Page 97 of A Fury Of Shadows

He indicated the ceiling with a cocked thumb. “Do you hear that?”

Oscar looked up. Tension knotted his shoulders. Booms echoed dimly from the direction of the northeast tower. They shook dust from the ceiling.

“That’s Mae, kicking Barquiel’s ass,” Nikolai said with a faint smile.

“Wow, she’d really going at it, huh?” Violet muttered. She caught a glimpse of a sorcerer trying to slip away and brought him down with a spell bomb. “No one gave you permission to leave, asshole!”

Fury reddened Oscar’s face and corded the muscles in his neck as she engaged the Dark Council with Cortes and Miles.

He glared at Nikolai. “I won’t let you get away with this!”

A chill coursed through Nikolai at the black magic boiling in the sorcerer’s eyes. It overspilled his skin, mottling his face with inky lines. Drabek flinched and looked up at her sorcerer.

Nikolai clenched his jaw.That fool. Even his familiar knows that power will consume him!

Maybe it was a vestige of familial attachment that made him reach out to the man glowering at him. Oscar was as much a victim of circumstances as he was.

Had he grown up in a different environment, he might not have embraced the path of evil.

“Our father’s madness must stop, Oscar,” Nikolai said quietly. “Please, withdraw from this battle, brother.”

Oscar stilled.

For a moment, Nikolai thought he’d gotten through to him.

The sorcerer’s face distorted in a mask of outrage.

“You are not my brother!” he screamed. He raised a trembling hand. “ROT!”

Moon Fireflickered.

Oscar moved, the flames around his barrier retreating. He took something out of his pocket and approached Nikolai. It was a stone glimmering with fiery, blue runes.

Nikolai’s mouth went dry when he recognized his brother’s intentions.

“That’s right, you bastard of a whore!” Oscar spat. “Soon, you’ll be licking my boots and doing my bidding. That includes killing that little bitch of yours!”

A red mist descended in front of Nikolai. He scowled and grabbed the sorcerer’s wrist as he made to drive the Illusion Sorcery stone containing Anya Mendes’s spell inside his body.

Power ignited his and Alastair’s cores.

The crow squawked, eyes and wings blazing with all the colors of the magic they wielded. A conjuration they had used only once before blazed through Nikolai’s mind.

“RUPTURE!” he snarled.

The stone cracked and disintegrated, the magic it contained winking out. Oscar screamed as his arm crumpled and shattered. Drabek screeched.

Nikolai ignored the familiar’s cry of pain. He pressed a hand to Oscar’s stomach and met his shocked gaze. The second spell left his throat on a hiss.

“Subjugate!”

Drabek fell and convulsed. Oscar threw his head back and screamed. Vessels burst in the whites of his eyes. Blood oozed out of his nose. He thrashed in Nikolai’s hold, desperate to resist the spell he and Vedran once used to overwrite Anya Mendes’s bond with her familiar.

But Nikolai’s magic was stronger.

* * *

Blood splashedVlad’s clothes as he felled a demon. Tarang brought down another and ripped its head clean off before spitting it on the floor, his pupils a bright scarlet.

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