Lyra Cinder is cast out from the Fort, the largest remaining training settlement for human mages outside of the Alliance. Without a killer extinct and far too much use of her conscience, she is of no use to the mages who have refused peace with thei...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Pain surged violently through the mental link they shared, and Dawn cut it off before it incapacitated them. Riff had no issue with pain as Songs were trained to power through anything to triumph against the monsters, but even he was susceptible to the dying throes of one he called friend and master. Dawn and Meredith could not handle such things like that though, and Meredith's scream had him quickening his pace to her side.
Wren's need to protect Silvia Arc gave Riff an opening to go to her, but he was far too late to be of any help. Cold clutched at his chest, and his chains fell back into the magic they'd come from as he took in Meredith crumpled on the ground with her hands over Remus.
The smell of burnt polyester and cotton singed Riff's nose as he knelt at Meredith's side, and he grit his teeth as her found Remus conscious but in no condition to communicate with them. Arms bent stiff at his side, Remus twitched involuntarily from the overload of light magic thrust into him, and his wide eyes stared up at the sky, his pupils tinier than pinpricks and blind to the world around him.
The only one who could have injured Remus like this was Meredith herself, and Riff could see it all over her face—the sunken eyes, tears streaming down her face, and her frantic search for some magic to fix what had to have been a terrible accident. There was no way Meredith's magic had struck Remus without the intervention and redirection of their adversaries, not with how well they'd trained her to control it over the years, but she would still lay the fault on herself.
Truly, it anyone were to suffer blame, it should be Riff. This plan had been his. To force the Zero to their knees so they would flee to the Alliance. To expedite the conflict of this world so it could find a path to peace before the hate was too far gone to turn back. But what sort of path was it, if it was empty of the ones who deserved so much to walk it?
No matter where Riff went, everyone around him died. His people, Harper, Remus. Was there anywhere he could go that was not tainted by his presence until it all fell apart? Perhaps it was coincidence, but it felt more like a curse, like karma seizing anything he cared about and killing it to make up for the lives he'd taken.
The memory of Remus's tepid smile as he welcomed Riff home crumbled to the reality of his open mouth and dead eyes as he struggled to survive. Failure devoured Riff's composure, yet even as crippled as he was, he was still a warrior at heart, and his instincts spun him to block a spiral of chains with a shield spell and push them back.
Wren saw that they were in trouble, which meant this was the time to strike, to complete his mission, to apprehend the master of puppets, and to save Riff. Behind Wren, Neil Arc stood with the same conviction, wiping his eyes before as he supported his exhausted mate.
Dark magic plopped next to Riff at the same time as Damien sped back to Neil Arc's side, which meant Lyon had chosen to protect Remus and Meredith over the mission his master had given him. That was the most important, but Riff couldn't fight all of these people, not in time to save Remus.
