New magic explodes from across the gardens. The sound tears through the air, and power roils out in flares of deep red and bright yellow. A destructive amalgam of demonic and divine power, courtesy of Evain and Coira.
The explosive screech is accompanied by the crash and rumble of stones as a section of wall presumably collapses out of Karis’s view.
Karis considers, and moves another ten feet away from the second egg. There’s supposed to be a radius limiter, but Evain and Coira seemed dangerously enthusiastic about their collaboration. He mutters a prayer for protection, and Vara’s Radiance settles around his head like earmuffs.
Movement across the garden. Karis’s heart leaps at the familiar burst of cyan, and he glances over to light the second egg just as Ronan swings behind the statue to crouch beside him. His hair’s wild, and he smells of smoke, but as far as Karis can tell, he’s unharmed. A heavy hand clasps Karis’s shoulder.
“You all right?” Ronan doesn’t look at him, too busy watching the smoke-strewn garden.
“Twenty seconds,” Karis answers. His whole body hums with excitement. With the taste of Ronan’s presence. Their shared pulses pound more loudly than the clanging bell, and Karis has never felt this alive.
Ronan squeezes his shoulder, then pulls out a die. Deep blue resin glows in the high noon sun. He whispers, “Grant me luck,” and throws the die.
It rattles on the flat of a cobblestone, and comes to rest. The number facing upwards is a one.
“Fuck.” Ronan snatches up the die. “We’re on our own.”
The second egg explodes. Red and white-yellow eats through the stone like a volcano. Contained to a narrow radius as promised, but the column of fiery magic still dominates the landscape of auras. Karis winces with the sound, even muffled, and then he’s lurching forward, dragged more by Ronan’s grip on his arm than his own momentum.
The wall isn’t completely blasted through—it’s crumpled into a pile of boulderlike chunks. Karis follows Ronan over the rocks, trying not to touch the lingering sparks. But when he does, there’s only a faint sizzle in his magic, no searing flames. His knee scrapes over a rock, slowing him down. Shouts from behind speed him up again.
“Don’t look back,” Ronan bites out. This side of the Bower opens onto another expensive commercial street. They just need to cross one open stretch of road before they reach the alley leading to the carriage.
Don’t look back. But danger runs ice-cold down the back of Karis’s neck. This is nothing trained by Ronan or any teacher he’s ever had, and no divine gift from Vara. It’s a purely instinctive, human awareness that behind him, a predator bares its claws. He whirls around to see the archer standing in the broken, smoking gap of wall. They make eye contact from across the street as the arrow looses from the bow.
Karis reacts on instinct. A slash of Radiance deflects the arrow before it strikes Ronan’s back. The arrow shatters, shards of wood scattering in the street.
There’s another clatter behind him. Karis turns and sees a second arrow lodged into the plaster wall of a building. Strangely, this second arrow is red.
No time to think about that. He casts another arc of Radiance to dazzle the archer’s eyes, then takes off after Ronan again. He stumbles on his own feet, nearly falling, and realizes only then that his side hurts. When he touches his waist, his shirt is wet. When he looks down, his hand is red.
Just like the arrow that shot through him.
?
CHAPTER TWENTY
RONAN
Ronan notices Karis slowing down right before they reach the carriage. Without missing a beat, he seizes Karis’s arm and drags him the last few steps. The young man isn’t used to running like this, Ronan thinks, but that’s fine. He planned for Karis’s pace, which is why he parked the carriage so close to the Bower instead of risking a rooftop chase like he might have alone.
Just a bit slow, Ronan thinks, until Karis collapses on the carriage step. His face is dead-white, his eyes falling shut. When Ronan reaches to support him, his hand slips in the soaking blood.
Ronan’s heart becomes a coin in his chest, spinning and spinning, its hard edges striking his ribs with every sickening turn.
When he remembers this moment later, he’ll hate how practical he is. He’ll hate the way he drags Karis into the carriage, lays him out on the seat, and then leaves to wipe the blood from the step. Looks down the alley to see if there are any blood spatters—none he can see—before throwing himself back into the carriage. He’ll hate the way he stops to lock the door before he falls to his knees at Karis’s side.
“Hey, brat, look at me.” He pats Karis’s face, and it’s a relief when hot breath fans against his fingers. But his touch leaves fresh bloodstains on Karis’s cheek. “Karis, can you wake up for me?”
Eyelashes flutter. Karis’s brow scrunches in pain. “Awake,” he says, wavering. He tries to sit up, and falls back with a hiss. “Fuck. It’s starting to hurt.”
Ronan presses down on his chest, holding him to the carriage seat. He wants to say something comforting, something reassuring, but the emotion chokes him. “Don’t move,” he orders instead. “I’m grabbing a potion.”
Karis winces. “Trust me, I don’t want to move.” The attitude would be reassuring, if Karis’s weak bravado didn’t break into a gasp of pain.
Ronan staggers a few steps on his knees to pull the knapsack from under the opposite seat, and he tears one of the buckles off in his haste to open it. There are two bottles of healing potion inside, shimmering with Dansa’s magic. He sets both on the floor.
“Now I need you to sit up,” Ronan says. His voice sounds far too calm, like it belongs to someone without an ice-cold coin still spinning and spinning behind their ribs.
