Choosing to say out of the Alliance, the Cinders are isolated in their own conflicts, and when Helia Cinder reaches to the void for answers, she inadvertently draws a creature out. Expecting to be eaten alive, she is instead left with a man with no...
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Under the morning sun, the desert heated like ice melting, a fog from the night's lingering moisture crawling up into the sky. It drove her eyes up the rock structure Vice and her waited behind as the mages approached. Up there, Talamayas Sol was like a boulder perched on a rock, all muscle, dark as the shadowed sands, and still as death. As much as Talamayas put up a tough exterior for his generals, he was no more enthusiastic for fighting his mate than Shan Sol was. It took a lot of dedication to be willing to fight at the risk of his own life merely out of respect for Wren as a warrior and as his mate.
Talamayas was as scary emotionally as he was physically. Near insane in his commitment to his mate, freakishly in-the-face aggressive when he argued with her father, yet so fragile he'd broken down without Ghost by his side. The man had begged her to not take Vice from him, like Helia had the power to steal away anything from the desert torturer. The more she saw of Talamayas and though of him, she wondered how he got his name. The man had to torture people, or else he'd never have earned such a reputation, but there was so much gentleness within him. The guy wore so many faces, that it was definitely not safe to be around him. Who was to say when he'd snap.
Approaching light mage drove her attention back down to Vice at her side, though he looked like Harper Song. Like Talamayas, Vice was prepared to fight, all his senses honed on the men behind the rock face, and Helia couldn't be less focused. As trained as she was, she'd fought primarily on the battlegrounds defending the Cinders from vampires. Facing off against another grand mage was a completely different playing field, and she felt like she'd showed up to a basketball game with a bat and a catcher's mitt.
A hand on her shoulder calmed her enough to steel herself, but it didn't change the pain in her heart at fighting another mage. Riff was just like the Cinders, like her father, full of hatred for the creatures of the night but fighting for his family and his life. Helia hoped they would be able to take him in alive rather than kill him, even if Kopje thought it was kinder to give him a warrior's death. While she was as much a fan of vampires as the rest of the Songs and Cinders, she wanted Riff to find a reason to live other than death.
Helia had been obsessed with her mother's death for so long, and only Stone falling out of the void had given her a purpose other than hate. Sadly, there were no memoryless vampires to throw at Riff who he wouldn't stomp to death with the ease of a bug beneath his boot. The only way for a man like that see reason was to have it beaten into him, and Helia wasn't sure if she and Vice were enough for that. They were sure as hell going to try.
Magic surged ahead of them, and Helia ducked low to peek at the men there to face them. The most prominent was Riff, the only other Song aside from Wren who stood just as proudly on the sands. Cinder magic fanned out behind them, but Helia's focus was on her target as he thrust chains for Talamayas. Flames licked at Riff's feet from Helia's power, and he cursed as he lost his footing and his chains swung wide. The sand melted into molten glass that she solidified by pulling back the heat, but Riff shattered it and backed off. Talamayas went for Wren as the Cinders passed them for the castle, and that left Helia and Vice slipping out to keep Riff away.
