Page 25

H ellebore couldn’t look away as Taiyo and his steed came to a screeching halt before barreling into them. He’d come after her.

Why?

Because he needed her? Or because he loved her?

Did he even know the difference?

Even if he got her back, didn’t he know the chances she could save him were next to none?

His eyes landed on her and he took a short, quick breath, something flickering in them before he turned to Callahan and narrowed his eyes. “You will return my wife to me this instant, and I will forgive you the lapse in judgment and forget about this as a favor to her.”

Callahan crouched in front of her, one hand out as though Taiyo was something she needed to be protected from. “And all the lies you told her? Keeping me from seeing her and destroying my letters? Was that a favor to her too?”

Taiyo’s jaw clenched and his horse pawed at the ground. He wasn’t denying it. He looked away from Callahan and locked eyes with her. “Hellebore, do you want to go with them?”

She started to move forward, opening her mouth, but Callahan grabbed her and pulled her back. “Taiyo—”

“If I wasn’t going to let you take me, what makes you think I’d ever let a creature like you have my niece?” Palladia brought her steed between Taiyo and the wagon, hand in one of her belt pouches.

The softness that had entered his expression vanished as he laid eyes on Palladia. “You have tested the limits of my patience and my mercy for the last time, Palladia. Give her back.”

It was sunrise, so Taiyo’s strength would be returning, but he’d nearly died trying to rescue her from Callahan and Emerson four months before. He was weaker than he’d been then and he would have to fight Palladia too.

“See, I don’t think so. Looking at you now… I think I just have to wait a few more days and then you’ll be dead, and my niece will be free.”

“This isn’t about Hellebore or any goodness in your heart. If you really just wanted that, you wouldn’t have taken her from me days before the eclipse. You’re trying to take everything from me again.”

Hellebore stared at Palladia’s back. Had her aunt always been this way?

Had Hellebore been that way?

She needed to get out of this.

“That would require her being yours in the first place.”

Hellebore could see the words pierce him right in his rotting heart.

She opened her mouth again, but Callahan clapped his hand over her mouth. He hissed in her ear, “Stop it. Let me and Aunt Palladia handle this. You’re too emotional and easily manipulated by him.”

Taiyo’s voice darkened. “Enough. If you will not release her to me willingly, I will be happy to take her back by force.”

Palladia grinned. “How romantic, but I have a better idea. I have something you want even more.”

Hellebore stilled, slumping against Callahan, whose brow furrowed.

“The only thing you have that I want is my wife.”

“Really? See, you don’t look well, elf. And given how determined you are to get an alchemist back under your control… I think I know exactly what you did.” Palladia pulled out a glass vial and held it up to the light.

Taiyo blanched, eyes widening, and Hellebore startled even as Callahan kept her in his grip. Within the vial was a dark red liquid, and Hellebore knew the formula etched into the glass well.

Blood.

Taiyo’s blood.

Palladia tilted it back and forth, watching the liquid shift. “Which means I know how invaluable this is to you. Let’s make a deal. You leave and never set eyes on my niece again, declare her dead or something in an attack on the eclipse, and I give you this little vial and your healers can use it to save you. You’ll have no need for an alchemist anymore, and I’ll graciously call us even.”

Taiyo’s expression twisted into a deep scowl. “You heinous—”

“Ah! Is that any way to speak to the alchemist holding your only hope of survival in her hands?”

“You think I’m foolish enough to trust you now? After you have revealed yourself to be a duplicitous snake three times over?” Taiyo’s grip on his reins tightened, and she could see them shaking.

“Don’t blame me just because you didn’t measure how much you gave me in the first place.”

Hellebore’s mind was spinning. What were they talking about? Had Taiyo given Palladia his blood when they’d been engaged?

Was this the leverage she’d mentioned?

Is that what he’d meant by trusting her? Why would he have done that?

“You expect me to believe you now when every word out of your mouth is a lie? How do I even know that’s my blood and not a fake? Or that it’s not poisoned like before?”

Palladia grinned. “I guess you don’t. But with only a few days left before you croak, do you really have a choice? It’s your only hope now.”

What was she doing? Even if Taiyo took the deal and got his blood back, his healers wouldn’t be able to use it to save him. Only an alchemist would be able to, and even then, with how little there was and how far gone Taiyo was, that was a slim hope at best.

But Callahan’s palm over her mouth kept her from being able to shout to Taiyo not to take it.

“I would rather spend a few hours with my wife than take that blood and spend a lifetime without her. I won’t repeat myself again. Let her go.”

Palladia’s fingers curled around the vial and she sighed. “Such a shame… Well, sort of. I do so love getting my hands dirty.”

In a blur of movement, she tucked the vial back into her pouch and reached into another as Taiyo lifted his hand up and began summoning sunlight.

No matter what, Hellebore couldn’t let her aunt kill her husband. She would not let them take her from him.

Hellebore bit Callahan’s hand right as Palladia threw the pellets, transmuting them into smoke. The last thing Hellebore could see clearly was Taiyo’s horse rearing up and Palladia charging forward, pulling her mask up.

