Deion snapped his head towards Xander as soon as he sensed the shift in his mind. He pulled the rest of the Courts closer to him, creating a tight formation in preparation to fight the Umbranimae.
“Take them down,” Norman whispered in his ear before he stepped away.
Xander threw his arms to the side, ripping apart the melted chain and ignoring the painful burn in his wrists from the cuffs. With his hands free, he unleashed his power and called upon the shadows that covered each Umbranima.
The darkness that protected the undead soldiers spasmed and distorted away from them, leaving their bodies vulnerable and open to attack. Deion let out a battle cry as he slashed across an Umbranima’s stomach with his extended claws, the rest of the Courts following his lead. They wouldn’t be able to kill them without Adriana’s magic, at least not easily, but they could weaken and disable them so their attacks would be less fatal.
Xander ran towards Adriana to free her from the pyre, her thoughts screaming out to him as she stared at the Umbranimae. He realised she had never seen them before, not in person, but the look upon her face was not of fear and instead of wonder.
As he connected with her mind, he felt her astonishment as she sensed the souls trapped within the Umbranimae’s shadows, their light peering through the darkness as he continued to pull it away from them. Xander had never been able to read the minds of any Umbranimae, but it was as if they were begging Adriana to set them free, as if they knew that only she could. Only it wasn’t their minds, for they had been left empty once they had died, but it was the souls themselves calling out to her light.
Her Luciferus magic wouldn’t just destroy the Umbranimae. It would free them.
Before he could reach her, an invisible force crashed into him, forcing him down to the ground. His body thrashed on the floor, twisting uncontrollably. He felt as if he was being torn apart from the inside, as if his bones were being crushed, as if his blood was ice cold yet on fire all at once.
Caligo’s Dolor magic, his ability to inflict pain, rendered him completely useless. Unable to keep his grip on the shadows, he felt his magic snap back. The Umbranimae’s dark armour spread across their bodies once more.
Rook let out a loud cackle as Xander screamed on the floor, standing back behind his Liberators as Caligo and his army moved to take down the strongest Daemons in the world. Xander tried to drag his body towards Adriana, desperately trying to reach her, but he was too weak. His arms gave out as Caligo’s torture burned inside of him, blood dripping from his nose as his body began to shut down.
“Her first Daemon,” Caligo chuckled, kicking him over to lay on his back. Xander noticed his blackened fingers twitched in time to the unrelenting waves of pain that continued to assault him from all angles. “You could have been so much more and you wasted it, you wasted everything she gifted to you. Don’t worry, I won’t make that mistake.”
Xander choked on a gasp, his chest tightening. He could feel something deep inside of him being pulled from him, from his body. His back arched as the feeling grew stronger, and looked up into Caligo’s black eyes as they slowly turned to a bright shade of red.
Adriana
Adriana screamed as she watched Xander convulse on the floor, his eyes wide open as Caligo used his Succuba ability and began to drain his power. And behind them, she saw the Court leaders losing their fight with the Umbranimae. Deion was doinghis best to help Edward who had collapsed to his knees, Kadeem was struggling with three Umbranimae at once to keep them away from Niamh and the two other Lupi, and Nicolai was acting as a shield for Cass who was bleeding from a wound on the side of her head.
She felt someone come behind her and threw her head back to try to hit them, but they easily dodged her attack and held her still with a hand in her hair.
“Stop, I’m trying to help you!” Norman’s voice hissed in her ear.
He tore the tube from her neck, stopping the flow of Lupus venom, and used his Igni power to burn away the chains that bound her to the post, carefully absorbing any flames that sparked from the flammable liquid that covered her body before they could do any damage.
“You can control shadows too, right?” he asked. “Do you know how?”
As her hands were freed, she turned to face him, not bothering to hide the rage she felt growing inside her now that her connection to her magic was no longer diluted by the Lupus venom. Norman flinched and stepped away, holding his hands up in surrender.
“I can do more than that,” Adriana sneered at him.
She stepped down from the pyre and faced the room, letting the anger boil inside her as she watched Xander continue to thrash on the ground until it fuelled her entire body with a powerful heat. Her neck cracked as she stretched it to the side, feeling her body healing itself from the last few hours suffering from the venom. Rook was the first to notice her from his cowardly position behind his Liberators, his eyes widening as he took in her appearance.
Her body glowed with Luciferus light from head to toe as she regained her full strength, her hair shone a bright gold andshe seemed to almost float across the ground as she made her way towards them. Shadows curled around her, forming a dark sphere of protection of their own accord that only her light could break through. She was the radiance of life and the shadow of death all in one. She was salvation and she was destruction. She was the first of her kind, the only Lamia Incantrix, the Blood Witch. And she was not afraid of what she was.
Rook shouted in warning, but Caligo was too slow to dodge the beam of light that Adriana threw at him. The hot, searing magic hit him straight in the middle of his chest, throwing him backwards to slide across the floor several feet away.
Adriana breathed a sigh of relief as Xander gasped for breath on the floor, finally free from Caligo’s hold. Without hesitation, he threw his hand towards the Umbranimae, pulling on their shadows to leave them vulnerable.
Once their bodies were exposed, Adriana could see the light of their trapped souls, desperate to be freed and sent to rest in the Land of the Dead. They sang out to her, crying for their freedom, begging her magic to sever the prisons Caligo had created with their own corpses.
She threw her light at them, allowing it to reach every single one of their souls. As her magic reached them, she felt a warm sensation in her fingertips, as if it were her own hands touching their remaining souls. And then she pulled. She pulled until the light within them dispersed and was sent into oblivion, to freedom. Their soulless bodies dropped to the floor, once again resembling who they really were as the shadows evaporated into the air.
Xander caught her as she stumbled, her body’s glow slowly dimming until she returned to her normal complexion. His eyes, the familiar warm brown with flecks of green, bore into hers, bringing her back to herself.
“Are you alright?” he asked, his voice laced with concern and relief. “Are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay.”
“I’m fine, I’m—”
Adriana’s words were cut short as she let out an ear splitting scream of agony.
