Chapter 74: The Sanctuary Breach

Black light flowed from Leo’s left palm into the wood.

The red seal on the doors hissed like water on hot iron. Within three seconds, the lines cracked and turned to gray ash.

Leo stepped back half a pace and kicked the center of the doors.

BOOM.

The iron bar on the inside snapped in half. Both doors flew open and slammed against the stone walls.

Leo walked into the hall with his dagger in his right hand. Valerie stepped in right beside him, holding her greatsword ready across her chest.

The room inside the tower was wide and high.

Above their heads, there was no ceiling. The stone walls went straight up into the dark bell tower, where the bronze bell hung from a wooden beam.

Across the floor, deep channels ran from the walls toward a stone altar in the center of the room. Blood flowed through the channels, glowing with bright red light.

Behind the altar stood an old man in a red robe.

He held a bone staff in his right hand. His hood was down, showing a bald head covered in dark tattoos. This was High Priest Varis.

In front of the altar steps stood four guards in red armor. Each man carried a tower shield in his left hand and a long sword in his right.

Valerie stopped beside Leo, her eyes moving to the left wall.

"Leo, look at the pillar," she said.

Ten yards to their left, a large man with a gray beard was bound to a stone pillar with thick chains.

His armor was cracked, and blood dried on the side of his neck. Around his boots lay six dead soldiers wearing the badge of House Voss.

It was Duke Boros Voss.

Leo looked from the Duke to the center of the altar.

Inside a circle of red fire at the top of the steps, a woman hung suspended by her wrists from two iron rings.

She was in her thirties, with black hair that fell loose past her waist. Her dress was torn at the shoulder, and her skin was covered in sweat.

Bright red fire moved under the skin of her neck and arms, flowing from her wrists down into the stone altar.

It was Duchess Aurelia Voss.

At the sound of the doors breaking, Duke Boros lifted his head. His eyes moved from Valerie’s armor to Leo’s dark coat.

"Who are you?" Boros barked, pulling against the chains until the iron links clanked against the stone. "Did the capital garrison send you? Cut these chains off me at once!"

Leo did not even look at him. He kept his eyes on High Priest Varis and the four guards in front of the steps.

"You let cultists into the pass, Duke Voss," Leo said, his voice flat and calm. "It looks like your new friends did not need you after all."

"That snake betrayed me!" Boros shouted, spitting blood onto the floor. "We had a deal to block the road. Wait, how do you know about our deal?"

CLANG.

Behind the altar, High Priest Varis struck the stone with the butt of his bone staff, cutting them off before Leo could answer.

"Enough shouting, Duke Voss," Varis said, a dry smile on his lips. "Why would I care about your border politics or your supply wagons?"

Varis raised his bone staff and pointed it toward Duchess Aurelia.

Inside the circle of fire, Aurelia let out a low groan. Her head tipped back, and her garnet eyes stayed shut as the red light under her skin burned brighter.

"Let my wife down, you dog!" Boros yelled, straining against the iron around his chest. "I gave you the town. Why did you take her?"

"Because the five thousand people in the street are only the wood for the fire," Varis said. "To wake the lord sleeping under this mountain, we needed a spark. And for ten years, you had that spark sleeping in your own bed without even knowing it."

Boros froze against the pillar. "What are you talking about?"

Leo looked closely at the red fire moving through Aurelia’s veins.

The fire did not look like normal magic. As it rose from her skin, the flames took the shape of thin red feathers before sinking into the stone.

"A hidden bloodline," Leo said quietly.

Varis looked down at Leo from the top of the steps, his eyes narrowing. "You have sharp eyes, young man."

"I have never seen fire like that," Valerie said, keeping her sword pointed at the four guards.

"The Phoenix Bloodline," Varis said, pride rising in his voice. "Her mother’s family carried the blood of the ancient fire bird before their house fell. Duke Voss married her for her family’s southern land and never knew what was sleeping inside her veins."

