The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 4 by Bella Forrest (life books to read TXT) 📕

You could blame the weather for encouraging your parents to go outside. You could blame your mother again, for insisting they stay in that deadwood town. You could even blame your father for not going with your mother on that day. Anyway, it makes little difference—I’m still going to have to kill you.”

“You don’t have to do that. You don’t have to do any of this!” Alex said, feeling how fruitless his plea was. Finally, the warden’s true nature was rising to the surface, and, at least to Alex, the man was at last living up to his reputation.

He realized with a sinking feeling that there had indeed been a warning sign, but he had missed it, brushing it off as pure power instead. It made sense now, the strange scarlet fog he had touched upon when he had delved into Caius’s mind—it was Caius’s madness, overwhelming his brain, smothering it in a red sea of accumulated rage he simply couldn’t see past, always at the back of his thoughts, influencing everything he did.

“You have put it all in place for me, my boy—you have spurred me on to my purpose, and I have risen to the occasion,” Caius said brightly. “Though it pained me to do it, I smashed my ill-gotten gains, letting the Kingstone essence run free, into the ground, where nobody can get their hands on it. I returned the souls of the departed to Mother Nature’s loving embrace, and never have I felt so exhilarated. I imagine you felt the same when you rid Stillwater of theirs?”

“I felt sorrow and guilt,” Alex whispered.

Caius sighed. “I see you take no pride in your work, my boy, but you really should. There is no essence left at Stillwater House thanks to you, and now there is none here either. I just have to destroy whatever is left at Spellshadow Manor and Falleaf House. Once it is all gone, they will have to kill more from their own ranks to replenish the supply, and when their arrogance prevents them, the Great Evil shall arise,” he cackled, the cruel, mad glee glinting in his eyes.

It was clear the warden wasn’t in the mood for negotiating anymore, and any plea Alex made would be useless. There was murder on the old man’s mind. Right now, Alex needed to get out of Kingstone Keep. His hopes would come to nothing if he died now, in this lonely place.

It serves me right, Alex thought, for ever trusting a royal.

Chapter 33

“If you have any final remarks, I will not deny you them,” Caius said, holding out his free hand as if in benediction. The old man, Alex realized, really believed he was showing mercy. On the floor at his feet, Vincent’s hand twitched almost imperceptibly.

“I do have one last question,” Alex said, conjuring threads of silvery black beneath his fingertips, fine at first, as he let the black-speckled anti-magic swell and surge all around him. The strands thickened, rippling with wave after wave of bright silver energy. His eyes burned as a spiral of glittering silver sparks began to fall all around him in a bright snowstorm of glinting light.

“Did you actually think I would die without a fight?” Alex shouted, focusing on the rage running through his every vein, brimming over the edge of his every cell. He roared as he forced it all out of his body in a vast, explosive surge that rushed forward, knocking Caius backward with a ferocious blast.

It took the warden by surprise for just long enough to give Vincent, who had come back around, the opportunity to lunge upward and force his veined hands onto the sides of Caius’s head. He clamped his thin fingers around Caius’s skull like two vised claws, the necromancer’s mouth moving silently as he spoke incantations, while his palms conjured ghostly white lines that shimmered into Caius’s temples.

Alex watched, rooted to the spot, as Caius turned a deathly shade of pale, the entirety of his eyes turning white, the gold of his irises and the black of his pupils draining away to nothing. Caius crumpled behind Vincent, his cane clattering to the ground, his body sliding down the broken surface of the door, slamming it shut as his weight fell against it.

Whatever Vincent had done, it had clearly taken a lot out of him. The veins beneath the surface of his translucent skin pulsed with a darker blue than Alex had ever seen before, the web of it more visible beneath his pale flesh, throbbing thickly in places, like tar. With a weary head, the necromancer managed to turn toward Alex, opening his mouth in a scream.

“RUN!” Vincent howled. Wispy spirits emerged from within the necromancer’s body, pushing through his translucent skin. Their gaping, skeletal faces reflected the screams of their master, floating ever upward. “Get out of here, Spellbreaker! Don’t look them in the eye!”

Yanking open the door, Alex dared to glance back over his shoulder, just in time to see the necromancer turn toward his victim once more, with the clear intent of ensuring Caius couldn’t hurt anyone again. It wasn’t the fate Alex would have wished upon the old man, whose mind had clearly been warped by the things he had seen in his long life, but he wasn’t sure there was any choice in the matter now. It no longer looked as if the necromancer were in control of the deed, as the ghoulish phantoms whirled around him, howling banshee-like wails with their cavernous mouths, the sound sending a tremor of pure terror up Alex’s spine.

Alex hurried toward the nearest window and clambered up onto the ledge, hoping he still had enough focus to keep himself from falling to his death, or into the mouth of a waiting monster. Steeling himself against the nauseating drop that fell away below him, he conjured the necessary anti-magic beneath his palms and forced himself to jump from the ledge. This way, he knew, he’d have less chance of taking