“It’s just my arm. I’m fine.”
Kaippa’s ragged breaths were the only sound in the chamber. “Now that we’re done with that fun interlude, can we get back to my point?” Though he spoke to the Duke, Kaippa kept glancing at Hekla, a hungry look in his dark eyes. “Show us you can control the demon, and we’ll consider working toward a way to please you, my lord.” He did his little full-body smirk bow, and I gritted my teeth.
“Fine.” The Duke sheathed his knife. He shut his eyes and began whispering spells, only part of which I could hear.
“Born of my light
Shattered,
Broken,
Tortured.
Come, come to me,
Demon of the dark.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Hekla asked.
“Not even a little bit.” I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Lucus, who collapsed, inert, at the Duke’s feet. Please don’t leave, Lucus. Please don’t leave.
27 Coren
Leaving the castle’s dark interior, the Duke used the lift spell to float Lucus alongside him into the courtyard. My army was outside shouting to get in and calling out questions. They knew something was up.
On a billowing cloud of sparkling amethyst magic, the Duke rose to the ramparts of the castle. He kept Lucus hovering by his side, several feet away. My love was unconscious, eyes closed and face slack. It killed me. He didn’t deserve any of this. He’d been through so much grief and suffered for over five hundred years for his crime, a crime he didn’t intend to commit. My eyes began to water, and I rubbed them fiercely. I would not let that asshole Duke see me cry.
I lifted myself in a cloud of power so that I was level with the Duke and could see the crowd. Titus and a few others started forward like they were going to attack, but I held up a hand to keep them back. They couldn’t hurt the Duke unless they managed a lucky shot, and I didn’t think any of them even had firearms.
As the Duke raised his arms, spells pouring from his mouth, the ground trembled. “Commoners!” he said, addressing my people. “I am the master of the demon. I have suffered for centuries the heartbreak of losing the dearest soul to my heart. This beast,” he looked at Lucus, “slayed my innocent daughter.” He waved a hand, and an illusion of a stubbled wheat field shimmered to life in the air above him. “She was my light. My joy.”
The image of Lucilla, the red-haired girl Lucus had accidentally killed so long ago, appeared in the illusion, but she was far younger than she had been in the memory Lucus had shown me. This was a memory of her childhood, as seen by her father. A laugh stretched her cheeks and brought a rosy color to her skin. The Duke choked on a sob, then broke the illusion apart with a crash of thunder and lightning that reached from the sky to the ground right in front of Ami’s feet. She jumped back, thankfully okay for now.
The Duke glanced at the sky, and it began to pour rain. “I will spare your settlement only if you give me tribute.”
“What do you want?” Titus called out, rainwater plastering his hair to his skull.
Children cried out, but no one ran. A fire stirred in my heart. If I hadn’t known what I knew, would I have stayed and shown this level of courage, or would I have run?
The Duke’s illusion blasted into view again, this time cloaked in streaks of darkness like spilled black paint. Lucilla’s young, rosy face decayed in a flash of amethyst light, and she was a laughing skeleton with only the remnants of flesh hanging from her bones. Lucilla had died long after the age she appeared to be in this horrible scene, so this wasn’t a memory, but a representation of his grief.
I wanted to explain that Lucilla had spoken to me during my first casting and that she had forgiven Lucus. I recalled her soft, strong voice and the way sadness had pulled at her lovely eyes. But the Duke wouldn’t listen to me. I knew that. He’d never believe Lucilla forgave Lucus because he himself couldn’t. Even mentioning the fact that his daughter—yet another of my distant ancestors—had spoken to me might set him off and have him kill Lucus and the rest of us right now.
Between the sound of crashing thunder and the rain hammering the street and the castle walls, the Duke railed and sobbed. His lift spell faded, and Lucus dropped to the ramparts. The Duke bent double, his cloud of magic drifting away and his feet settling onto the ramparts’ wet stone several feet from where Lucus lay. Rain washed the blood from Lucus’s wound. How was he still alive?
I looked down into the castle’s courtyard to see Hekla hugging herself in the pouring rain and Kaippa beside her, unmoving, eyes coal black.
With the Duke losing it, I dared to land beside Lucus on the castle walls. I stepped slowly closer, watching to see if the Duke would notice me, but he kept raging and talking to himself and screaming at the sky as his illusion played repeatedly like a sick, recurring dream.
I touched Lucus’s bare shoulder. His wet skin was ice cold. “Lucus. Can you hear me?”
His eyes opened a crack, and his sad smile smashed my heart. “My queen. Am I dead?”
“Not yet. Listen, what can we offer the Mage Duke that might make him happy and less inclined to kill everyone in town with that damn demon dragon?”
Head dropping to the side, Lucus lost consciousness again.
I placed my hand against his face. “Feed from my aura. Please, Lucus. I need you to fight to stay alive.”
His head shifted in the blood-tinged puddle surrounding him, and he raised his nose. He was
