Page 119 of Hexbound
"You think I believe that you've Seen it?" Emotion turned his expression ugly. "I took your blindfold away, you little bitch. And with it your gifts."
"Not all of them," Drake replied, stepping between father and daughter, faint power blurring the air around his hands. Where Tremayne flaunted his sorcerous strength, Drake didn't bother. Verity would have bet money on the outcome of this battle based purely on that fact alone. She'd seen enough posturing in the Dials, and the mere fact that Tremayne doubted the outcome enough to bring six others with him....
Tremayne shook his head. "You couldn't remain content with merely destroying our friendship, could you, Drake? You had to steal everything—Morgana, my relics, the mantle of Prime... and now my daughter."
"The problem with you, Tremayne, is you think you own everything and that the world owes you a favor. Perhaps it was you who drove your daughter away from your side?"
An immense wave of power flung directly toward them. Verity was a microsecond away from getting the hell out of there when Drake merely brushed it aside.
One of the masked sorcerers trembled, as if hit by the backlash. Their cloaks blew backwards with the impact, then fell still.
"Stand straight, you weakling," Tremayne snapped at the swaying sorcerer, and the circle around him buoyed him with new strength. "This has been a long time coming, oldfriend."
A dozen vicious red battle globes sprang to life in the air around Tremayne's head. Whoa. Verity stepped back, retreating to Ianthe's side. She didn't know how to make them—none of the Hex did—but she knew what mage globes could do. She'd heard more than enough stories, and red were the strongest.
"Stay out of it," Ianthe warned, capturing her upper arm.
"Quite happily," Verity replied. This was well outside her boundaries.
Power flowed through Ianthe and directly into Drake, as though they were linked. It made Verity dizzy to realize how much raw energy the duke was manipulating.
Drake took a step forward and battered Tremayne with a wave of sorcery. Tremayne countered it, and sparks flew as the two waves of energy met. One of Tremayne's linked sorcerers—the one who'd wavered before—collapsed backward into the snow. The others stepped closer, joining hands again to make up for the break.
"Fight me," Tremayne snarled, and sent two of his mage globes flying toward Drake.
They shattered against Drake's invisible wards, the explosion making Verity cry out and clap her hands over her eyes. Two more explosions sounded, and a pair of whizzing hisses, like fireworks. Scrambling behind Ianthe, she peered over the other woman's shoulder.
Drake had his own mage globes in play now. He focused them on Tremayne, ignoring the linked sorcerers fuelling the earl.
It was a moment of utter fairness, but she swiftly realized the futility. Take out Tremayne's sorcerers and he wouldn't have the strength to face Drake.
Bishop would see the sense in that, but then sometimes he swayed too far into the darkness. Drake was his complete opposite.
"Can I get through Drake's wards?" she shouted in Ianthe's ear.
The other woman swayed. Not from fatigue, but from the sheer force of power she was allowing to conduit through her. "Physically, yes! Don't translocate through though. Sorcery can't penetrate them." She blinked over her shoulder, drawing just enough of her attention away from the fight. "What are you going to do?"
"I thought I might distract his little ring of sorcerers."
Ianthe ground her teeth together. "It's a nice idea, but there's a lot of sorcery being flung about. Bishop won't thank me if I hand you back to him in pieces. Drake can handle this."
Then she turned her attention back to the exploding gamut of battle globes.
Something hissed and fizzed at the ground beside Verity. She looked down and saw the edges of Drake's oil-slick ward crackling at the bottom, much the same way Horroway's had when Lady Eberhardt was infiltrating them. What on earth...?
Instinct propelled her to look around. A shadow moved out there in the dark, a person in a black hood waving their hands as they muttered under their breath. She thought she saw someone else out there too, just waiting until the wards lifted.
These were tactics she knew. Send in somebody flamboyant to steal Drake's attention and then attack when his back was turned.
"Ianthe!" She pointed to the wards. They'd lifted almost a foot off the ground by now.
Ianthe's face paled.
"I'll stop it," Verity said, and then ran toward the base of the wards. She slid onto her knees and side, sliding through the snow under the ward. The second she was through, a weave of something dark and deadly flung toward her, but she was ready and vanished.
Verity reappeared behind a tree, and ducked immediately as a battle globe of violent red drove toward her face. It hit the tree, which exploded into flame as she dove away, her skirts tangling in her legs.
More of them. How many...? Verity panted as she punched through time and space, flickering in and out just enough to count. At least a dozen black-robed figures slipped through the woods, waiting for the wards to fail.