Against the pillar, Boros stared at his wife with wide eyes. "The Phoenix Bloodline is a fairy tale. Her core was always weak."

"Her core was not weak," Leo said coldly. "It was sealed. And when her body got too hot in the past, you were too weak to help her, so the power stayed locked inside."

Boros clenched his teeth, his face twisting in anger. "Shut your mouth, boy!"

On the altar, Aurelia’s body shook.

A wave of heat rolled off her skin, strong enough to melt the frost near the door. Her lips parted in a silent cry as the red lines on the altar pulled more fire from her wrists.

"When the third bell strikes," Varis said, tapping his staff against the stone, "the circle will burn the last drop of her Phoenix blood and open the rock below. Guards! Kill them both!"

The four guards in red armor did not speak.

They stepped down from the altar stairs together, locking their shields side by side to form an iron wall.

"Two each," Leo said.

"I have the left," Valerie said.

She ran forward across the stone floor and swung her greatsword with both hands at the first guard’s shield.

CLANG.

The strike hit the center of the iron shield like a falling rock. The guard slid back a foot on the stone, his boots scraping across a red channel in the floor, but he did not fall.

Before Valerie could pull her blade back, the second guard stepped around his partner and thrust his long sword straight at her neck.

Valerie tilted her head aside, caught the sword blade against her crossguard, and kicked the second guard square in the stomach.

THUD.

Her boot dented his red breastplate and knocked him back two steps.

On the right side of the hall, the other two guards came at Leo together.

The third guard swung his shield to bash Leo’s head, while the fourth guard lunged low to stab Leo’s legs.

Leo did not step back.

He placed his foot on the lower rim of the third guard’s shield and pushed off, vaulting right over the fourth guard’s low blade.

Landing behind the pair, Leo slashed his dagger across the back of the third guard’s knee and drove his left elbow into the fourth guard’s helmet.

CRACK.

The third guard dropped to one knee as blood poured from his cut leg.

Valerie swung her greatsword down at the same time, splitting the armor on the first guard’s shoulder and cutting deep into his flesh.

Leo did not press his attack. His eyes dropped to the stone under the third guard’s knee.

The guard’s boot was resting directly on top of one of the glowing red channels in the floor.

As soon as the guard’s blood touched the stone, bright red light rose from the channel into his leg.

Within two heartbeats, the deep cut behind the guard’s knee closed up completely. Across the room, the split shoulder on Valerie’s opponent healed the same way, the flesh pulling back together as if it had never been cut.

Both guards stood back up without a sound and raised their shields again.

Valerie stepped back, her eyes widening. "The floor just healed them. My cut is completely gone."

Against the pillar, Duke Boros cursed under his breath as he watched the wound vanish. "They were strong before, but now the altar is healing them too."

Behind the altar, Varis laughed.

"Since the second bell struck, the blood of five thousand people has been flowing through this floor," Varis called out. "You can cut my templars a hundred times, and the city will pay the price to heal them."

High above their heads in the dark tower, the wooden beam let out a loud groan.

CREAK.

Leo looked up for half a second.

Sixty feet above the altar, the heavy bronze bell was beginning to swing backward on its wheel, gathering weight for the third and final strike.

On the altar, Duchess Aurelia let out a sharp cry of pain.

The red fire around her wrists flared three feet high, burning away the ropes and leaving only rings of pure blood holding her arms in the air. Her chest heaved, and her skin glowed like hot iron.

"We have less than two minutes before that bell hits," Valerie said, her breath coming fast as the four guards closed back into a line. "How do we get past them if they cannot die?"

Leo looked at the red channels running from the city walls into the guards’ boots.

Then he looked at his own left hand, where the black light of Sol Noctis hummed beneath his skin.

"They are not immortal," Leo said, his voice steady and cold. "They are just drinking from the floor."

He shifted his dagger into a reverse grip.

"Do not aim for their bodies," Leo said to Valerie. "Push them off the red lines, and I will cut the channels under their feet."