The Elder Blood Chronicles Book 4 The Blessed Curse by Melissa Myers Page B

all rights, he shouldn’t have been able to hear her so
clearly from across the battlefield. It was filled with complete
agony and it was rising from Jala. It was a sound that couldn’t be
mimicked and he had fought enough duels and seen enough battles to
recognize it for what it truly was. It was a death cry.
    For the second time in his life he hadn’t
been strong enough, and someone he loved was dying because of it.
Pain and anger rose in his chest and he felt something snap inside.
He couldn’t say if it had been in his mind or in his heart, but
magic roared in his ears. Every muscle in this body thrummed with
power and the only spells that rose in his mind were the forbidden
ones. The penalties for Death magic no longer seemed important,
however. The only thing that mattered was punishing his enemies.
First, however, he had to get rid of the damned dragon. Turning
slowly in his saddle, Neph regarded the creature, his gaze
narrowing as he studied the ancient magics that protected it. Wards
were nothing to the forbidden magic. He had spells that would eat
through the protection as easily as they destroyed flesh. Never
before had he been willing to unleash them, however. According to
the magic lore there were seventeen ways to kill with magic that
would utterly destroy a creature with no hope of returning to life
or the life stream. Neph knew twelve of them, and he intended to
use all of them today.
    “Neph, what is wrong with you?” Wisp gasped
as she dropped quickly off the back of his cat, her eyes wide as
she stared up at him. Neph glanced from her to the shroud of dark
magic that covered him, rising like shadowed flames from his skin.
He didn’t bother to answer her question and he ignored the look of
fear on Wisp’s face as he began to chant softly in a language that
had been dead for centuries, speaking the words of a spell that had
been forbidden even longer. The Dragon’s battle cries turned to
roars of agony as the first of his magics wrapped around the
creature. To the naked eye, it looked like no more than shadows
covering the deep red scales, but Neph knew the truth of it. Each
tendril of darkness was driving down through the creature,
burrowing into muscle and bone alike and twisting. He continued to
chant and the dragon writhed as his spell literally ripped it apart
from the inside, piece by piece. This was simply the first stage of
the spell designed to immobilize the victim, the next stage would
target the mind and then finally the soul. By the time he was done,
there would be nothing left of Nerath the Red beyond whispered
tales of his demise.
     
    * * *
     
    Everywhere he looked, there was destruction.
The smell of burnt flesh and blood saturated the air so fully that
even when he closed his eyes he could still see the battlefield
clearly in his mind. Corpses covered the ground before him, but
Neph didn’t spare them a glance as he crossed the last stretch of
the field that separated him from where Jala had fallen.
    A crowd had gathered in that area and they
all watched him in silence with expressions of suspicion on their
faces as he approached. The last of the battle was a blur in his
mind. He knew he had called on more magic in those few minutes than
he had in his entire life, and all of it had been dark. There would
be an accounting for it, he was sure. Regardless of how he had used
the magic, it was forbidden magic, and even his allies would want
him punished for it.
    That could wait, though. He would face it
without fear later. After he had seen Jala or what remained of her.
The crowd parted as he continued, and Neph could feel their gazes
on him, but his focus was on the path ahead. The ground where she
had been standing was charred black and cracked from the heat of
the magic she had channeled, but there was no sign of her body. It
was possible that nothing remained but ashes, but he didn’t think
so.
    Neph paused at the edge of the burned ground
and scanned the area until he spotted the