Page 31 of Tanglewood Magic (The Three Sisters 2)
They reached the Great Mountain Hall just as another dragon burst from its doors, fleeing in a panic. Rhys slipped his foot inside the closing door. Circe peeked through the crack and gasped at the horror inside. Blood sprayed the walls. Everywhere, bodies lay strewn across the ballroom.
“This would go faster if you helped,” Brynhoff barked, sword in hand.
Eleanor came into view and kicked one of the bodies in the side. “Don’t be a fool. I have to keep watch to make sure none of them recovers. If someone rouses, I can administer another dose of the witch’s poison.”
Brynhoff hesitated. “I still don’t understand how we’ll pin this on them if they’re dead.”
“Every person who left this room has a memory planted in their head of Tavyss and Medea orchestrating this massacre and you heroically ending them. Zelaria planted it herself. Now, get back to work. The faster you kill them, the faster we can put this terrible mess behind us.”
Circe’s breath was stolen from her lungs as Brynhoff’s sword sliced through the air toward the neck of one of the fallen. Blood sprayed. The body turned to ash, and a jewel the size of a man’s fist clanked across the floor.
Blinded by rage, she raised her wand, ready to unleash her magical fury on them, but Rhys’s hand clamped over her mouth. He dragged her backward into an alcove in the veranda. The shiny black floor reflected her struggle against his grip. “Stop, Circe. They’ll kill you too. The three of us are no match for two dragons. They’ll swallow us in dragon fire. We need a distraction.”
She looked to Isis, but her sister’s face was vacant, painfully still. Within a white-knuckled grip, she held her wand, the tip glowing red as Hades. Circe’s teeth ground together as she met Rhys’s gaze. “Hurry,” was all she said.
Rhys dug in his basket and pulled out two vials half full of clear liquid. He popped off the tops with his thumbs. “Wait here.” He poured one into the other and then threw it around the corner, down the hall that led past the Great Mountain Hall and into the palace proper.
The glass tinkled as it cracked against the obsidian. Rhys sprinted back to Circe and corralled her and Isis against the wall. The boom that followed shook the slab of rock under their feet.
Brynhoff and Eleanor’s panicked voices came a moment later.
“Was that one of ours?” Eleanor asked.
“No. All of the charges we planned detonated earlier,” Brynhoff hissed.
“Check the hall,” the queen ordered. “I’ll check the throne room. We can’t have any loose ends, Brynhoff. Darnuith’s troops will wage an attack at any moment. This has to look like Darnuith initiated it.”
“I’m not an idiot, Eleanor,” he snapped.
“Just go.” Circe heard footsteps and then the sound of the hallway entrance opening and closing.
Rhys removed his arms from her and crept back to the door, peeking inside. He waved them in. Circe could not believe her eyes. Dragons lay in bloody heaps, splayed across the floor. Large gemstones littered the space between the bodies. Blood sprayed the rows of chairs. This wasn’t just a murder. It was a massacre.
“Are thosehearts?” Isis asked, staring at the gems.
“I think so,” Rhys said. He placed fingers on the neck of one of the dragons. “Eleanor has poisoned them, but poison isn’t enough to kill a dragon. These others will recover if they aren’t beheaded before they wake up.”
“That’s what Brynhoff was doing. I heard them say so before.” Circe gasped, realizing something more. “This is the meeting of the Council of Elders Medea referred to. Oh my god, Eleanor and Brynhoff poisoned all of them and are staging this to blame the murders on Medea and Tavyss!”
“Fates,” her sister cursed. “I found Medea!”
Circe ran to Isis’s side, and all the air rushed from her lungs. Medea lay motionless on the obsidian floor, eyes open and staring at the ceiling. Every happy feeling Circe had ever felt seemed to drain from her body. Her sister was dead.
Rhys reached into his apothecary bag and retrieved the poison antidote he’d used before, but when he tried to tip it into her mouth, he pulled back his hand at the feel of her skin. “It’s too late. She’s… cold.”
Circe dropped to her knees, a sob catching in her throat. “How is this possible? I thought… She told us Tavyss’s tooth made her immortal!”
But Isis had already figured it out. She squatted between the bodies and picked up a yellow jewel larger than her fist.
“Is that…a dragon’s heart?” Circe swallowed the lump that formed in her throat.
Isis gave her a knowing nod. “Tavyss is dead. They killed him first.” The shadows in the room gathered around her, hugging her sides like old friends. She slipped the heart into Rhys’s basket.
Circe released a trembling breath. Right, they couldn’t leave the heart…here. She stared down at Medea. She didn’t want to leave her here either. This was her sister. Dead or alive, she should remain with a Tanglewood. Her body must come with them.
“Bring Medea,” Isis said to Rhys. “We need to get her somewhere safe.”
Thank the Fates Isis had the same idea. Circe hooked her fingers under Medea’s arms and started dragging her toward the exit, her shoes slipping in puddles of dragon blood. “Rhys, help me.
