But what did that make her? A survivor, definitely. A winner, maybe. But also something worse. And it scared her.
“You know what I think, Grieve?” Alistair countered. “You’re just upset that I’m not the villain you imagined I would be. Slaying me was supposed to be your ultimate act of victory. But I’m not your monster. Or your trophy.”
“You’re still my enemy,” Gavin growled.
Alistair smirked. “Then attack me.”
Gavin’s spellrings glittered, and Isobel leaped between them.
“I’ll do it,” Isobel said quickly. “I’ll make them come out.”
Even though her words were designed to form a truce, her stance said otherwise. She’d reacted instinctively, thoughtlessly—her gaze leveled in warning at Gavin, Alistair protectively behind her. It seemed that in a choice between her mind and her heart, somehow her heart still won.
That scared her, too.
Gavin stared her down. “How?”
“By making them open the door for us,” Isobel answered.
She reached her hand out. She’d learned this curse from Alistair while they were in the Cave. It was called Dragon’s Breath, a very Lowe sort of name. If it worked, Elionor and Finley would have no choice but to flee, like termites being fumigated from their nest.
Isobel summoned the curse, and the magick spiraled around her fingertips. A flame burst forth in the air. What began as little more than the flicker of a candle grew and grew until it took on a life of its own. The fire slithered around her, so bright she needed to squint, so scorching it hurt to breathe.
As the flames soared out in front of her, the jaws of the dragon opened wide and soared through the door of the Monastery. The fire spread throughout the Landmark, and within moments, each of the spires were engulfed.
For the next few minutes, none of them spoke. No one had charged through the doors, and Isobel wondered with a mixture of horror and relief if she had burned the other champions inside, if it would be so easy. But the Blood Veil remained unchanged, so they waited.
“A class eight? Nine?” Gavin asked, sounding begrudgingly impressed. “I guess the papers didn’t lie about you.”
“That curse is a family favorite,” Alistair told her darkly. “You cast it better than I ever could.”
Isobel had seen enough of his mind to know his words were not a compliment.
At last, the door to the Monastery burst open. Elionor collapsed at its threshold, her skin coated in a layer of soot. She coughed and sputtered into the grass. Then she crawled, pathetically, to their feet.
Gavin grabbed her by her shirt and wrenched her up.
“I guess I’ll do the honors,” he said, and cast the curse.
Elionor grinned as she shoved something gleaming into its path—the Mirror. The curse rebounded off the glass and shot up, between them, into the sky, grazing Gavin’s cheek as it blazed past.
Gavin screamed … and then fell unconscious to the ground, blood pouring down his face.
BRIONY THORBURN
Theoretically, at least, this curse can be broken. But sacrifice makes any curse grow stronger, and few curses in history have been given this much blood.
A Tradition of Tragedy
The Cave was carved into the mountains at the edge of Ilvernath. It was a jagged gash in the stone, plain and unassuming, and the wards around it camouflaged it even further. Briony didn’t understand why a Lowe would gravitate toward something so humble, so hidden. But then, there was clearly a lot she didn’t understand about Alistair.
She checked the Blood Veil as she and Finley crept closer, but it hadn’t weakened. Which meant that all the other champions were alive—for now.
“These are strong defensive spells,” she commented.
Finley stared into the darkness. “It’s nothing we can’t handle.”
They walked into the Cave together, the three spellrings set into the Sword’s hilt gleaming red as the darkness swallowed them whole. A few spells activated at the entrance, but Finley’s Sword swiped through them easily, high magick dissipating the ropes of spellwork designed to block out any intruders.
The Cave would only respond to Alistair, and since he wasn’t here, their sole source of illumination was the dull glow of the Sword. Until, after a minute of walking, Briony found a candelabra, mostly by bumping into the rock formation it was sitting on.
A quick Flicker and Flare spell set it alight. She raised it in the air, feeling a little ridiculous, to survey the space that Alistair Lowe had described as his lair. Apparently he’d meant that literally. The main area of the Cave was one large room: a four-poster bed sat along the far wall, spellstones spilling from the blankets down onto the floor beyond it like a dragon’s hoard. Clothes were piled on the edge of the covers and rumpled on the ground. Everything was coated in a thin layer of dust, and cobwebs hung like tapestries from the damp walls.