The king gave him a thin smile. “She was one who conspired with my enemy. She could help him now. She would not switch allegiances. Her death was swifter than she deserved.”
A shiver went down Lucia’s arms. The king returned his attention to Lucia, his harsh expression shifting to one of caring and concern. He took her hands gently in his. “I need your magic to break through that spell.”
She glanced toward her brother for some sort of guidance. It was an old habit.
Magnus caught her worried look. “It sounds dangerous.”
“Not for my daughter,” the king said. “She isn’t just a witch; she’s a sorceress with an endless supply of powerful magic at her fingertips.”
“Are you absolutely certain of that?” Magnus said, his words clipped. “If you’re wrong—”
“I’m not wrong,” the king said firmly.
“Of course I’ll help you, Father,” Lucia said. “For Limeros.”
Seeing Magnus nearly killed in this battle made her want it to be over, no matter what it took to make that happen. All she wanted was to go home again as soon as possible. The king squeezed her hands and smiled at her. “Thank you. Thank you, my beautiful daughter.”
Without delay, and with the protection of twenty Limerian guards, they guided her across the battlefield, scattered with bodies. She tried not to see the faces of the dead. All of this senseless pain and destruction could have been prevented if Auranos had surrendered. She had grown to hate them as much as her father did for letting this escalate.
“You must stop if it becomes too much for you,” Magnus said when they arrived at the castle’s entrance, only loud enough for her to hear. “Promise me.”
“I promise.” She nodded, then turned her attention to the tall wooden doors before her. There was no mistaking that there most definitely was a spell on these doors. A very powerful one. “Can you see it?”
“What?”
“The spell. It shimmers on the door. I—I think it’s created from all four elements combined.”
Magnus shook his head. “I see nothing but a door. A big one.”
The door wasn’t the problem. The spell was. And it was cast by a very powerful witch—one who had delved deeply into magic to create something like this.
Blood magic helped with this spell, Lucia thought suddenly. Someone—or many someones—had been sacrificed to create such protection.
That the Auranians were willing to allow such a thing only strengthened her resolve. There was blood on their hands as much—or more so—than anyone else’s.
It would take a great deal of Lucia’s magic to break through this wall of protection. She couldn’t doubt herself. Her power was strongest when it came from a deep, emotional place inside. She remembered how she’d felt when she saw Magnus at the edge of death and summoned her newfound magic.
It rose up to the surface to greet her. The strength of air, the grit of earth, the endurance of water, and the scorch of fire.
Magnus and the others watched as she thrust her hands out toward the doors, toward the spell, and unleashed it all.
As Lucia’s magic met the other witch’s blood magic, they combusted. The protection spell rose up like a fiery dragon in an attempt to fight her—but her father was right. Her magic was more powerful. It compensated. It changed. It grew right before her eyes.
The doors exploded in a ball of fire, shaking the ground beneath their feet. The shock wave hit everyone within a hundred-foot radius, knocking them backward. Lucia hit the ground hard and pain crashed over her.
Screams of terror filled her ears. People were dying, on fire, some with their throats slashed from sharp wooden shards hitting them; some victims lay in pieces, limbs scattered. Rivers of blood soaked into the earth.
The last thing Lucia saw before she passed out was the force of her father’s army storming through the broken, burning doorway and into the Auranian castle.
After the explosion that blasted open the front doors, chaos descended. Cleo couldn’t give in to her grief, couldn’t fall to her knees and sob over her sister’s death. She had no choice but to keep moving. Their enemies had breached the castle.
Screams of fear and the violent clang of swords met her ears as she and Nic ran through the halls. She clung to his arm. “What can we do?”
There was sweat on his brow as he kept his attention on their path. “I have to find Mira. We need to...I don’t know. I want to help. I want to fight, but I know your father would want me to keep you and my sister safe.”
“How? How can we be safe now?”
Nic shook his head, his expression grim. “We’ll have to hide. Then try to escape when we have the chance.”
“I need to find my father.”
He nodded, then swore under his breath. Storming down the dark hallway toward them was Aron. He grabbed hold of Nic’s shirt.
“They’re everywhere,” Aron cried. “Goddess help us. They managed to blast their way in!”