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Back We Are Blood and Thunder Save as PDF
Chapters (32)
  1. PROLOGUE
  2. ONE
  3. TWO
  4. THREE
  5. FOUR
  6. FIVE
  7. SIX
  8. SEVEN
  9. EIGHT
  10. NINE
  11. TEN
  12. ELEVEN
  13. TWELVE
  14. THIRTEEN
  15. FOURTEEN
  16. FIFTEEN
  17. SIXTEEN
  18. SEVENTEEN
  19. EIGHTEEN
  20. NINETEEN
  21. TWENTY
  22. TWENTY-ONE
  23. TWENTY-TWO
  24. TWENTY-THREE
  25. TWENTY-FOUR
  26. TWENTY-FIVE
  27. TWENTY-SIX
  28. TWENTY-SEVEN
  29. TWENTY-EIGHT
  30. TWENTY-NINE
  31. EPILOGUE
  32. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

At least she’d lost Emris somehow at the forest edge. She’d long since felt his pursuit fall behind, his presence slipping from her senses. Sadness tugged at her throat. Would she ever see him again? Either way, she hoped the girl would deliver her message.

She stopped a few paces on, her heart sinking as quickly as it had risen. An enormous wooden gate loomed out of the storm cloud, fifteen feet tall, the mossy stone walls slick and sturdy on either side. Ivy twisted its fingers over the old wood, the leaves sickened and gray, but the stems strong, damp, and snakelike. The gates had been locked for two years, but it looked like longer. A worn sign had been nailed to the gatepost, white paint stark against dark wood. She stepped closer to read it through the dense cloud: UNDER QUARANTINE BY ORDER OF THE DUKE.

She drew up to the gate, laid her gloved hand against the chains threaded again and again through the central beams, and wondered what she’d find on the other side. Quarantine. She remembered the articles in the papers two years ago, the shock on the streets as a whole city shut itself off from the world. But yesterday’s papers were trampled in the gutters, and people had soon forgotten. Who really cared about a place like this, anyway? A city on a mountain, in a forest, in the middle of nowhere?

To her surprise, the metal of the chains felt tingling-warm to the touch, even through the fine silken material of her gloves. The chains were thrumming with magic.

She adjusted the wheel on the side of her mask. Her view of the world shifted: the physical world faded and blurred, the wood of the gates softening into a waterfall of brown. Instead, the spell-scape came into focus, lending a different kind of sharpness to her surroundings. The storm spell fizzed in the air, encompassing her completely. If she glanced over her shoulder, she knew she would find the shining, lightning-like paths—the spell’s veins and arteries—that had allowed her to trace her way through the forest. If she glanced down at herself, she’d find not a mere body but a weave of shining purple magic running in tandem with her blood, albeit flickering and weak after her long journey. But there was something else here. Another kind of magic.