Page 65 of Date Knight (Roll for Romance #2)

Yorick Proudhollow

T hey were too late. Eden was bound on the other side of the chamber, the chanting seemed to be reaching some sort of crescendo, and Nephrine was beginning to bring the diadem up as if to place it on her head. It was now or never.

Liam and Morgana had clearly had the same idea, running up to disrupt the circle of chanting figures, but they encountered some sort of protective barrier as they did.

“Ignore them,” Nephrine called from her dais to her minions, who were beginning to glance over their shoulders. “Finish the ritual.” They turned back to face her obediently.

Unlike the barrier at Laszlo’s encampment, Yorick could actually see this one once he knew it was there. It glimmered slightly where it broke the air, a couple of feet beyond the circle and extending up nearly to the ceiling, leaving just a small gap. A half-sized gap, one might say.

It was a very, very bad idea. Very unlikely to work. But without their weapons, Yorick knew he had to try. So he turned to Gorlag, extended his arms, and puffed out his chest.

“You ready, bud?”

“For…” Gorlag looked down at Yorick hopefully, their eyes going wide. Yorick nodded.

“That’s right,” he said. “Toss me.”

Gorlag’s mouth split into a wide grin as they bent down and put their enormous hands under Yorick’s arms, hoisting him into the air.

Yorick felt jostled as Gorlag repositioned him so their hand was somewhere they wouldn’t speak about, but he tried anyway to point himself in the direction he wanted to go, and a moment later he was flying through the air.

Catch, he said to Eden.

I’m literally tied up! she replied, but not before he found himself just narrowly making it over the barrier. Nephrine’s eyes went wide as she saw him coming, and he saw her hand tighten protectively around the diadem to keep him from it.

But Yorick wasn’t after the diadem. They’d need to destroy it, but they couldn’t do that if they were powerless.

And he could think of only one way to bring a bit more power into the equation.

So he snatched Eden’s star crystal from Nephrine’s other hand and lobbed it as hard as he could over the barrier towards Eden.

The light in the room dimmed suddenly, the crystal in the ceiling emitting only half of what Eden’s crystal had projected.

Yorick hit the barrier hard on the other side from where he’d overcome it, ricocheting into some of the hooded figures, disrupting the circle.

One of the ones he hit turned on him with a dagger, and he ignored the shooting pain in his hip to roll out of the way.

It was only as he continued to roll that he realised the barrier had dropped, and as Gorlag’s foot came down hard beside him that he realised his friends had seen it come down.

Yorick leapt to his feet and looked around as the circle devolved into a brawl.

His friends took slashes from the daggers on their arms as they fought the hooded figures, each of whom Yorick could now see wore amulets of twelve-pointed stars.

Nephrine stood at the centre of the fray, clutching the diadem, looking around for where the crystal went.

Yorick looked around too, desperately hoping his aim was true and it had found its way to Eden.

A hideous noise tore through the room, as if the air itself were ripping apart.

Across the chamber, a black hole had appeared in the stone wall, reality seeming to swirl into it.

Some of the minions closest to it lost their footing and found themselves sucked in, their screams inaudible amidst the roar of whatever was claiming them.

Yorick looked over his shoulder to see Eden, nowhere near where she had just been tied up, holding out the crystal as Nephrine had done just a moment ago, her body full of stars just as it had been in the forest, only this time in the shape of the dragon constellation.

It was clear she was using all her strength to maintain the black hole.

Yorick felt just a moment of triumph that he’d managed to get her crystal back to her, if nothing else.

The fight was getting desperate. Gorlag front-kicked one of the hooded figures into the black hole, but one of the others did the same almost concurrently to Liam, and Morgana barely managed to grab onto his hand before he was taken.

Orange light flared into Yorick’s vision as flames roared around Calamity, protecting her from a spell Nephrine fired at her.

A hooded figure ran at her with a dagger, but the flames consumed them before they could reach her.

Yorick’s hand reached instinctively for his lute, but it wasn’t there.

So instead, he cast an illusion of colour onto the ceiling with a spell he’d used against another member of The Twelve, charming two of the hooded figures into going after Nephrine, who had to use some of her magic to defend herself from her own minions.

They weren’t losing. But the diadem was still there, and Nephrine was clearly very powerful.

She easily fended off the two figures Yorick had sent to her, then turned Calamity’s preferred type of magic back on her, the flames licking up her body until she collapsed.

Liam rushed over to help her just as Morgana took a dagger to the neck, falling to her knees.

Gorlag had four hooded figures on them. One of the figures lost their dagger to the force of the black hole, and it nicked Gorlag’s cheek as it was sucked into the darkness.

Yorick cast a basic charm spell on Nephrine, but she shrugged it off as if it were nothing.

He tried a more advanced one too, but again, she refused to succumb.

Yorick wondered if she had some sort of protection against it.

She seemed to be holding her ground against the force of the black hole, too, despite Eden’s efforts.

He knew one other spell that could help, but it would take all the magic he had left in him.

If it didn’t work, he’d be as useless as a puppet.

But he had to try. He’d gotten them into this mess, after all.

So he threw everything he could into the spell, ready to pay the ultimate price if he needed to, staring directly into Nephrine’s eyes as he did.

Slowly, her gaze iced over with fear. Just as Yorick had experienced too many times for his liking, her body was betraying her. Freezing up, refusing to fight, as swirls of arcane energy held her in place. Her hand still gripped the diadem, but she could no longer move. It had worked.

Yorick ran forward, dodging Liam as he staggered backward after a hit. He ducked around Calamity, back on her feet, and lunged for Nephrine. Her eyes widened slightly as Yorick approached, as dark as the gaping black hole behind her.

His plan had been to dislodge the diadem from her hand so it was sucked in as the dagger had been, but the moment he connected with her, he knew he’d miscalculated. The slightest touch sent both of them in that direction as well, powerless against the force of Eden’s spell.

In the space of a single second, Yorick swung from confusion to terror to resignation.

This was the price for his folly. His pride.

And he would happily pay it. He looked directly into the black hole, surprised to find that there were no stars beyond.

Nothing at all. Just darkness. And that felt fitting, really.

The only stars he needed were behind him.

He watched as Nephrine and the diadem were consumed, blinking out of existence, and smiled. Even if he had to give his life, he’d done what he’d come to do. He could be at peace.

But just before the darkness took him, he felt a tug at his neck, and he dropped suddenly to the floor.

It knocked the wind out of him, and he closed his eyes for a second, trying to figure out if he was still alive.

He thought he must be; he was in too much pain for this to be the peace he’d been headed for.

He opened his eyes, and stood over him was a dragon made of stars.