RUNE
CRESSIDA DRAGGED RUNE INTO the bedroom. Juniper—the witch who’d accompanied her into the suite—held Rune in place while Cressida drew a ring of bloody symbols on the floor encircling her.
“Step back, Juniper.”
The witch stepped away, her eyes full of pity.
The spellmarks ignited, glowing bright white and forming a complete circle around Rune, like a prison cell. Only instead of steel bars closing her in, it was magic. Rune had seen Cressida use this binding before. Once inside the ring, you couldn’t exit.
Rune looked up and saw Cressida circling her, an ensorcelled whip looped at her side. It looked like lightning in her hands, white and crackling.
Releasing the whip from its coil, Cressida narrowed her eyes. “You think you can protect him from me?”
She lashed the whip. It struck Rune’s back, ripping her skin from shoulder to hip. The pain lit her up.
In shock, Rune dropped to her knees.
“Once I have my throne…” Cressida’s footsteps echoed as she walked around the circle. “… the first thing I intend to do is hunt Gideon down.”
Another lash struck. Tearing fabric and flesh. Splitting Rune open.
Rune cried out—a raw, animal sound she didn’t recognize. It frightened her almost as much as Cressida’s whip.
There was nowhere to run. She was completely at the mercy of a corrupted witch who wanted her dead.
“If you kill me, Soren won’t give you his army,” Rune gasped, desperate to remind Cressida of why her life was valuable.
“Soren is in Caelis. As far as he’s concerned, you’re still kidnapped in the New Republic.”
An icy dread spread through Rune.
“Once he learns your kidnappers killed you, he’ll hand me the rest of his army in a rage, to do with as I want.”
Another lash caught Rune across the shoulder. She clenched her teeth to stop the agonized sounds escaping her. As fresh blood gushed from the wounds, soaking her shirt, two more lashes sliced open her back.
Rune kept her knees tucked beneath her. She pressed her forehead against the floor, struggling to breathe, using her arms to protect her head while leaving her back exposed. An easy target, her back took the brunt of the lashes, sparing her softer, more vulnerable parts.
Cressida whipped her mercilessly. Ceaselessly. Until Rune’s blood soaked her shirt and pooled on the floor.
Her skin was ablaze. The room bled to red. She no longer held back her screams.
Too soon, the soothing numbness of unconsciousness called to her, and Rune slipped toward it.
No. Not yet.
Cressida’s whip didn’t stop, slicing Rune’s back to ribbons. Her entire body shook as she huddled in a puddle of her own blood.
Blood.
The thing that made Rune a witch. The source of her power.
There’s something I still have to do.
As the lashes rained down, she thought of Gideon’s curse.
Only the blood of the victim’s true love, spilled in a sacrificial act, can break it.
This was what she’d been waiting for.
The lashing ceased as Cressida paused to catch her breath, gathering her strength before finishing Rune off.
Barely conscious, Rune recalled the unnamed spellmarks required to break True Love’s Curse. Pushing herself up on trembling forearms, Rune
dipped a finger in the sticky red blood and started to draw.
She hadn’t gotten the chance to tell Gideon she loved him.
Perhaps this will suffice.
Weakened, it took her longer than it should have. Before she finished the second symbol, Cressida readied her weapon.
Forcing her mind to clear, gritting her teeth to hold off the pain and stay conscious, Rune completed the second and third symbols.
It should have been a relief. But even as the magic swelled, making her skin tingle and her ears roar, Rune knew she wasn’t finished.
“What are you doing?”
Rune’s moth signature must have materialized in the air.
Touch Gideon again and I’ll make you wish you were dead.
She couldn’t kill Cressida. But maybe she could do the next best thing. “You think you can stop me with a counterspell?” Cressida threw back
her head and laughed. “Oh, Rune…”
Before Cressida’s final round of lashes began, Rune drew two more symbols, altering the first spell. Hoping it would work. Hoping her sacrifice would be enough.
Magic surged again, swirling around her. Binding the new spell to the first.
The whip came down, catching her off guard and engulfing her in pain. Rune’s forearms refused to hold her upright and she collapsed. Her cheekbone hit the tiles. What little strength she had left fled her body.
Rune lay on her side in a pool of blood.
Get up.
The room went dark at the edges.
Get … up …
Cressida’s shadow slid over her.
Metal scraped against leather as Cressida drew her knife. Rune closed her eyes, waiting for the killing blow.
“It pains me to do this, Rune. But I know incurable defiance when I see it. Such a pity. You had so much potential—”
BANG.
The door burst open.
Rune’s vision blurred; the darkness dragging her under. “That’s enough!”
Someone stepped in front of Rune. Shielding her from Cressida.
Seraphine?
“You will heed me.”
Her voice was like a clap of thunder.
“Heed you?” Cressida cackled. “For all I know, you’re in league with her.”
The voices seemed a world away.
Just before the darkness claimed her, she heard Seraphine say: “You will heed me, my queen, because Rune is your sister.”
