Amma hesitated. Xander had abandoned each of the Sentries, twisting his original intentions—surely none of them expected to be where they were. What he actually had in store for Amma, she didn’t know, but then she remembered Damien, and none of it mattered. They could all be gobbled up by flying squirrels, she didn’t care, as long as she got him back.
Midday sun filtered into the main hall of the temple through high windows, a white glow over the sandy stones that made up the place, quartz running through and catching the light to shimmer like pink streams. So much brightness for what they’d found hidden within, but Delphine did no hiding. At the back of the room she sat up high on a wide throne, and beside her stood Damien.
Amma’s heart hitched seeing him there, eyes boring straight ahead. Like the stone carvings on the pillars lining the worship space, he remained motionless when she entered the room—not even a quirk of a brow acknowledging she was there at all—yet her own heart broke at seeing him all over again. It had barely been a day, and the ache in her chest was tremendous, staggering, frightening, but as she looked for a recognition that didn’t come, that ache was replaced with a wholly new fear that he might never be the person she knew again, the one she’d grown to love.
“Xander, what an unwelcome surprise,” Delphine called, voice carrying joyfully over the collection of furniture surrounding a brazier in the hall’s center. “Oh, and you brought that little harlot.” Who did she think she was, Kaz?
Amma unsheathed her dagger, holding it so tightly the hilt bit into her hand, the urge to scream, to sprint across the temple and strike out like that idiot Barrett so strong she almost couldn’t hold back. But Xander had told her that scheming was twice as important as striking, and he’d managed to stay alive this long despite being very murderable. She scanned the room’s narrow length, its corners and crevasses, the stone pillars that climbed up to the ceiling along the walls, Delphine’s throne, and the divot before it meant to protect her. It was a long way to go before she could sink her blade in, but it would be done.
“Delphie, doll, darling, dear,”—Xander’s smile was so sharp, his canines bit at his bottom lip—“howhaveyou been?”
“Great,” she said flatly. “But you’re not here for pleasantries, or you would have sent a viper first.”
Behind them, Pippa groaned, and the priestess began to shuffle up to her feet. “Wretched evil…” she moaned out.
“Don’t interrupt!” Delphine flicked a hand, blackness pulsing around it, and Pippa fell into another heap of convulsions covered in a painful-looking arcana.
“Well, I haven’t come on a social call exactly.” Xander clasped his hands behind his back and sauntered deeper into the hall, pausing at the couch. “Is this salamander leather?”
“Draekin actually.” Her eyes were sharp, darting from Xander to Amma, but letting him come closer. “If you and Damien have gotten into another tiff, it’ll have to wait. Come back later and get killed then, why don’t you?”
“I don’t intend to do that at all.” Xander pulled his hands out from behind him, and a vast cloud of smoke billowed out from his blood-smeared palms, the temple plunged into obscurity.
Quaz’s eyes blinked into light, and Amma darted toward one of the many columns lining the room, behind them a corridor that ran its length. Cover wouldn’t be full, but it would be enough to be lost by Delphine for the moment. The emerald glowof Quaz’s eyes reflected off the wall of clouds, guiding Amma to the first pillar of stone where she ducked behind it. Her heart pounded, a sound like thunder rumbling through the temple as there was a flash of blinding light, but the darkness remained, and Amma slipped herself around the column and shot over to the next and the next, sprinting closer to Delphine and to Damien.
The haziness began to fade then, and Amma gave Quaz’s head a tap, flattening herself against a column. Unable to see, but hopefully hidden, she stared hard at the marble wall ahead of her and willed her breathing to quiet so she could listen.
“Darling,” Delphine was saying, “take out the trash, will you?”
