Kael thrust fire at her face again. Cyrene ducked it and rolled instead of forcing the water to put it out. Creator, this was horrible.
“Again! Use your powers. Use your anger.” He strode toward her.
He offered her his hand. She brushed it aside and stood on her own.
“I am trying.”
“Don’t try,” he growled, getting into her face. “Just do it. Just beat me. You aren’t letting go.”
She glared at him. “I can beat you.”
“I don’t think that you can.”
“This isn’t how we train, Kael. I’m starving. And I feel exhausted. I could sleep for days.”
“There’s another way.”
She turned her face away from his. Ignored the pull at the pit of her stomach that linked them. She felt his palm press against hers.
“Let’s do this together.”
* * *
Malysa stood over her.
She was nothing but spirit clad in a black cloak.
She pressed a gold coin into Cyrene’s hand.
“Come to me.”
* * *
Her body convulsed on the table.
Bled dry.
Nothing but pain and pain and pain.
Her bones cracking. Her magic empty. Her heart racing away ahead of her.
“Hold her down!”
“I am holding her down. She has inhuman strength.”
“Give her another dose.”
Magic infused her bones.
It disappeared like water in a leaky bottom boat.
Burning.
More, more, more.
Sweet oblivion.
* * *
Cyrene awoke from her own memories with a gasp.
“Sarielle.”
Blood magic, the dragon responded.
“Get me back to the mountain.”
41
The Blood Magic
Cyrene strode back into the Black Mountain with the weight of the last couple of weeks falling off of her shoulders. Seeing her past life had surprisingly been a balm. How young and carefree she’d been. How reckless. How very much she had grown and changed since then. She was stronger. She could handle this.
Orden was the only one awake when they got back. He was guarding Ahlvie so that Dean could sleep. Though she didn’t know what he would do if Ahlvie shifted. “You look…better.”
“I feel better.”
“You figured something out?”
“I think so.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “I am sorry about Birdie.”
Orden nodded. “There was nothing we could have done. And…she must have known the danger she was in and did it anyway. She’d been saying for weeks that her time was up. But I’d just thought she was being eccentric.”
Cyrene considered that. “Then, she is a martyr, and I want to ensure her death was not for nothing.”
“Thank you.”
“Go get Dean for me. And then, we’ll begin.”
Orden loped off toward the room Dean had commandeered in the days that he had been here.
She toed Ahlvie’s side.
He sprang awake with bared teeth. Then he seemed to come back to himself. He took a step backward. “Sorry about that.”
“Instincts.” She reached for his hand. “I want you to know that I’m sorry that I allowed Sonali to experiment on you. And that Malysa had you for so long. I wish that I’d had a solution earlier.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“No, but I take responsibility. Now, I want to fix it.”
Dean appeared a few minutes later with a giant yawn. “I’ve barely slept the last three days. Do I have to be awake?”
“I need you at my back.” She smiled at him, remembering the conversation that she’d had with Maelia in Eleysia the first time she fell in love with Dean. It brought warm feelings to her stomach.
“Then that is where I’ll be.”
Cyrene instructed Orden and Dean to hold Ahlvie down.
Ahlvie’s eyes rounded with concern. “What exactly are you going to do to me?”
“It’s best if I just try it. It might hurt. Both of us,” she warned him.
He swallowed and then nodded.
She closed her eyes and dug deep into the well of her magic. It was full, but she didn’t know how much magic this would use. The last time she had gone into her spirit magic, it had brought Malysa’s focus on them. And that was the last thing she wanted this time. Still, she reached out for the link and protection that Sarielle provided. Better to be safe.
Birdie had been half-right. Cyrene hadn’t personally done anything like this before. But she had had it done to her. She’d been in Fen for three months as they worked on keeping her alive after the blood magic. She didn’t know if this would work. It was utterly different than what she’d gone through. And the infection was deeper. But it was worth a try.
She concentrated on the center of her magic, touched her hand to the diamond at her throat, and then stepped into the core of Ahlvie. It was easy to step into his mind, to slice through the weakened barriers he had in place against invasion. Malysa had cut through most of it already. But there, when she looked, she could see the darkness. The infestation of Malysa’s influence.
And, where she saw it, she slowly fed her magic into it. At first, there was nothing. It didn’t seem to react to her magic at all. Almost like the essence of her magic just swam through the murky darkness.
Then, she pushed more and more and more.
The Ancient Ones in Fen had worked with Avoca, Matilde, and Vera every day to keep her alive. To push that blood magic out of her system as best they could. It had been a miracle.
Cyrene was more powerful than all of them combined. And she would work on Ahlvie as long as it had some impact.
Instead of just raw magic, she tried each element.
And it was fire that changed the tide.
Burning.
Just like she had felt in her memory.
She cringed away from the raw power of it. Of using fire magic against Ahlvie. At the same time, she was careful. She was using it against the darkness.
But it only took one ember to start a forest fire.
She drew in more and more energy.
The darkness had a mind of its own.
Malysa wasn’t present. It was just what she had left behind. It was what made the Indres respond to her. When she had created them, she had included this malevolence. Had forced her touch and evil on every new imprint.
And now, she was fighting back.
Touching flame to what Malysa had put her finger on.
She didn’t have to keep Ahlvie from shifting.
She didn’t have to separate him from the Indres.
She didn’t have to trap the Indres form within him.
The Indres and Ahlvie had lived in communion all his life. It hadn’t been activated until that fateful day when he killed their alpha in Aurum. But the venom had worked its way through his system. Had allowed them both to live together harmoniously.
It was only Malysa that was the problem.
The darkness didn’t need to be there. The Indres was neither good nor bad. It was dependent on who controlled the creature. And if Ahlvie was in charge, she was certain that good would win out.