Hellebore started coughing immediately as Callahan held her tighter. “Emerson, now!”

The wagon started rolling, and Hellebore jolted, ripping herself out of his grip. A light ripped through the smoke, and in the near distance she could see Taiyo’s silhouette in the haze.

“Hels, no—come back!”

She felt Callahan scramble to grab hold of her, but she threw herself out the back of the wagon and tumbled to the ground. A jarring pain rattled up her shoulder as she landed on it, but she quickly rolled off it and stumbled to her feet. Her hands were bound behind her and all she had on was a nightgown, no belt or weapons.

She coughed, tucking her head into her shoulder. All she had to do was reach Taiyo. Then they could escape together.

She could hear Callahan and Emerson behind her, so she took off toward the sunlight cutting through the smoke. Her eyes burned and she called out between coughs, “Taiyo!”

A scream ripped through the air, but it was too high-pitched to be Taiyo’s. The smoke was starting to clear and Hellebore could see her aunt holding her right arm in front of her, burned so badly the glove was melted into her skin. If she could see Palladia, Callahan could see her.

Hellebore ran faster as Taiyo fell to his knees, wheezing as he pulled two dissection knives out of his side. Four knives littered the ground where Emerson had missed him. Black blood bubbled up and poured out, staining his clothes and skin as he dropped the knives. Hellebore crashed to her knees beside him, shoving her wrists into his face. “Quick, get this off, I’m of no use to you without my hands!”

Taiyo fumbled with the rope for a moment, still wheezing until he grabbed one of the knives and cut through the cord. Excellent.

The second her hands were free, she grabbed the rope and the knives, pulling them together in front of her. The ground, however, wasn’t soft enough for her to legibly write in. There was too much grass.

Her aunt ripped the leather glove off with a vicious shriek as Callahan and Emerson reached her. Hellebore didn’t have much time left.

Squeamish alchemists didn’t last long.

Hellebore ignored Taiyo’s pained exclamation as she hurriedly shoved her fingers in his bleeding side. With her other hand she grabbed his metal buttons and ripped them off, throwing them beside the knives. She wrote the formula on the silk nightgown and pushed her power into it. The formula glowed, and the transmutation succeeded. She grabbed her weapon, scooping up the rope and stumbling to her feet in front of Taiyo, spinning it just in time.

Callahan yelped and jumped back right before the spiked ball attached to the end of her rope nearly slammed into his chest.

Hellebore kept spinning it, forcing all three of them to keep their distance or else risk finding out just how much it would hurt to feel it slam into them and rip their skin to shreds as she pulled it back.

She felt Taiyo’s hand curl around her leg and he breathed out, “Hellebore—”

Callahan held his hands up in the air, not getting any closer, but not retreating. “Hels, please, we are trying to save you!”

Palladia took something out of her pouch and threw it to Emerson. With her right arm burned beyond repair, she wouldn’t be able to transmute easily. “Get that into her system and be done with it.”

The sedative.

Hellebore gave herself more lead on the rope and aimed. Right at the same time as Hellebore’s spike ball hit his hand, a small burst of blinding light appeared in front of Emerson’s face, causing him to cry out and recoil. The bundle of herbs fell into the dirt and Hellebore looped the ball back around. It crashed into Emerson’s chest, tearing through his skin and sending him farther away from the sedative.

Palladia hissed and started hurrying for it, fumbling for a piece of chalk with her left hand. Even with only one hand, Palladia was not going to let them go.

“Taiyo, get on the horse!”

“Hellebore—”

But she was already moving into action, her spiked ball almost crashing into Callahan, who avoided it only because he threw himself out of the way, skidding across the dirt. She dropped the rope and dove for the sedative, curling her fingers, still black and slick with Taiyo’s blood, around it.

Palladia dropped the chalk, clawing at Hellebore’s arm. “What a disappointment you’ve turned out to be.”

Hellebore grabbed the chalk with her free hand, pressing her clenched fist into her chest as she looked over her shoulder. “I was going to say the same.”

She elbowed her aunt in the nose and then slammed her foot into her charred arm, causing her to scream. It gave Hellebore just enough time to write on her own arm the formula. The sedative disintegrated beneath her palm as it transferred into Palladia’s blood.

Hellebore stumbled to her feet as Palladia slumped to the ground, the sedative flooding her veins. Emerson was blinking furiously, injured hand cradled to his chest. Callahan was on his knees, the rope of Hellebore’s weapon in his hand, but he made no move to rise and attempt to use it.

Taiyo had miraculously gotten onto his horse, clutching his still-bleeding side and leaning forward, but he managed to reach her. Emerson fumbled with a pouch on his belt, and Hellebore took that as her cue to go. She clambered up onto the horse behind Taiyo, wrapping her arms around him and taking the reins. She jabbed her heels into the steed’s side and took off, leaving them all behind.

She pressed one hand to her husband’s injured side, hand staining black all over again.