"Destroy them," Morgana commanded, stepping forward out of the mists, emerald light gleaming from the jeweled ring at her finger. Her face looked skeletal in the eerie light, but intensely focused on her son.
Sebastian sank his head into his hands, his teeth a gleaming rictus of pain. He screamed, body flinching, as if something moved beneath his skin.
"Do it!" Morgana howled.
Sebastian screamed again, slumping forward onto his hands as if giving up.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, looking up at her.
The world grew still. A silent bubble surrounded Ianthe, leaving her frozen in time, curling her arms around her daughter. Louisa's heart thumped once against her chest, thud-thump... Silent seconds ticked by. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe... The world was a vacuum...
Thud-thump. That was her heart this time. And then time rushed back in upon her, sending her lurching forward as a ringing sound screeched in her ears.
A body hit her.
Hard.
Ianthe tumbled onto her back, cracking her head on something sharp as Lucien took her to the ground, covering both her and Louisa with his body. The power she'd been holding bled out of her, like water leaking from a bladder, and then the world flared white. Blinding her. Obliterating her senses as an enormous outburst of Expression punched outwards from a central point, like the rippled aftermath of a stone plunging into water. The surge of it washed overhead, slicing straight through tombstones and shearing them in half. Her hair tore itself free and whipped in the wind of the explosion, only the hard, male body pressing over her protecting her from the backlash.
Clothes smoked and burned. Lucien screamed in her ear, and her own hands blistered from magic-burn where they gripped his shoulders. The ground shook beneath them like a bucking horse, and it was all she could do to hold onto him and Louisa through the maelstrom.
“Open up to me.” That was Drake's voice in her mind, and a familiar trickle of sensation burned in thin gold streamers along her skin.
Ianthe opened herself to him. The bond between Master and Apprentice soared to life within her, a bond that would lie dormant until needed.
Without thinking, Ianthe gave herself over to it, and a new conscience winked into her overcrowded head. Drake would be able to see through her eyes and help her direct her power as best needed.
Energy danced through her effortlessly, and somehow she wove her sorcery into a shining shield that sprung into being around the three of them. The tear of power stopped ripping at her skin, her clothes, her hair... Lucien collapsed over the top of them, panting as if he'd run a race.
Then Drake used her to wield her sorcery in ways she'd never imagined. She could feel him dispersing the blaze of raw matter that had erupted from Sebastian. Not confronting it, but letting it flow through her as he grounded it. Ianthe became nothing but a conduit, an observer, marveling at the delicacy of the weaves Drake wove.
Morgana launched forward, grabbing her son and dragging him to his feet, as if sensing the Prime's presence. She pushed Sebastian toward the trees, and they vanished, his power cutting off so abruptly that Ianthe's skin tingled.
It was over.
It was finally, blessedly over.
“Who was he?” Drake asked.
“He's your son,” she sent back, slumping onto the ground beneath her lover and her daughter. “He's the child that Morgana claimed to have destroyed.”
Shock severed the connection. Ianthe could suddenly feel her body again, heavy as a stone. Then her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fell into blessed, peaceful darkness.
"Is she alive?" Remington demanded.
Lucien swallowed hard, lowering his fingers to the pulse beneath Ianthe's jaw. Please, please... There it was. He nodded with relief, kneeling in the grass beside her. His back was blistered where sorcery had burned directly through his coat, and the scent of burned hair made him gag. "Yes. Something happened. I could feel some other presence in her mind."
"Drake," Remington replied. "There's not many people who could do what she just did."
"I'll get her home." Leaning down, Lucien curled his arms gently beneath her and drew her carefully into his arms. Ianthe seemed so small, so light. There was more weight in her skirts than her body it seemed, and it shocked him, for she was such a powerful, confident woman when awake. It didn't seem right.
"Hello there, Louisa," Remington said, kneeling in front of the little girl who clung to Ianthe's skirts. "I'm your aunt's employer, Remington, and this is—"
"Lucien Rathbourne. A... friend of your aunt's," Lucien interrupted. Louisa. His child. Jesus. Their eyes met—hers the same peculiar shade as his own—and Louisa turned into Remington's arms almost bashfully. She slid another long sideways glance at him, as if she sensed something strange about him.
"I'll take Louisa," Remington told him, and their eyes met. Remington saw her eyes too.
Watching Ianthe crumple beneath that blow had struck Lucien like an icy dagger to the heart. He hadn't been able to protect them, nor was he close enough to divert the blow or ward them. The only thing he could do was knock her beneath the flood of raw power and hope that they survived.
