Page 325 of Scarlet Wars
Time didn’t slow, it fractured.
“Caden!” I screamed; the sound ripped from my lungs like it cost me something vital.
I reached for my energy, about to throw up a shield, when Stephenbarreledin from the left, a streak of gray across the blood-soaked battlefield, cloak billowing like wings caught in a hurricane.
His body collided with Caden’s, one hand slamming into his chest to push him out of the way.
“Don’t you fucking touch my son!” he roared, like thunder through the square.
And then the Chief’s haze struck.
It hit Stephen full-on—head, chest, heart.
The sound wasn’t loud.
It was soft.
Final.
Like a breath being stolen from the world.
Stephen didn’t scream. He didn’t even flinch.
He just…stopped.
His body seized for a single, unbearable heartbeat, arms still outstretched.
Then he dropped. Like gravity remembered him all at once.
Stone met bone in a sickening crack as he hit the ground hard, cloak folding around him like a shroud.
I stood there frozen, the scream lodged somewhere between my chest and throat, trapped by the sheer impossibility of what I'd just seen.
Stephen Stone—the first magus I’d ever met, the man who’d shaped more of my life than I liked to admit—was gone.
SEVENTY
EMMA
Although my feelings about Stephen’s death were… complicated, I knew for one person they wouldn’t be.
My eyes instantly searched the square for James, dread tightening in my chest as I thought about how he would take the loss of the only man he had ever truly considered a father.
And knowing that kind of grief—knowing that hollow, suffocating kind of loss all too well—I found my feet moving before I even realized I’d made the decision.
Across the field, I spotted him. His eyes were wide, frozen in shock.
I didn’t care about the people between us, the blades flashing in the chaos, the battle still raging all around.
All I knew was that I had to reach him. I had to make sure he was still standing.
I was only a few steps from James when a streak of lethal haze tore in from his left, fast, precise, the kind of strike meant to end someone before they even knew it was coming.
“James—!” I yelled with everything I had.
But I was too far away.
He hadn’t even moved yet, shock still locking his body in place, and then Cara Sinclair slammed into him.
