Noceo laughed quietly. “That would defeat my goals. No, Head Tetrarch. Let your city vote.” He raised his voice. “Speak.”
The crowd’s forced silence evaporated into furious yells, screams, and northern slurs. Sarai winced at a “fuck off, mountain assholes!”
“Interesting,” Noceo said mildly. “I believe the people have spoken.”
Cassandane spread her hands. “There is no need for bloodshed. Let us speak and—”
“This won’t buy you time. Even my brother knows it. The people have spoken.” Black victory laced Noceo’s voice. “Now, I get to enact the family motto, don’t I, Drenevan?”
Harion pulled himself out of his stupor to scoff. “Come now, be realistic. No Coercer isthatpowerful. So, why don’t you walk yourselves to the mines, before we send you to the Elsar?”
Kadra decided that he would kill Harion next when Noceo’s eyes glinted.
“Sendmeto the Elsar?” Noceo repeated curiously. “How do you propose to do that when I can make youkneel.”
The Aequitas echoed with thousands falling to their knees, spitting their fury all the while. Kadra stood still, noting the way Sarai’s knees buckled, but didn’t sink. Partially immune.
A smile split Noceo’s face when Harion hit the ground and blanched. “Now, I ask again. Edessa, your pride or your city? Give me your final answer.”
That answer had been written at the city’s conception. Kadra watched every Edessan in the audience swell and unleash a torrent of hatred.
Noceo smiled at the hurled abuse and turned to Kadra. “Well, brother?” Downturned mouth. Pale skin. Sweat at his temples.Weariness. Noceo’s mask of amusement was near flawless, save for the threads of strain in his eyes.Whatever he’s imbibed, he’s nearing his limit.
Power bunched and ebbed around Kadra’s fingertips. “You know my answer.”
“That’s what makes this so amusing.” He tsked at the screaming crowd. “It was all so entirely predictable.”
In one breath, he flung out a hand, the knife at Sarai’s neck parting ways with his fingers and arrowing into Cassandane’s shoulder. In the next, he roared a single word.
“Begin.”
It all happened at once. Every magus in the audience froze and raised their hands. Noceo let Sarai go as Dalvia tore open a portal; both ran into it and vanished. Clouds rolled overhead with vicious swiftness. Kadra blanketed Sarai, throwing up layers of latticed lightning shields above the crowd. A winded Cassandane lifted a hand.
And the Aequitas exploded.
Heat burst open the skin on his back. The force of the blast threw him and Sarai off the stage toward the wall. Cupping her head, he absorbed the impact. Something cracked in his spine. His old injuries flared sharp. Within his arms, she turned terrified eyes to him.
“I have you.” He gripped her tight. “Hold on.”
His shields had been decimated. Orange smog clouded the air and muffled the crowd’s screams. He rebuilt the shields around the tiers of the courthouse as those who had remained there now scrambled to freedom. The crimson webs supporting his indicated that Cassandane was alive anddoing the same, but Death was already here. The Aequitas had become a weapon.
Slivers of rubble flew through the air like knives and burst upon contacting his shields to drop to the stage. Fiery boulders rained from the balconies, the marble melting to lime. The wall behind them trembled. He hauled them both upright and had taken only a few steps when it ruptured. Something slammed into him, toppling him to the ground. A second, softer impact followed.
“What was—” Sarai peered over his shoulder and paled. “Oh gods, no!”
Shrugging off the heavy weight on his back, he stilled at the quiet thud it made. He rose and turned. A vicious wedge of marble jutted from Gaius’s shoulders, half-severing his neck. Limp, he stared at the carnage. Light faded from his eyes.
I seem to have gotten myself a mother hen, he had wryly told Cato only weeks ago. Breath rushed from him and left his chest a hollow cavity. Ice threaded in.
Tears slid down Sarai’s face, as frozen in time as he was, before a furious scream tore from her. “Thosefucking—” She spun to him. “Tell me who to Summon. Wrath? Death?”
“If you call again, they will not come.” The words were gravel.
He could call them himself. It would drain him of power and leave the Aequitas to burn. Tens of thousands would die, and the boon he asked of the Elsar wouldn’t be to resurrect them but to destroy the Clan and avenge this most undeserving of deaths given to one of the few he called friend. It was an almost acceptable trade.
Wordless, he bent to the other man, staunching the bleeding at his neck for a hopeless second. A pulse jumped beneath his fingers. He stilled. It was a simple choice.
“Sarai, give me your hands.”
