa said, the corner of her lips curling upward. “If you can take my barrier down by the count of five, then I’ll let your friend go.”
“No,” Cyrene said. “I’m not negotiating with you.”
“One.”
Cyrene started to sweat. There was no way she could get it down in time.
“Two.”
She needed to figure it out. It was woven elements. She’d seen something like this before.
“Three.”
Less air than regular shields. No spirit though.
“More time,” she growled.
Malysa ignored her. “Four.”
Okay. Okay. Here it was. She could sense the make of it if she reached for it. She tugged on the edge of the weave.
“Five.”
The shield was down.
Cyrene stepped through. “I did it.”
Malysa smiled and released Avoca, who gasped and clutched at her throat.
“Good. You work well under pressure.” Malysa clapped her hands twice in mocking congratulations. “I do have one question for you, Cyrene. However did you stop being susceptible to blood magic? That was not a fun surprise.”
“I thought it was fun,” Cyrene said as she strode forward with Shadowbreaker at the ready. “Now, release Ceis’f and face me. Aren’t you tired of hiding?”
“Oh, I know you thought it was fun,” Malysa said, ignoring the rest of her statement. “But there are consequences to your actions.”
She took another step forward. “The great goddess of destruction, who claims to be a god straight from Domara, can’t even face a lowly half-breed.”
“You can’t bait me, Cyrene,” Malysa said. “We’re discussing the consequences of you slaying one of my Voldere and then avoiding the blood magic. Was it the diamond? You didn’t have it on you then.”
Malysa greedily looked at her neck where the diamond now hung.
“I did have it on me, but I didn’t wear it on my neck.”
“We checked you.”
“Then, perhaps that’s Merrick’s fault,” Cyrene said, tugging on the bond with Avoca to check on her.
She’d slowly gotten to her feet, and she was reaching for her ice-white blades.
“And now, you wear it openly to prove that you are not afraid of me?” Malysa asked with a laugh.
“I wear it openly because it is the heirloom of my people. It is the Domina diamond, and I am the Domina. That is who you face.”
Malysa shook her head. “That is the diamond of my people. I took it from my father in Domara, and it belongs to me.”
“Then, come and get it,” Cyrene growled.
“Uh, uh,” Malysa said with a tilt to her head. “You did it again. We got off topic. We were discussing consequences. And here is yours.”
Before Cyrene could dive forward or throw her magic or do anything to stop it, Malysa drove the Leif blade through Ceis’f’s throat. And then pushed him backward where he lay, bleeding out on the balcony floor.
“No!” Avoca shrieked.
Cyrene’s hand was raised and her jaw open. But there were no words. Nothing came out. Just horror at what she’d witnessed. She and Ceis’f had had their differences, but they had always been on the same side. He had always been fighting for the same thing she was even if he did not know it. And in the end, he had just been trying to avenge his people when he went after Malysa. There was even a cut on Malysa’s brow that had to have come from Ceis’f’s blade.
And now, he lay, drowning in his own blood.
The last Leif of Aonia.
Gone forever.
“I don’t like to be toyed with,” Malysa said. She toed Ceis’f’s twitching body. “And you toyed with me, Cyrene.”
“That is all you have done to me for two years!” Cyrene cried. “There was no reason for you to kill him. Your fight is with me.”
“He fought for you. He sided with you. Then, he was my enemy,” she said as if it were simple calculus.
“You’re a monster.”
“I should have done it long ago,” Malysa told her. She sidestepped the flow of Ceis’f’s blood. “He was always cursed to die. He told me so when I came for him and asked for him to convert the Leifs to my cause. He said that he had looked into the Mirror of Truth and seen nothing. I found that interesting. So, I let him keep his head, even after his refusal. Now, I see that his future was destined here. So that I might kill him in front of you for his insolence and yours.”
“You could have been great,” Cyrene said. She tore her eyes away from Ceis’f to stare at Malysa. Not with hate, but pity. “You have so much capacity for goodness. I’ve seen it before.”