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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

Lena clenched her fists, and when she spoke again her voice was calm and low once more. “Enough of this. Just release her. Or I’ll destroy you, I swear it.”

The Justice laughed, and his gauntlet tightened around Constance’s throat. She could feel the magic welling up inside it, hot as burning embers. “I’ll kill your mistress now, cryptling, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“She’s not my mistress,” Lena said fiercely. “No one owns me. Not you. Not her. Not even the temples. Not anyone.”

Stupid girl. Now we’re both going to die, thought Constance. Below, another huge thump sounded through the castle, echoing like thunder, and the shouts of guards suggested the portcullis was close to buckling.

The girl’s eyes started to flicker with blue-green electricity.

Lena breathed in—slowly closing her eyes—and breathed out, opening her eyes again. To Constance’s surprise, a huge gray cloud emanated from the girl’s mouth—not a cloud of breath, as if it were a cold day, but a thick, roiling cloud, purplish and bruised in its depths. The storm rumbled in response. Lightning licked around the girl, who placed a hand over her chest, and suddenly her body was alight, fizzing and hissing with lightning. And then something rose from her pocket, a little brass creature, wings flickering in the lightning as it circled her head. Constance’s eyes widened and she felt the Justice’s hand drop from her throat.

She knew what she was seeing, but … This isn’t possible. And yet …

She is the spell’s heart.

The Justice was staggering away from Lena, holding up his gauntlet.

And then the storm cloud turned on him.

TWENTY-THREE

The Heart of the Storm

Lena raised her hand, clenched it to a fist in a wordless command. The thunder obeyed, growling somewhere in the depths of the earth, a hungry noise from a predator’s rumbling throat. She had drawn power from the spell’s heart, lodged inside her own body, in the past, but this was different. Here the power was spinning around her in a maelstrom, a hunting beast that would respond to her call alone. Lightning bunched and tangled in the air around her fist. The Justice’s eyes widened in fear as Lena flung everything toward him with a scream of rage.

He stopped, staggered away from Constance like a drunkard. Green-blue electricity was racing across his body, and Lena could smell burning flesh, the acrid stench of scorched hair. And something else—the tug of a life toward death and a death toward life, teetering on the edge between.