Blood spurt, and Archibald’s littlest finger was severed cleanly, arcing through the air and landing on the carpet. Pippa’s seemingly natural reaction was to heal, moving toward the cleaved flesh, but the nearest gator-bear was quicker and gobbled it up.
“Now,” began Xander, brandishing the bloodied weapon, “you’re going to—”
The King of Eiren let out a chamber-rattling scream. Trapped there in the chair, hand suspended, he could only stare and screech, the stub leftover still spurting blood with every frantic pump of the man’s heart.
“Really, Archie,” Xander groaned over the wailing, covering his ears, blade still in hand. “It’s justone, little finger.”
Kill them both, It said, and Damien almost agreed, head pounding with the man’s guttural cries.
“Darkness!” Xander flicked a wrist, and the shadows contained the fresh wound, pulling the arm back down andaway, and another tendril slapped over the king’s mouth. “Clearly, you didn’t like that, so I’ll keep taking them until you comply.”
The king’s screams were muffled under the shadow, but Damien couldn’t deal with another outburst. “He needs his hands to cast.”
Incensed, Xander pressed his lips together and looked as though he wanted to yell, but knew he was right. “Fine, I’ll take something else.”
“No.” Damien strode over to them, breathing heavily. “Even divine mages die from blood loss, and we need this one alive.”
“This one.” Xander’s face went truly wicked, and he clamped a hand down on the king, pressing his forehead to Archibald’s. “But he’s told us he has a son somewhere in the keep. We’ll have him found, brought here, and—”
“Xander, that’senough.” Damien felt ill, and not just from the persistent gnawing at his innards.
The blood mage’s fingers twisted into Archibald’s coat then shoved him back. “Fine, thenyoumake him. That’s the whole point of that thing in you, isn’t it? Limitless power?”
Pain ran through Damien and then was stifled once again. No, that was not Its point. What Xander didn’t understand, and what Damien knew too intimately, was that E’nloc couldn’tmakeanyone do anything. It wasn’t enthrallment magic, it wasn’t illusions or fire or anything else. It was destruction and destruction only. It tore at the planes, destroying them, It ensnared and consumed the descendants, destroying them, and It was eating away at Damien from the inside, destroying him.
Damien gestured with his head for Xander to step away. He took up the space before the king, Xander’s shadows removing themselves from his mouth, and thankfully he had gone quiet. Pale and distressed, Archibald sobbed, and Damien placed a hand on his shoulder.
At his side, Xander reached out and grabbed Pippa, dragging her close to him in his excitement and forcing the terrified priestess to watch. “This is going to be so good,” he whispered.
“Archibald,” Damien grunted, meeting the man’s eyes, “would you please consider releasing my father, Zagadoth the Tempestuous, from his occlusion crystal?”
The king sniffled, his brow pinched, and then shook his head.
Damien tipped his head slightly. “But…please?”
Archibald’s horrified eyes went narrow. “No?”
Damien clicked his tongue, straightened, and crossed his arms. “Well, that didn’t work.”
“Are you fuckingkiddingme?” Xander threw his hands up so fast that Pippa collapsed to the ground in fear. The blood mage ignored her. “All the power in this and every other plane, and you ask?Nicely?”
“It was worth an attempt.”
“Well, I bloody suppose so. Now do the real thing.”
Damien chewed the inside of his mouth. There was no real thing. Not unless E’nloc took him over entirely, and then he would do the only real thing that could be done and destroy. Damien could drag in the king’s most prized possessions, his closest companions, his family, and destroy them all one by one, but Archibald may never give in—he loved himself, and perhaps the realm, or at least his status in it, more than all of that. And all that destruction seemed awfully distasteful.
We should do it anyway.
“If it’s what you want, it can’t be bloody good,” Damien mumbled.
“What was that, Bloodthorne?”
“Nothing.” Damien took Archibald’s wounded arm, freeing it of Xander’s shadows. Not caring if he caused pain, he smeared the man’s blood on his own hand and stomped over to Zagadoth’s crystal, pressing a bloody print to the gem andpumping in noxscura behind it. The occlusion crystal pulsed and glowed, but nothing more happened. Damien swore under his breath and went back.
“Maybe we need more.” Xander eagerly spun the dagger he’d commandeered around in his palm.
“No, he’s not a blood mage. Priestess, do you have anything?”