Amma heard the familiar sound of Damien’s dagger leaving his bracer, and she gripped her own that much tighter. She worked up the courage and leaned around the pillar to see him striding away from Delphine as he casually cut into his palm, none of that overly-confident smirking he normally did when intending to run someone through. The crimson sword he rarely called up formed in his hand in place of the dagger, arcana swirling and solidifying around it, but there was no flicker of acknowledgment that he was striding toward Xander, his nemesis. No joy, no trepidation even, just the heartless carrying out of an order to attack. Delphine, however, looked absolutely delighted in her seat.
Xander tipped his head, rolled his shoulders, and collected another pool of blood. A weapon formed in his hand, but unlike mimicking metal, a long tendril snaked down to the ground, and he took a low stance.
Of course it was a whip. Amma rolled her eyes and pulled back behind the column. There were three more lining the wall in the direction of Delphine’s chair, but running across the open space between them would reveal her, and Xander had told herto keep herself hidden until she was close enough to get right up on Delphine and attack, so she took a breath and waited.
There was a crack out in the temple and the sizzle of arcana against arcana. Amma gasped, peeking out again to see the blood mages falling into combat. Xander had struck out with the whip’s length and Damien had apparently done little to avoid it, grunting and rolling a shoulder, but continuing forward. Xander looked quite pleased.
Damien struck out then, and the grin was wiped off of Xander’s face just as quickly. He went to dodge, but a shadow appeared at his back and boxed him in. Pressing his willowy body into the haze, the sword slashed, cutting down his arm and spilling more blood than Xander was probably ever used to losing, planned or otherwise.
With a hiss, he ducked under Damien’s arm and away from the shadow, putting space between the two. Scarlet spread out on his white coat and splattered as he went, but as it hit the temple floor, it crackled and blossomed into a new haze, more shadows filling the whole of the temple as he laughed.
Xander hadn’t forgotten Amma, it seemed, giving her more cover, and she darted to the next pillar unseen. The shadows were doused quickly though, and Amma barely made it before sunlight broke through again.
“Stop that,” Delphine called. “I want to watch.”
The only thing she and the woman had in common besides their taste in men, Amma thought, glancing around the pillar to watch from a slightly different angle. Damien should have been angry, he should have beenanything, but his eyes were dead.
He raised his crimson blade again, but Xander struck out with the whip. Focused only on his attack, Damien did nothing to block it, and the whip wrapped around his neck. He slashed at the tether, but magic sparked at the weapons’ meeting and neither yielded. Xander yanked on the whip, wrapping excessaround his forearm and knocking Damien off balance. Self-preservation finally won out, and the sword clattered away before vanishing as he brought hands to the cord around his throat, the blue veins filled with Delphine’s control of him pulsing.
By Sestoth, Xander, don’t kill him, Amma thought, watching Damien be pulled right up against the other blood mage. With a last yank, Xander flung his elbow forward and cracked Damien across the face, the sound making Amma inhale so sharply that Xander’s eyes flicked right to her.
Xander’s mouth moved, holding Damien right up against him, whispering in his ear. It could have been Chthonic or Key, Amma couldn’t tell, but there was the slightest narrowing of Damien’s eyes, and his hands came away from his neck.
The whip went lax at his throat, and Xander grinned. He opened his mouth to speak, but then Damien hauled his fist right into Xander’s face, knocking him to the ground. Amma had no doubt, whatever he said, the punch was absolutely deserved. From his spot on the ground, Xander swept his blood-soaked arm over the stone floor. Crimson crawled away from him, and a dozen shadow imps popped up into life.
Like a finger running up Amma’s spine, a feathery touch made her whirl around, but no one was behind her. A deep dread ran through her veins as her heart was chased up into her throat.
That had been Delphine’s magic prodding at Amma’s back, and though it hadn’t been able to compel her, she’d been discovered. Amma was meant to be closer before attacking, she knew that. She glanced to her right, noting Pippa far back at the temple’s entrance still being tortured under arcana. To her left there were two more columns to hide behind, impossible to reach without being seen, thorny brambles twisting down one of them from the windows above making it doubly dangerous.
