A Baron of Bonds (Conduit of Light #2)

74. Rev

Chapter 74

Rev

THE AGRICOLA TRIAL

Fastest one yet.

I laughed to myself, so fucking proud of her, when I felt another soul enter the trial.

What the fuck?

There were two people in there. I could feel an enormously powerful presence in that room with Karus.

It could only be one person.

This wasn’t going to work. I was going to have to go in there.

I sought my power as Baron, starting my hands low to the ground, then slowly lifting, separating them while a viridescent green light shaped into an oval portal that would lead right to that room.

“Why would you do this, Baron Revich?”

At the same time I felt Karus leave through her portal to enter the Baron trial, I heard the voice of the woman who haunted her, coming from somewhere behind me.

It was a beautiful, smooth tone with massive power hiding just beneath its surface.

I gathered my own power, bundling it back into my body, it too sitting just beneath my surface, ready to use at any moment. I slid my hands into my pockets and turned.

The Blightress looked nothing like her sister.

Where Lia held a warmth and a round face, bright grey eyes and long black hair, this woman was tall and thin, her cheekbones sharp, her full lips red as fresh blood.

She wore black robes over a fitted black dress, the neckline reaching up below her chin, giving her a regal air. Her white hair fell in graceful curls down her shoulders and her nails were long and pointed.

“You are not welcome in this forest. Leave. Now.”

She stepped forward, her eyes flashing in shades of pink, green, blue, and yellow. “This is my forest, Revich of the Hallow Marshes. Tell me, can you not handle this power? Do you wish to give it away, place your burden on the one you claim to love?”

My fury flared like a flame on dry wood. Blue tendrils smoked around my arms, and I clenched my jaw, replying, “This isn’t your concern. Karus is not your concern. Now go, or I will force you from this place.”

She laughed, stepping closer still.

Without any more warning, I called to the roots beneath her as they cracked through the surface, snaking over her legs, my power wrapping around her arms, forcing them her sides.

“Is this the best you can do with all that power, Revich?” She tsked her tongue. “No wonder you’re giving it over to her.”

Her arms flew wide, breaking my hold and she bent forward. In one graceful sweep, black spilled from her fingers, wrapping around the roots wound over her legs. With a single touch, a simple brush of her power, the darkness flowed like ink tipped on paper, spreading over the surface to corrupt the very life of Felgren. Jagged thorns rose from the withered surface of each root, never once piercing her void-black robes as she stepped out of the Blight, its growth rapid behind her.

“ Simulair Solum! ” I called forth the sun, holding the light to face her, the forming Blight at her feet withering and recessing back into the ground.

I closed the spell, calling branches from the nearby trees. They wrapped around each of her arms, pulling them out to the sides, preventing her touch on their surface.

She laughed again, tilting her head back in amusement as if this was a game, as if she was toying with me. She grinned in pure malice, opening her red lips to speak again when a giant oak leaf slapped across her mouth, wet and silencing her.

I walked toward her. “Leave or I will force you to go.”

I knew she held more power than I did, but I could tell it was dampened. I felt her presence before me, but elsewhere as well when I squeezed the rhyzolm in my pocket.

Her voice was bodiless and echoed through the trees as she glared at me. “If she accepts the power of the Baron of Felgren, I will find you and kill you. You are weak, just as they all were weak, and you will be powerless, Revich of the Hallow Marshes. I look forward to watching you bleed.”

I stepped closer, her eyes narrowing on me as I countered, “You think you have some claim on her. You don’t. You never will. We will share the power of Baron and then we will come to stop you.”

Her face fell into one of confusion, her voice sounding again through the trees. “The power of Baron cannot be shared. How have you done this?”

I opened a portal behind her that led as far north as I could manage. “Like I said, this isn’t your concern.”

I pulled my hands back to send a ball of blue light blasting toward her chest just as I unwound the branches from her arm. My magic burst through the air into nothing as she disappeared from Felgren and I was once again left alone.