Morgan Rhodes - Rebel Spring

“I was told you would come here,” Xanthus said, still in Phaedra’s embrace.

“Who told you?” She pulled back and looked up into his face, touching his cheek. But then her face paled. “She’s evil, Xanthus. Why can’t anyone see that as clearly as I do?”

“Melenia does what she must to save us all,” Xanthus said. “And it’s now, Phaedra. We’re so close.” He clasped her face between his hands. “And I’m so sorry. I wish you could be here when it happens. What we’ve waited so long for.”

“Where else will I be? I’ve sacrificed my immortality, just as you did. We can be together again. The past is the past. Let’s leave it there.”

Xanthus’s eyes narrowed. “I’m afraid not, my sister. You know far too much. I’ve been given very specific instructions from Melenia. And I am at her command-I always have been. I always will be.”

His hands began to glow with golden light and Phaedra drew in another gasp that sounded pained this time.

“What are you doing to her?” Jonas demanded. “Unhand her!”

Magnus watched all this silently, with his arms crossed over his chest, a deep frown creasing his brow.

“Nothing can stop this,” Xanthus said. “It is for the best. Try to remember that, my sweet sister. I did this because it’s the right thing to do.”

The glow covered Phaedra’s entire form as Jonas and Magnus looked on, stunned by the display of magic.

But what kind of magic was this?

Jonas surged forward, grabbing hold of Xanthus’s arm to pry it away from Phaedra. Xanthus grabbed Jonas by his bloody shirt and launched him backward. He flew across the room and hit the wooden table hard, breaking it.

Phaedra fell to her knees on the floor of the tent, her eyes glazed as they met Jonas’s from where he now crouched ten paces away.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I failed. I wish I could have. .”

She breathed out one last breath and the life left her eyes. A moment later the swirling of her mark spread to cover her entire body, and she disappeared in a flash of shimmering light.

Xanthus has vanished from the tent as well.

Jonas stared in shock at the place the Watcher had been only moments before. Then he flinched as the cold, sharp tip of Magnus’s sword touched his throat.

“On your feet, Agallon.”

Jonas forced himself up, and he eyed the prince with unbridled fury-the sour taste of it rising in his throat. “You act as if you have not just witnessed a miracle. . and a tragedy.”

“I’ll admit, it was an unexpected sight before the sun has fully risen.” Behind the prince’s droll tone, Jonas heard a quaking. The sight of the Watcher’s death-is that what it had been? Was Phaedra dead? — had shaken Magnus too. “But I’m recovering quickly. Time for a little trip to my father’s dungeon along with your rebel friends. He’ll be very pleased I’ve finally captured you.”

How could he stand there and pretend that none of this mattered? That the world would never be the same? Watchers were not simply legend. Magic was real. Jonas was reeling. “I didn’t murder your mother.”

“I know. Aron Lagaris did.”

Jonas shot a look toward Aron’s body, and his gaze snapped back to Magnus’s. “He killed my brother and my best friend.”

“And now he’s dead. He received the same end I originally planned for you. Although, I must admit, I planned on making you suffer quite a bit longer.”

“It was supposed to be my blade that took his life!”

Magnus offered him a thin, humorless smile. “Get over it.”

Suddenly, there was a scream from outside the tent. Many screams and terrified cries that no longer sounded like the familiar sounds of battle. It only took a moment to discover the reason why.

“Fire!” someone yelled.

A line of flames began to snake around the circumference of the tent, as if the earth itself had been set ablaze.

Magnus pulled his sword away from Jonas’s throat and moved swiftly to the flap of the tent, pushing it aside.

The camp had ignited. Orange and yellow flames lit up the area, drowning out the glow of dawn over the mountains, torching the dry, fallen trees, the piles of wood, the tents. Guards and slaves alike ran screaming. Some were on fire-flames that turned gold and silver and a bright and unnatural blue. They screamed in agony as the fire scorched their flesh before the violent and overwhelming fire transformed their bodies to crystal that exploded into a million shards of broken glass.

Jonas stared at the sight of the deaths with disbelief.

This was no normal fire ignited during a battle.

This-this was a horrible, destructive, deadly magic. Fire magic.

“What is this?” Magnus said, his voice rising in fear.

Blood spilled on the Blood Road. Three times. Three disasters.

A tornado, an earthquake, a wildfire.

Jonas’s newly healed heart pounded faster. He came up next to the prince. “Do you believe in fate, Prince Magnus? I never did before, but. . do you?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Just curious.” Jonas slammed his forehead against the prince’s face. He’d been so still, so weakened since his resurrection. It had taken time to get his full strength back.

But it was finally back.

He grasped Magnus’s sword, then brought his elbow up into the prince’s face and hit his nose hard. Blood gushed and Magnus roared in pain. Jonas snatched the sword completely away from Magnus and swung it around to slice the other boy’s throat. But Magnus was also fast, and he blocked the strike with his forearm.

By now, the tent was engulfed in flames. The fire licked at them both, so hot it burned.

Jonas spun the sword around and drove the hilt into Magnus’s gut, earning a satisfying grunt of pain. But before he could manage another blow, Magnus grabbed for a handful of Jonas’s hair, tearing it out by its roots and kneeing him in the chest. He then managed to yank the sword completely from Jonas’s grip.

“We need get out of here or we’ll die,” Magnus growled.

“I came here prepared to die today. In fact, I already did.”

Jonas tackled Magnus and lurched both of them backward. As they fell, Jonas angled himself so that it was Magnus’s head that slammed against the side of the burning table. It was hard enough to stun the prince, and he knelt on the ground, gasping for breath, sword in hand.

Still, Magnus grasped hold of Jonas before he was able to slip away.

“I have a dungeon just for you, rebel,” he promised.

Five guards approached the burning tent, shouting Magnus’s name.

“Here!” he called out to them. “I have a prisoner!”

“Wrong,” Jonas snarled, using every last piece of his strength to wrench away from Magnus’s grip, yanking the sword away from the prince again. He brought the blade down, but Magnus rolled out of the way just in time.

Jonas swore, eyeing the approaching guards who loomed at the tent’s burning entry.

“Seize him!” Magnus yelled.

“Perhaps another time, your highness.” He’d come here to take Magnus as a prisoner, but if he tarried another moment, it would be the other way around.

Without wasting another moment, he cut through the side of the tent and burst out into the chaos outside, ducking and hiding to avoid being seen by any guards through the magical wildfire that raged all around them.

To his right, he saw an older, bald man and a young girl huddled close, away from the carnage, looking around with fear and confusion. The tents were all on fire now. The road camp was an inferno.

Strewn everywhere on the ground were burning bodies-guard or rebel, their blood spilled across the road as if it was a violent and fiery canvas. Some had turned to the strange crystal form after being touched by the fire-broken and scattered across the dusty ground.