A cloud of glittering green poison that spanned the entire length of the carpet forced its way down everyone’s throats. Panic flashed in Sienna’s eyes as she hit the floor hard, her legs giving out and her arms hanging uselessly by her sides. Grant had almost gotten his palms together when his limbs stopped obeying as well. The only one who had been fast enough was Malcolm. Black shadows sprang to life around his hands.
“Lance!” I called. “Now!”
Rising to my feet, I increased the strength of the poison and focused it on Malcolm’s arms.
Fury roared in his eyes. It was replaced by an uncharacteristic pulse of fear as he saw the golden-haired young man in front of him lunge forward. Shadows shot out. The dark-haired guard next to him leaped aside as black tendrils whipped towards them. But they hadn’t been focused on him.
I forced even more poison into Malcolm’s body but the shadows hit their target. Blue eyes widened in shock and panic as Malcolm’s attack trapped him in place and cut off his air with one dark tendril around his throat.
Alarm blared inside me as Malcolm turned his rage-filled gaze on me. He should have gone down by now. If I increased the poison any more at this point, I would kill him.
Gritting his teeth, he tried forcing his palms back together.
My stomach lurched. I couldn’t let him throw that attack at me.
His hands touched.
All of my survival instinct screamed at me to kill him right now.
Flickering dark shapes started taking form.
No!
Malcolm staggered back.
Shock pulsed across his whole face as he snapped his gaze down towards his arm. Pushing his sleeve up in one violent motion, he stared down at his forearm while his mouth dropped open.
Five black rings encircled it.
I watched with an evil smile on my lips as Lance placed a hand on Sienna and Grant too while my magic kept them incapacitated. Utter disbelief shone in their eyes.
Malcolm’s gaze shot towards the blond man who had collapsed to the ground now that the shadows around him had disappeared. Then he snapped it back to his own forearm. And then finally to the dark-haired guard who lifted his hand off Grant’s arm and then straightened.
Except, he wasn’t a guard at all.
Tristan, the blond and blue-eyed young man that Callan had hired from The Black Emerald, pressed his palms to the smooth dark floor and gasped in desperate breaths to refill his lungs after Malcolm’s misplaced attack. It only made him inhale more of my poison, and he choked again.
A few strides away, Lance pushed his now black hair out of his face and turned to me with pleading eyes. I jerked my chin, and he scurried towards me.
In my opinion, he looked much better with dark hair. Less like the golden hero promised by fate, and more like a normal person who might have chosen a different destiny for himself if he’d had the chance. Though, I was pretty sure Lance didn’t see it that way. According to Yuito and Paul, he had protested rather loudly when they had slammed down a jar of black dye and told him to use it on his hair after he had showered. He had obeyed in the end, though.
Since the other dark mages had no idea what Lance really looked like, all we’d had to do was a simple switch. Tristan, who none of them had seen before and who fit the physical description of the Binder, had pretended to be him while Lance had rather convincingly acted as his guard. Then all we’d had to do was to incapacitate Malcolm, Sienna, and Grant long enough for Lance to bind their magic. Which was my job.
When Callan had told me back in his kitchen that I wasn’t going to like the plan he had come up with, he really hadn’t been kidding. Painting five black rings around my arm had been easy enough. After all, their shapes and locations were already burned inside my mind from when Callan had truly bound my magic. The worst part had been pretending to be at Callan’s mercy in front of the other three dark mages.
While I might enjoy handing over control to Callan in the bedroom, I despised looking weak and powerless in any other situation. And that was exactly what I had needed to do during this scheme. So when Callan had suggested yesterday that I should also wear a collar, I had immediately balked at the idea. However, once I had given it some thought, I had admitted that it would indeed help sell our ruse. So I had agreed. I was still going to exact excruciating vengeance for it, though.
But our plan had worked perfectly.
Well, my plan had, in any case.
As Malcolm’s body at last gave out and he crashed to the floor next to the others, I turned around and slid my gaze to the two people choking on the other side of the purple carpet. Lance fell in beside me. His blue eyes flicked between them and me, waiting for instructions.
From the half dozen strides or so away, I just watched Callan and Henry where they sat on their knees, dry heaving as my poison swirled in their throats.
Callan raised his head with what seemed like great effort while his arms still hung limply by his sides.
His dark brown eyes met mine.
I gave him a victorious smile.
Realization dawned on his face. I could see it, second by second, as understanding settled in his eyes.
This had always been the great risk with his plan. At least for him. He needed me to use my poison magic in a surprise attack to incapacitate Malcolm and the others. And since not even Callan knew the exact moment I was going to launch it, there was of course nothing stopping me from hitting him with the same poison cloud too. I had convinced him that I was going to wait until after we had saved Henry to start up our war again, but as soon as he had proposed this plan, I had known that I would never get another chance like this.
So of course I was going to use this opportunity to bind Callan’s magic too.
I studied his face, waiting for that realization to give way to fury. To hatred so intense that he would want to burn every memory of me out of his brain.
He choked on the poison again, temporarily bending forwards and breaking eye contact. Then he raised his head and looked back at me again.
A sharp feeling stabbed into my heart like a blade.
There was no rage or world-ending hatred in his eyes. Instead, he huffed out a strangled chuckle. And his eyes… He looked at me like… like he was impressed.
“What do you want me to do?” Lance asked from right next to me.
The sound of someone else’s voice right then jarred me enough that I drew back and blinked in surprise. What did I want him to do?
