Page 42 of Mistake of Magic
“What are you?” Malikai screams, his pale, mismatched eyes wide, his hands in the air to ward off my approach. The vein on the side of his neck pulses, beads of sweat trailing from the raven widow’s peak in the middle of his forehead. He is afraid. Terrified. I can smell it.
And I love it.
Dropping to one knee, I sink my fist into Malikai’s stomach, the muscled flesh hard beneath my knuckles.
“I surrender!” Malikai hollers to the arena.
But the arena doesn’t care.
“My quint,” Malikai calls to me, slithering away. His words are muffled, his breath coming in gasps. “Please. You know what a death does to a quint.” His hands drop, his head rising to expose his bare neck to me. “I surrender,” he whispers. “I won’t fight.”
My fist tightens, my pulse a pounding drum, thelub-dub,lub-dub,lub-dubechoing through my head. Waves of pain and humiliation wash over me again and again as I cock my fist to put an end to this qoru’s existence. It’s not worth calling it life.
Power flares in my blood.
Stop.The command comes from everywhere inside me, in a voice that is mine and not mine.You are Lera.
I pull my strike as it flies, neatly knocking Malikai unconscious.
27
Lera
“Ido like that dress,” Tye says, leaning in the open door of my bedchamber—which I’m sure I closed and locked before starting to change. His sharp face is split into a wide, glinting smile, his white tunic unbuttoned to the deep carve of his sternum.
I grip the sides of the gown before it can fall to my ankles. “How did you get in here?”
Tye blinks, his brilliant green eyes wide with innocence. “The same way I’ve gotten into most places for a few centuries. Good thing, too—you look in need of some assistance, lass.”
I scowl down at the fabric, which, in addition to being a gorgeous sapphire-blue satin, is also voluminous and unwieldy enough to make me consider going to the dining hall in my undershorts. Not that I want to go to a celebratory dinner of any kind just now, but that’s my problem, not Tye’s. Or the dress’s. I sigh. The bodice is an open-backed thing that is supposed to lace up around my ribs. It’s the same one I wore to meet with the Elders Council, and somehow, I still cannot figure out how to put it on. It was hard enough then; now, with my shaking and depleted muscles, it’s impossible. I’m certain the tailor cackled himself silly after making it. “If you can work out how to attach this thing to me, I won’t ask after the lock,” I concede to Tye, turning my back to him.
The door clicks closed and the male’s measured footsteps approach me from behind. His thick arms wrap around my waist as his scent of pine and citrus fills my lungs. The heat from Tye’s body seeps into me, sending shivers across my skin. And doing nothing for the bloody dress.
“You were going to help with the bodice,” I say over my shoulder.
“No, I wasn’t,” Tye says into my ear, his warm breath its own caress that makes me want to melt into his body and pull away at the same time.
I fight against the latter, keeping my chin raised high, like the other males did in the aftermath of the trial only hours ago. We won. Passed the Individual Trial. Secured the victory. I, through beating Malikai; the others by virtue of Malikai’s entire quint yielding before the other four fights could even begin, too afraid of the malfunctioning surrender ward to step into the arena with my males.
It doesn’t matter what my victory cost. That I came within a breath of killing. That Coal’s eyes were blank by the time I made it to him, the shadows underneath so deep he looked bruised. That Shade’s wolf had only just stopped whimpering and regained enough consciousness to shift back into fae form. My chest squeezes painfully at the memory of his sweat-drenched body curled up on the stone, flinching away from me when I tried to comfort him—which was an improvement on him being unable to move at all.
What matters is that there is now one less rune on everyone’s neck, and we are having dinner with Autumn and Kora’s quint in the dining hall to celebrate.
I force the expected normalcy into my voice. “You are the one who came to offer help, if I recall.”
“Aye. But I wasn’t talking about the dress.” Tye’s arms tighten, his large body folding protectively around me. The hard muscles of his thighs and abdomen press into my flesh. “Stop pretending, Lilac Girl,” Tye purrs. “See, lying is a skill. An art. Of which I consider myself a seasoned master. You... Well, you don’t even reach novice rank on that particular front.”
“I’m not sure—”
“The trial.” Tye turns me toward him, the dress abandoned to fall into a pool of blue on the floor. His thumbs trace the length of my cheekbones, his stunning face so close to mine, I can see that smattering of freckles on one cheek, feel his skin’s heat. “Talk to me, lass.”
I swallow, an involuntary chill running down my spine. “We are a warrior quint destined to fight the terrors of Mors,” I say in a voice too even to be mine. “Today’s fight ended in victory. End of discussion and time to eat.”
“Now, that sounds very much like Coal,” Tye says.
I sigh, my shoulders falling. “It sounds like Coal because it is from Coal. I tried to ask him about—”
“Well, that was your first mistake,” Tye interrupts, his face lowering toward mine. “You were talking to the wrong male. It truly is better never to talk to Coal. Especially not when you could be doing this instead.” Tye’s hands tighten on either side of my face, tipping it up as his warm, velvety lips brush over mine with unexpected gentleness.
