Warrior Witch (The Malediction Trilogy #3)(93)

Then skiffs were rising out of the water and moving toward land. Fingers of magic beyond number plucking people out of the surf and bringing them to safety.

Melusina swooped over our heads. “It’s Trollus. The magic’s coming from Trollus,” Chris shouted. “There’s hundreds of trolls on the beach bringing them in.”

Martin, I thought, knowing that was where the librarian must have gone for help. And that so many had been willing to give it meant I hadn’t been wrong to break the curse. They deserved their freedom, and right now, they were proving it.

“Can you see Tristan?” Marc shouted, and Chris shook his head. “They’re on the beach, but she won’t go close to them. I’ll try again.”

Then it happened.

I felt the air ripple, then everything rocked with a thunderous boom. My song faltered, and I struggled to keep focus, seeing the horde stir. The air pulsed again, but instead of a boom, it sounded like a thousand mirrors shattering.

Then I was falling.

Tristan was falling.

Marc’s hands were reaching for me, catching me, but it didn’t matter. “No,” I whispered, but his magic was still tangled in my voice and the word rippled across Trianon. “Please, no.”





Chapter Fifty-Five





Tristan





My magic skated over the sea, stretching in a long strip beneath Roland’s bridge, reaching both ends just before his magic vanished and the whole mess of humans and skiffs dropped on my flimsy replacement. There’d been no time to brace it against the sea floor, and the weight jerked me to my knees, dragging me forward and sending Damia’s, the Dowager Duchesse d’Angoulême’s, head rolling off into the brush.

I skidded on hands and knees toward the surf, my wrists trembling as I tried to find enough leverage to keep those thousands of people from plunging to their deaths. An icy wave struck me in the face, but I managed to turn and stop my slide with my heels, edging backwards as I sank a series of pillars into the ocean depths to hold the bridge up.

But it wasn’t enough.

Water hammered the length of it, the strength of the sea dragging my bridge back and forth, waves cresting to push at the skiffs, forcing me to grab them with fingers of magic to keep them in place. But for all my efforts, there were overturned craft in the water. It wouldn’t be long until bodies washed up on the shore.

And Roland was coming.

Get up, I ordered myself, staggering to my feet. I could feel the weight on the Trianon end lightening; the familiar brush of Marc’s magic as he lifted the skiffs off the bridge. But he wasn’t moving quickly enough. Not even close.

I couldn’t run. If Roland got between me and the bridge, it would be child’s play for him to cut the flows holding it up. This was where I would make my stand.

It wasn’t long before my brother stepped out of the trees, Angoulême at his side. Roland’s eyes looked dead, but the Duke’s were full of fury. He knelt next to his mother’s body and touched her cheek, and any thought I might’ve had that he’d set her up to die was chased away.

“If Cécile survives your death, I’m going to find her and make her wish she hadn’t,” he hissed, rising to his feet. He shoved Roland hard between the shoulders. “Kill him and take the crown. Make yourself King of Trollus and ruler of the Isle of Light.”

The words acted like a trigger, delight washing across my brother’s face. Then he attacked.

The first blow made my shield shudder; the second radiated through my limbs, making my body ache. I couldn’t do both, couldn’t hold all those lives out of the water while holding back my brother. One more, I told myself, one more, and you’ll have done all you can.

The impact sent me staggering, and the magic behind me collapsed. I swore I could hear the screams of the drowning over the pounding of the waves.

Roland laughed, and magic whirled toward me like a storm. I braced, putting all the might I had at my disposal into a counterblow. The strength that had held up Forsaken Mountain. That had quelled my enemies. That had allowed me to walk through fire and ice unscathed.

It was not enough.





Chapter Fifty-Six





Cécile





Hands were on me, Sabine’s and Marc’s, trying to hold me steady, but I pushed them away and fell against the wall, my fingernails digging into the stone. Drawing in a deep breath, I tried to sing, but it came out raspy and jarring. Snatching up the water skin, I guzzled the contents even as the horde began to shift and move, many of the people climbing to their feet, the injured struggling against those trying to help them.

I began the lullaby again, but the magic was faulty and impure, the islanders not reverting to that blissful calm, but swaying and twitching with collective unease.

“Is he dead?” Marc demanded, his hand gripping my arm hard enough to leave bruises.

I shook my head, tears falling from my face with the motion.

“Hurt or unconscious?”

I nodded, but those terms didn’t encapsulate all of what I was feeling. Unconscious, hurt, and… drained.

“Shit!” He was across the tower to the door in an instant. “Get all of ours back inside the wall,” he ordered the half-blood messenger Tips had left behind. “Now. Hurry.” Then he set off a series of lights, which were answered by flashing on the wall.