My stomach churned. There were at least fifteen toe bones in it. "Neither Emperor nor Empress Hayes are bone mages."
"Meaning they're working with a bone mage," Cas added.
"Which pretty much confirms our suspicions that they are working withthebone mage responsible for all this," Jas finished.
I lifted my hand and floated the jar of bones into Aimon's satchel before closing it for him. I couldn't help but find his squeamishness with bones adorable. "We need to take these. At the very least, it should help take away the bone mage's ability to use them again--if the original mage is even still alive."
Aimon nodded with a sour look on his face as he glanced at his satchel. "I understand, bug. Still creeps me out that bone mages can even control people through their bones."
"Bones are part of our vessel." Silas shrugged as a soft rustle came from the corner.
"Youaren'tsupposed to be here." A dark mage stepped from the shadows, clad in the Revivium Empire's uniforms.
Jasper stepped up to the dark mage, anger burning in his gaze as he watched his movements, waiting for him to attack. "Well, obviously."
The guy tilted his head, black locks falling into his face. "You alerted the guards with your magic. Barring the door won't work against some of our guards. I tracked your magical signature through the darkness rather easily."
"I wasn't hiding it." Jasper's gaze darted to me before chuckling.
Aimon's vines over the door lit up in roaring flames, and Bastian flinched, stumbling over his feet before his back smacked against the wall.
The door burst open, and Jasper lunged at the dark mage with his dark wisps sharpened to a point--but the dark mage had been expecting it and knocked his wisp away with one of his own.
Jas and his opponent launched their darknesses at each other while more guards infiltrated the office, surrounding us.
I sent a splash of water to put out the flames of the vines and whirled around to face Bastian. "Bastian!"
Bastian blinked away the fog in his gaze before retaining his senses and digging into his bag slung across his shoulder.
He tossed a potion at a nearby guard. The vial shattered, and the liquid seeped onto the guard that approached Jasper. His clothing disintegrated, and his skin burned down to the bone as he cried out in pain.
"Thanks, love!" Bastian sent me a genuinely relieved smile before launching more potions at more guards.
Silas went into battle with two other guards, holding his own by switching between water and ink magic.
Casper grabbed his head as he winced in pain. "Fucking phrenic mages." He managed to shake away whatever the phrenic mage had done in his mind and shot bolts of light at her.
I pivoted on my heels in time to send wind magic at a torrent of fire headed my way.
Guards were piling in at a rapid rate, and once we'd taken down a guard, another replaced them.
Aimon let out a strangled cry, pushing a wall of rock at a bone mage. His face turned red, and sweat seeped down his temples. "Need to go," he wheezed, clutching his chest as his powers flickered, and the wall stopped moving.
A phantom pain stabbed my chest, and the guys seemed to wince as they felt the same thing I had.
The bone mage had manipulated Aimon's rib bone to pierce his heart. It was fatal, and there was no potion that could stop him from dying.
Silas drew an incapacitating rune in ink and sent it toward the bone mage's forehead. As the ink made contact with his skin, he fell to the ground unconscious.
"We're taking him. He could be the bone mage we're looking for." Silas bent down and tossed the mage over his shoulder.
Panic flickered through me as I threw my hands out and pushed the spirits from each guard in the room and the ones funneling in from the hall. "Casper!"
"With light as my guide, I'll travel far and wide." Cas's warm light enveloped us a second later, and he light-jumped us out of the castle with no interference--just the sharp stabbing pain in our chests as Aimon choked on his own blood.
My lips went numb as I remembered my first death. I was thrown into Lake Horrid, the lake almost in the center of Hexarium and claimed by the Lethium Empire and the Allura Empire.
Lochies were large water lizards that inhabited the lake. They'd been extra territorial during the time I was first cursed, and my very first mission had been to cut their population by more than half.