I flicked my gaze back to Callan.
There was no pleading in his eyes. No fear. Just the look of someone who appreciated the ruthlessness of this plan.
“Nothing,” I said, making an insane decision that I would surely regret tomorrow. “Stay here.”
I let my massive cloud of poison fade out.
All six of my victims sucked in deep breaths to refill their lungs. Tearing my gaze from Callan, I turned back to the other dark mages. It couldn’t have been more than twenty seconds since I had watched Malcolm crash to his knees, but it felt as though days had passed.
Rolling back my shoulders, I straightened my spine as I tried to block out the nest of vipers that had opened up inside my chest in the past twenty seconds. This was not the time to be worrying about feelings that I didn’t even know how to identify.
Footsteps sounded behind me.
Callan and Henry fell in beside me while Malcolm, Sienna, and Grant struggled back to their feet. As Callan stopped next to me, he glanced down at me briefly. I met his gaze. Another second passed, but in the end, he only turned back to the others without commenting. He didn’t need to say anything, though. We both knew what I had been about to do.
“Henry,” Callan said instead while handing him a key. “Take the cuffs off Tristan and put them on Lance.”
“Yes, boss.”
While Henry, Tristan, and Lance moved towards the side, Callan and I started forwards.
Malcolm and the others had straightened, but all three of them appeared to still be in shock. The shadow mage just kept staring at his arm, as if he could see the black rings through his suit sleeve, while Grant’s gaze was locked on Lance. In the end, it was Sienna who spoke up.
“You were working together?” she asked, though it sounded more like an accusation. “You.”
“Yes,” I said as we came to a halt two steps in front of them.
“But you hate each other!”
Callan and I exchanged a glance before replying in unison. “Yeah.”
At last, Malcolm snapped his gaze up to my face. Disbelief still lined his cheekbones. “I don’t understand. In all of my calculations, I didn’t even consider you a threat in this situation. Henry means nothing to you. Why would you help him?”
Those uncomfortable feelings reared their ugly heads in my chest again. Slamming the lid back on, I flicked my hair back behind my shoulder and gave Malcolm a nonchalant shrug instead. “We had a common goal.”
“Which would be?”
“Your surrender.”
Deafening silence filled the vast reception room as the reality of their situation sank in. Grant tore his gaze from Lance and exchanged a look with Malcolm instead. Sienna just blinked at us.
“Do you want us to give you your magic back?” Callan said, his voice pulsing with power. “Then we want a blood oath.”
Malcolm’s eyes widened, and Sienna actually gasped.
“A blood oath?” Grant pressed out.
“Yes.” Callan cocked his head. “Swear a blood oath that you will never challenge either of us for power, or do anything to harm us, and we will give you your magic back.”
Grant let out a low whistle and dragged a hand through his hair.
“A blood oath swearing a vow of nonaggression?” Malcolm let out a disbelieving laugh and shook his head at us. “Wow. That’s ruthless. Even for you.”
“We could always just leave.” I gave them another shrug. “But last I heard, the heroes have figured out that Lance is no longer in the city, so they’re coming into the hills in force.” A sharp smile spread across my lips as I met the shadow mage’s gaze. “Malcolm, didn’t you say you waged a pretty bloody war on the Chief Constable? Tell me, who do you think they will pay a visit to first?”
His eyes darted towards the corridor behind us, as if those constables were breaking down the door this very second.
“I mean, you could always refuse,” I continued. “And instead try to convince your guards to fight us on their own, and hope that they will be able to steal Lance back and then torture him until he follows your orders instead. And all before the heroes get here to take him back. Though, I—”
“I’ll do it,” Sienna interrupted.
We all turned towards her.
Letting out a breathy laugh, she shook her head at us. “I always suspected that Audrey was cunning enough to pull something like this off…” She turned and raised her eyebrows at Callan. “But I never expected that you would be on the winning side too.” After pushing her long red hair back behind her shoulder, she shrugged. “Bravo. I’m impressed. Which doesn’t happen often. And if you’re capable of something like this, I don’t think I would want to go up against you again anyway. So I’ll swear the blood oath.”
“I agree.” Grant blew out an exasperated sigh and threw his hands up. “And I wouldn’t have started an outright war with you anyway since that’s not my style, so what the hell.”
We slid our gazes to Malcolm. For a moment, he just watched us through narrowed eyes.
“Like I said, this is ruthless. Even for you.” He paused for another few seconds, then he clicked his tongue. “But luckily for you, that happens to be a quality that I respect.”
Reaching into his sleeve, he pulled out a tiny blade and slashed it across his palm without hesitation. A thin line of red appeared against his skin. He held out his hand and squeezed it into a fist until a drop of blood ran down and fell towards the floor.
It hit the black glass-like material with a sound that seemed to echo throughout the whole room.
“I, Malcolm Griffith, swear by my blood and my power that I will make no moves to challenge Audrey Sable or Callan Blackwell for power, or do anything to harm either of them in any way, as long as I live.”
Victory sparkled through my whole soul. I had won. They were all going to swear the blood oath. The one promise that no dark mage ever broke. Not because it was impossible to break, but simply because there were some things that were sacred. Even to people like us.
A sense of relief spread through my body. I would never have to worry about being attacked by another dark mage again. Sam was a neutral party, and Callan…
I flicked a glance at the force mage while Malcolm handed the blade to Grant.
Well, I would deal with Callan later.
