Hendry seemed equally shaken and relieved to see him. But as he turned his head to assess the others around them, something strange happened. A streak of red high magick appeared as he moved, as though there was a lag in his image. As though he was made up of magick and illusion and nothing more.
Alistair felt a hand squeezing his shoulder. Gavin. He shrugged him off and took a step closer to Hendry. He had to touch his brother; he had to know if he was real.
“He’s dead, Al,” Isobel said from a few paces away. “First the Blood Veil, now this. This isn’t—”
“What the fuck do you mean he’s dead?” Elionor asked.
“Dead as in brutally murdered,” Gavin shot back. “As in not waking up. That kind of dead.”
Alistair winced at that, feeling more unsure than ever. “Is one of you doing this, then?” Alistair croaked. “Is this a spell?” He climbed the mossy stone steps of the banquet hall until he stood before his brother. The streak of lagging red light appeared again as Hendry threw his arms around him.
His touch was solid. His touch was as real as anything.
All the events of the past two weeks unwound inside Alistair. The game played with Gavin over shared drinks. The nights spent with Isobel in the Cave. The horrible morning his family had gathered together to name him champion.
“I’m here,” Hendry said softly. “It’s me.”
“Do you remember…” Alistair swallowed. “Do you remember what happened?”
Hendry lifted his hand to his neck, the light of red magick once against streaking behind him as he moved. “I remember all of it.”
“I’m so sorry,” Alistair said, his words cracking. “Are you … are you okay?” It was a ridiculous question. Of course none of this was okay. After a childhood spent listening to tragic tales, none had scarred Alistair as deeply as this one. He stared at the mark on his brother’s throat, where their grandmother had torn it open and extracted his life magick.
“I am now,” Hendry responded, and gradually, his face lit up into another smile.
A curse, white as bone, flashed in his peripheral vision. Alistair reacted instantly, stepping protectively in front of Hendry and throwing up an Exoskeleton to deflect its path. His heart hammered with a fear so strong it threatened to consume him. He’d lost Hendry once—he couldn’t lose him again.
He searched wildly for the caster and saw it had been Elionor, braced for battle once more at the courtyard’s edge. The whites of her eyes were bloodshot. Her long black hair was plastered to her skin with sweat, her shoulders heaving in exertion from such a powerful curse. One Alistair could only assume was meant to kill.
“What are you doing?” Alistair growled. “Hendry isn’t a champion.”
“Then he shouldn’t be allowed to interfere! And from the sound of it, he shouldn’t even be alive,” she countered. “I don’t know how you did it, but I’m not surprised that the Lowes would cheat. Don’t you have enough of an advantage already?”
Elionor was half right. The Lowes might not have intended to break the rules, but the rules were breaking.
Alistair’s gaze flickered briefly to the Champions Pillar, to its three cracks.
“You buried the ring,” Gavin said from the bottom of the steps. “You buried the ring with the curse made from Hendry’s sacrifice. In an area full of high magick. And look at him—he goes all red when he moves.”
Alistair knew that magick left a body during burial, but that was a body. Surely this couldn’t be the same. Surely this couldn’t be some … some trick.
Beside him, Hendry took a deep, shuddering breath. “I feel real,” he rasped but even he didn’t sound certain.
But Alistair was sure. He had to be sure. He had never needed anything as much as he needed this.
“If you attack again,” Alistair warned Elionor, “I’ll fight back.”
“Al…” Hendry said warily. Alistair quickly fished in his pocket and withdrew a handful of extra spellstones. Hendry had never been a fighter, but Alistair thrust them into his hands anyway. He was about to tell Hendry to take them and run, but instead, Hendry squeezed them tight. “I’m not leaving you. I don’t want you to fight alone—I never did.”
Elionor took a wide-eyed, nervous step back, assessing them both. The wind in the courtyard continued to whistle, and the dark, overcast sky went darker still. Both Isobel and Gavin seemed frozen.
Then Elionor raised her hand, fist clenched for battle, and cast another curse.