Ascendant King (The Empty Throne Trilogy Book 3) by Kai Butler

Author:Kai Butler [Butler, Kai]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter

Twenty-Six

Ididn’t hesitate. There wasn’t time to hesitate. Immediately, I grabbed Cade around the waist, throwing him down underneath me.

Magic exploded against the darkness, tattoos of green, red, and yellow as the members of the House Bartlett council attempted to light the room. It was consumed, every flicker of it. The darkness thickened, becoming so intense that I couldn’t even see Cade beneath me.

“Magic. Someone else is here,” Cade whispered, his hot breath on my cheek. “Let me up.”

“It’s eating everyone else’s magic.” I was still crouched over him, my muscles tense. “Is it Leon?”

I could feel Cade’s shrug. “I don’t know.”

Something brushed past us in the dark, but before it could touch us, I pulled Cade out of the way.

“Protect King Bartlett!” Petrona shouted. “We have not yet started the ritual!”

Her words were stronger than they’d been before, her voice as relentless as an avalanche. There was a sudden flash of blue that threw off the darkness around us, and Petrona stood in the center of a group of panicked council members. The ruby in the head of her cane had shattered, and her hair hung loose around her shoulders.

“We must finish the ritual,” she said. Her head swung to me. “There!”

One finger, gnarled from arthritis, pointed at the center of the room, where Sonja and Tyson stood back to back, each trying to protect the other.

Despite whatever Petrona had done to disperse the magic, it was reforming slowly, knotting together so that soon we’d be encased again. I could hear wolves pounding against the door, the entire frame shaking as our pack tried to get in.

“Let me up.” Cade pushed at me ineffectively, and I stood, using his arm to pull him up and nudge him over to where Sonja stood.

“You perform the ritual, Sonja,” Petrona said. “We will protect the two of you until it is complete.”

With Cade and Tyson next to her, a circle of blue encased them, leaving me on the outside. Cade immediately raised his hand but winced back from Petrona’s blue magic. He turned on her, his brows drawn together.

“Quickly!” Petrona snapped.

“Not without Miles,” Cade said.

“Finish quickly, or it won’t matter because you’ll both be dead.” Petrona jerked her head to the side, and I saw a shimmer of purple in the air, but I didn’t let whoever it was finish forming in the air. I lunged past her, grabbing the attacking mage by the throat and tossing them to the side, where layers of magic from the other council members landed on top of them.

But the darkness wasn’t the magic of one person alone. As soon as the council had restrained one, a thick, braided line of tattoo the color of morning sunlight split the chest of one of the council members. He gurgled, staring down at where it protruded through his rib cage.

“What—”

He collapsed down, blood staining his white hair. Behind him stood one of the younger members of the house. I only vaguely remembered them from when I had been investigating who was trying to kill Cade.

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