“Don’t let anyone enter the palace!” the Prince of Fear bellowed as the demons stampeded past him. “Sorcerers, to your posts! Don’t let them—”
His orders were cut short as Bex slammed Drox into his side. The prince’s scales were as hard as Havok’s armor had been, so she didn’t manage to cut him in half, but the blow still sent him flying. He landed on his back on the opposite side ofthe enormous plaza, coughing white blood out of his lungs as the three witches spoke again.
“The ancient oaths have been invoked,” the Old Wives of the Blackwood said in unison. “By our bones, flesh, and souls, we keep the oldest promise. By the past, present, and future, we deliver that which is due. By the tongues of all our coven, we cast down the Witch’s Spite, curse of all curses, upon the lands of Gilgamesh, murderer-king of Uruk. So say we all and so shall it be, now, before, and forever more.”
A fresh flash of lightning lit up the sky as the final rhyming words of the curse finished, illuminating the damage the dragons had already done, the pounding rain that was presently washing their enemies away, and the shimmering protection that would guard the demons from harm in the future. Watching it all come together was enough to make Bex’s knees go weak. She’d seen Adrian do big magic before, but she didn’t have to be a witch to know that this curse was magnitudes stronger than the ones he’d used when he’d turned his forest black to kill the Spider’s warlocks. Just speaking the words had been enough to send a torrent of red blood pouring from Muriel’s lips, but the young-faced witch still looked triumphant as she rose into her sister’s rain on a broom carved to resemble a swan.
The scaled Prince of Fear jumped after her, trying to knock the witch back down, but Bex got there first. She kicked the prince back to the wet ground with a boot to his temple. It was a move that would’ve taken the head off a normal human, but the Prince of Fear must’ve been as tough as an actual fear demon. He shrugged the kick off like it was nothing, rolling back to his feet with a glare so hateful, Bex could feel it through the mask of scales that covered his face.
“You have no idea what you’ve just done,” he snarled, gripping his white sword, which could no longer paralyze her thanks to the witches, but still had a wickedly curved cuttingedge. “You idiot demon. You should have stayed in the Hells where you belong!”
He charged as he finished, running at Bex with a speed she hadn’t seen since she’d fought Havok. Fortunately, Drox was quicker on the uptake than his queen. By the time Bex realized she was in trouble, her loyal sword was already swinging. He bashed the white Blade of Fear away like it weighed nothing, but the prince had already pivoted to swing again, attacking with the raw fury of someone with nothing left to lose.
Bex knew that feeling well, but she couldn’t afford to do the same. She was fighting for everything now, so she met his attack with skill instead of fury, putting her one hundred and ninety-eight lifetimes’ worth of experience to use as she ducked the prince’s wild swing to attack his legs.
It was a solid hit, but once again, the prince’s thick scales kept her from landing actual damage. Drox’s blade slid right off, but the blow still made the prince stumble, driving him back across the rain-soaked courtyard and away from the sorcerers who’d run up to defend the palace entrance that Iggs and the rest of Bex’s demons were just starting to assault.
CHAPTER 9
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CURRENT LIFE-AND-DEATHsituations notwithstanding, Adrian had never been more excited to watch a curse go off. The Witch’s Spite was the stuff of legends, the greatest destructive magic his coven had ever constructed. They’d been building it since the first Blackwood grove was initiated, collecting the bones of every dragon that died in their care, tallying favors done for the Great Forest, and binding pine cones with protective magic so they’d grow into trees that could take hits in someone else’s stead at some point in the future.
The Witch’s Spite was the greatest expression of Blackwood witchcraft, a monument to the incredible power of patience, preparation, and cooperation with the forest. It famously took a thousand witches working together to spread out the damage when the payment for such an enormous curse came due, which explained why his mother and aunts had arrived witheveryone. It also could only be cast within the borders of a Blackwood grove, which was where Adrian came in.
“We need more coverage to the west,” Boston reported from his perch at the tip of Bran’s broomstick. “Bex just kicked the prince over there.”
Adrian nodded and moved the vine—a super-long-growing woody variety that his cousin had brought with her from South America for exactly this purpose—as directed.
The vines were the key to all of this. Even with the astounding power of his new heart tree and the full force of his coven behind him, tree roots were slow to spread. Vines, on theother hand, grew like wildfire anywhere there was sunlight. The tropical liana vine in particular could stretch itself practically forever as long as its base was well rooted. A power Adrian had been abusing to the hilt.
It was still hard to push through Heaven’s antigrowth protections, but he’d never had so much support, or so much need. Coverage was critical, since wherever Adrian’s plants were, so was his forest. That connection was what had allowed the Old Wives to cast the Witch’s Spite on Gilgamesh’s doorstep. It was also the only way Adrian—and by extension, Boston—was able to see what was happening on the ground.
Looking through his physical eyes while he was communing with his forest had always been difficult. Now that his mother and her apprentices had filled the sky with a thunderstorm, though, it was physically impossible. Bran would throw Adrian off if he tried to fly into that pounding rain, so he and Boston were floating above the black clouds, using the forest’s senses to track the battle below. Since plants didn’t have eyes like humans, the information was limited, but liana vines were extremely sensitive to both light and pressure, which made them excellent spies. Adrian was making a mental note to ask his cousin for more cuttings when a knife stabbed into his side.
That was what it felt like, at least. When Adrian looked down, though, his coat—which he’d put back on when he’d gone to his cabin to resupply before the fight—was undamaged. There was no spreading bloodstain or gaping wound when he unbuttoned his shirt to check, but he swore he could feel a knife carving into his flesh.
It reminded him of the time the Spider had filled him with phantom daggers, but rougher and more chronic. The Spider’s sorcery hadn’t hurt until he activated it. This felt like someone was carving their initials into his ribs with a rusty pocketknife.
That last thought was where Adrian found his answer. Hewasgetting stabbed, just not in his physical body. This pain came from his heart tree. When he glanced over his shoulder to check, though, the towering dark-green spire of the skyscraper-sized Douglas fir looked normal. He was trying to shift his consciousness over to investigate when Boston galloped down the broomstick to dig his claws into Adrian’s knee.
“Get the vines inside the doors!” the cat cried. “Iggs’s team is pushing into the palace, but the Witch of the Future’s protections can’t defend them if they leave the forest’s borders!”
“I’m not sure Icango inside the doors,” Adrian told him through gritted teeth. “The palace is Gilgamesh’s private territory. It’s a really hard line to cross, especially when I’ve got something stabbing me in the ribs.”
“What are you talking about?” Boston asked in alarm.
“Something’s attacking my heart tree,” Adrian reported, keeping his words tight and short as he breathed through the pain. “I need to go back and defend it, but the vines here are already overextended. I can’t leave them alone.”
“Then tell somebody else to go,” his familiar suggested. “Our entire coven is here to help! You don’t have to do everything by yourself anymore.”
Adrian shook his head. All the other witches were busy supporting the Old Wives’ three-pronged curse. It didn’t feel right to ask them to help him on top of that, but Adrian did know someone who was already at his heart tree and who’d probably love a chance to get into the fight.
Solution in mind, he grabbed his broom tight with his one hand to compensate for the dizziness the pain was sending through his body and reached up with the other to tap the comm inserted into his ear.
“Lys?”
“I’m here,” they answered immediately. “Does Bex need backup?”
