Song of Blood and Reign

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

They were only five steps out of the cell when a scream echoed from above, followed by another.

The first had been Corliss. Lyv was so focused on getting the cuffs off herself and Mik she forgot it was how Corliss kept track of them both, that she would know whenever they were gone. It only cut into their time to get out. And no matter how much Lyv wanted to go out with a bang and a blaze of glory, she knew they needed to be as quiet as they could.

The second female was actually Guinevere. Pounding footsteps quickly followed her commands, then shouts from her guardsmen. Lyv knew she had time if they were the ones to come down to restrain them. The three locks would hold them.

Until Corliss destroyed the doorway itself with magic. The force took out a portion of the stone walls on either side, raining down the stairway into the dungeon below.

"We've got to go," Lyv hissed, pulling Mik along with her toward the back of the dungeon. The marked stone Dessa had told her about...she had to find it. Quick. "I know a way out of here..."

"Lyv."

Mik's voice was barely a whisper as he stopped moving, making Lyv stumbled backward. He was looking down at his forearm where the obsidian stone resided. Panic clawed its way up Lyv's throat as she looked to both his arm and her own.

Both of their stones were glowing.

"No," she growled. "It will not have us for its own. I refuse."

"You can't just..."

But she could.

Lyv's light and dark magic, both of which she knew more than she ever had before, worked in harmony and strength against the sparse yet overpowering magic of Corliss. With them together, Lyv was able to smother it, chain it up as it raged inside her, trying to claw its way free. She ground her teeth as the internal battle ensued.

And the glow of the stone in her arm died just as quickly as it came.

But Mik's...his was different. No matter how hard she tried, Lyv couldn't take complete control over that darkness inside him. She could hold it at bay like she had over these last months, sure, but there was no stopping it completely, not without his own light magic helping. And he didn't have any other than the small kernel inside him that made him Mik. She held him steady, though, doing as much as she could for a long as she could and would for however long it took to get them out of there.

There was one detail Lyv forgot when it came to Mik, though. Unlike the stone within Lyv, Mik's acted as a siphon itself, a direct connection to Corliss and her magic. He was the conduit, a body for Corliss to channel and use her magic without having to physically be there herself. It was how she'd kept in contact with the world when Lyv's mother Bridget had her locked in the dungeon of Asturia.

The stone still continued to glow, steadily getting brighter with every moment that passed.

"If I don't make it out with you," Mik began as he clenched his jaw. Yet another attempt at a death bed confession. "Tell Allel I love her. Tell her I'm sorry for everything I've done. That I wish I could go back and change it all, but we never had a choice. No matter how much we tried, we could have never changed what was to come. Can you tell her that, Lyv? For me?"

"No," Lyv snarled, and began tugging him into the back of the dungeon once more. "You're telling her yourself. Do you hear me? I'm not doing it for you."

The physical connection of her fingers twined with his made it easier to control the darkness within him. It was just like before, needing it to be able to get to Mik and not the conduit. Lyv's mind raced at the thought of losing that connection and her hand tightened around around his. And with one look at him, she knew he understood what was going on, what would happen once they were separated.