Grace of a Wolf by Lenaleia

Chapter 76: Lyre: Something Wicked This Way Comes (III)

LYRE

Her attempt at offensive magic is... cute, I guess.

I flick my fingers in her direction with a sigh. The blood missiles dissolve midair, raining harmless droplets across the floor, splattering across my boots. The corrosive spell makes it a few more inches before dissolving with a faint hiss, leaving only the faintest etching on the floor.

Isabeau stumbles back, throwing a few more spells my way.

They all fail. Spectacularly.

It isn’t hard; disrupting arcana isn’t something anyone can do, but it’s been a special talent of mine since childhood. Chaos, after all, is my purview.

Seriously, does this girl remember nothing? Perhaps all her deaths have addled what little capacity she had for thought.

"You should be weak," she hisses, unable to fathom her terrible reasoning being... well, wrong.

I uncross my arms, genuinely perplexed at this point. Her stupidity is almost endearing in its persistence. Almost.

"Why would you think that? For even two seconds?" I gesture around at the carnage of her failed defenses. "After I waltzed in here like I was taking a stroll through a public park? I put my strength on display, and you decided it never even happened."

Isabeau shakes her head, her hair flying almost violently around her face with the movement. "The amount of mana required to break through those wards should be exponential. Even for you. Especially when you’re no longer under divine grace." She points at the scuffed sigil. "That was calibrated to require the energy of three full covens to breach. Three."

I don’t bother explaining. It costs me almost nothing to disrupt arcana, but she would never understand. For creatures like her, magic is always transactional—power for power, energy for energy. Always with a cost, always with limits. Must be exhausting, living like that.

"Your pathetic concept of limitations doesn’t apply to me." I inspect my fingernails, deliberately casual. The blood spatter is going to be a nightmare to clean later. I’ll have to shower before I see Grace. She’s an anxious little thing. "Maybe it’s time to accept that your little calculations aren’t universal laws."

The look of outrage on her face is almost worth the effort of this conversation. Almost.

But I’ve dallied too long. If I add the time it takes to shower... Ugh. Grace will definitely be awake by the time I get back. Worse, Caine might even be there. I want to help Grace, but I don’t want to see them making googly eyes at each other.

"All of us have limitations," she snarls. "Even the highest denizens of Order and Chaos are bound by rules."

back a laugh. Her certainty is charming in a pitiful way, like watching a toddler confidently explain how the world works. She

your intellect. Still living

eyes widen. "You

I know everything about you, Isabeau. I’m just not particularly interested." I take another step forward, deliberate

wall.

it. "Those were written by the same creatures who believed the earth was

the foundations of this pitiful place. I’m not even trying. It just happens when I stop caring enough

dart around for escape routes that don’t exist. "Clinging to outdated paradigms, feeding on creatures half their former strength, and thinking you’re building something

more than pleased with our arrangement. They get power, strength beyond their natural limitations. Youth. Vitality.

tell them the fine print? That after you’re done

"They know the cost."

shifter magic has grown thinner over the centuries? That your kind drained the power of their bloodlines

falters for just a moment, and I see the truth. Of course she hasn’t told them. She’s selling them a

whispers, a sly smile creeping across her face. "He was more than happy to accept

pause. If Caine has made deals

his arrogance would never allow him to deal

get back to her. She likes to pretend she’s okay, but

need to

that were true, it changes nothing about our current situation. You have exactly two choices: leave peacefully,

her abdomen, her eyes wide with feigned innocence.

can sense what she’s incubating, but it’s not a child. Not in the sense humans would

parasite. A servant created of her own flesh, blood, and magic, with no soul to

to gather the ravaged threads of chaos in this place. The residual

I am not the only

let

no thunderous boom. Just a sudden rush of energy tearing through her

body—convulses once, then falls apart like wet tissue. Blood droplets hang suspended for a moment before gravity reclaims them, spattering across the

to a mundane brown.