“I’ll wager that hurts,” Tannaz purred as Amaris panted in anguish down on one knee. “Now, don’t you wish you’d been a loyal daughter instead of a treacherous little bitch?” He levered up on the sword he’d driven between her ribs and hip.
The pain was a blinding scarlet screech that forced Amaris to her feet again. She dropped her sword to grip her father’s wrist, trying to keep him from hurting her further.
He grinned down into her face. “Nothing to say, daughter? No viperous accusations, no vicious insults?”
“Why bother?” she managed as pain rippled through her side in nauseating waves. Her left hand groped for her belt, found the hilt of the slender knife she wore there. Her right hand spread against his armored side, found the chink just beneath his ribs. “You know what you are.”
Rage lit his eyes, and he twisted the sword, ripping a scream from her lips. “And I know what you are—a whore, just like your mother.”
Not close enough. She forced herself another inch up the blade, stepping full against him as she drew the knife from its belt sheath. “But did you know how I’ve met the sun every morning I’ve been your captive?” With a quick twist of the wrist, she drove her little knife right into the chink in his armor into the flesh beneath. It wasn’t a deep wound given the length of the blade, certainly nothing that would kill him. Not by itself. Her lip curled in satisfaction. “Burn, Father!”
Before he could jerk away, she cast the spell that released all the morning sunlight she’d stored in her dagger for just this moment, sending it pouring into the knife wound on a river of magic.
Amaris jerked back, forcing herself back the length of the sword, reeling backward as Tannaz went up like a torch. The vampire howled in agony, the light pouring from the dagger to devour his magical flesh. He blazed bonfire bright until the fire finally went out, leaving his armor to collapse to the battlement stones, empty of all but ash.
Dizzy, weak with blood loss and the effort of casting the spell, Amaris reeled like a drunken woman. But before she could hit the ground, strong male hands caught her shoulders.
“I will have to remember not to make you angry,” Raniero said, even as he sent a pulse of magic into her body. She added his strength to her own and healed the lethal sword wound, sighing in relief as the pain faded.
NINE
“We’ve got to get to Marin before he kills her,” Amaris said grimly.
Raniero longed to tell her to stay behind, but her magic was greater than his, and he knew he’d need her if he was to have any hope at all of stopping the wizard. So he nodded silently and turned to lead the way as they went in search of Korban.
They found him bathed in the pulsing crimson glow of the Blood Orb. His eyes were wide and glittering with exhilaration in his pale face as he held Marin pinned against his chest. The child hung limp in his arms, the side of her face marked with a purpling handprint where he’d obviously struck her.
“You bastard!” Amaris snarled.
Korban smirked at them and kept right on chanting, the words coming in a fast singsong now.
Amaris exchanged a grim glance with Raniero, realizing he was coming to the end of the spell. Once that happened, all he had to do was break Marin’s neck, and the Great Barrier would fall.
“We’ve got to get her away from him,” Amaris whispered.
“Aye, but how?” Raniero hefted his sword and eyed Korban, who promptly lifted the child higher to shield himself. “Fucking coward.”
Amaris’s eyes widened with desperate inspiration. “Marin!” Her voice rang clear over Korban’s chanting. “Remember our game!”
The child’s despairing gaze met hers, but there was no understanding in them.
She tried again. “Remember that game you love to play? The one where I look for you?”
Marin’s big brown eyes went huge. Then, thank the Red God, her little face screwed up with effort.
And she vanished.
Korban’s chanting broke off in a startled yelp, and his hands jerked as if losing their hold. He flailed as if trying to recapture the child who’d just magicked herself invisible and squirmed from his grip.
“Hit the ground, Marin!” Amaris screamed.
The child instantly appeared, her body drawn into a ball as she lay on the stone floor. The wizard started to swoop down and grab her up again.
Raniero ran forward, swinging his sword in a furious upward blow. It cleaved through Korban’s neck in one clean stroke, and the wizard’s head went flying.
But even as his body fell, the Blood Orb flashed a horrifying crimson. A trail of red light started draining from the wizard’s headless body into the globe, which began to pulse brighter.
Raniero froze in horror. “Red God’s Balls! Korban’s death has completed the spell!”
Her heart turning into a solid block of ice, Amaris realized he was right. Though the death of an innocent would have provided more power, any death at all would fuel the spell. In moments, it would activate and rip the barrier apart. And once it fell, the Varil would invade.
Unless . . .
“We’ve got to redirect the spell.”
“It’s too complicated—there’s no time!”
“I can do it!” She stared hard at the pattern of swirling energies, reading them, finding the spot where the spell could be warped, turned to a new purpose. Throwing out both hands, she began to chant, sending her magic swirling toward the chink in the spell.
It was like trying to redirect floodwaters with her bare hands. The spell roared along the channel Korban had constructed, ignoring her efforts to turn it in a new direction. Amaris gritted her teeth and kept trying. She was damned if they’d fall to the Varil after suffering so much, fighting so hard.
But even as she strained to turn the magic, she knew she simply didn’t have enough power.
Until strong fingers wrapped around her shoulders, and a new stream of magic joined that rolling down her arms.
Raniero’s.
The vampire joined his will to hers, reinforcing her magic, working to warp the spell into the new shape she willed for it. And slowly, reluctantly, the spell twisted, took on the form she demanded.
The mystical energies pouring through the Great Barrier began adding to its strength instead of weakening it.
Somewhere in the distance, Amaris thought she heard reptilian voices howl in rage. Perhaps it was her imagination.
But it made her grin anyway.
Even as she smiled, the Blood Orb hit the stones of the battlements and shattered.
Silence fell.
It was so quiet, Amaris could hear her own panting along with Raniero’s deeper breaths. She felt dizzy, exhausted with blood loss and effort.
“Ama’is!” Her sister flung her small warm body against Amaris’s thighs, almost bowling her over. “Ama’is, you saved me!”
She dropped to her wobbling knees and wrapped shaking arms around the little girl. “I had help.” Amaris met Raniero’s eyes, and let her own gratitude show. “I had a lot of help.”
He leaned down and kissed her over the child’s head, quick and hard. She smiled at him as he drew away, knowing a promise when she tasted one.
They limped into the great hall, where the guards and castle folk slept together on thin pallets. At the ring of Raniero’s boots on the stone, Korban’s warriors jolted awake and rose with a mass growl—only to fall silent in staring astonishment at the sight of their lord’s head, swinging by its bloody hair from Raniero’s right hand.
The left held Blue Stripe’s decapitated skull by one long ear. Amaris carried Cari’f’s head as her own gory trophy, a chilling grin of triumph pasted on her face.
Together, the lovers strolled to the dais through the stunned crowd, Marin walking solemnly behind them. Amaris’s heart was knotted in her throat, but she knew that the castle had to be reclaimed for the king.