Chapter 29
ROWAN
Imove first. Not because I’m reckless, not because I’m angry enough to lunge before thinking, but because I’m done giving Malrik the luxury of controlling the pace of this. He’s had enough time, words, and theatrics.
I don’t shout. I simply lift my hand and send a sharp pulse of power at his chest.
Finally, wolf whispers, her presence just as strong as Cade’s right now.
My whip of energy tears through the space between us with a crack of force, the air splitting around it in a bright, violent line.
But Malrik doesn’t scramble back or brace like someone caught off guard.
He only tilts his head and lifts one hand, and the strike hits an invisible wall a foot in front of him.
Light splinters outward, hissing as it scatters across the ground before dying at his boots.
His mouth curves.
“That’s how we’re beginning?”
I don’t answer. I already knew one hit wouldn’t be enough. The point wasn’t to end him. It was to make him react.
So, I hit him again, this time not with brute force but with a low wave of magic from deep in my core that I haven’t accessed since I first left this place.
It snaps through the packed earth beneath him.
The land fractures, dark lines snaking toward his feet, but before the split can widen, silver light flashes outward from his body, and the damage seals over like it never happened.
“Going for destruction, I see,” he says almost idly. “How disappointing.”
I bare my teeth. “Funny. I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
The spark in his eyes sharpens.
For all his control, for all his posturing, he still wants me emotional. He still wants me to be wild enough to prove him right.
I don’t give him that.
Instead, I take another step forward and let the power gather at my wrists, not flaring or exploding, but coiled and waiting. My skin hums with it, my wolf pacing beneath the surface, alert and eager but patient.
Malrik’s gaze drops briefly to my hands. “You’ve improved.”
“It’s cute how proud you sound,” I say. “You might have forced my hand, but everything I am, I was born this way. Unlike you.”
A few deep chuckles break from the audience behind us—nervous, disbelieving sounds that die almost as quickly as they begin.
He ignores them, and so do I, because something else has my attention now.
The chains on the supernatural leaders hum faintly with magic, the sound low and ugly beneath everything else.
I can feel it if I focus—threads of power running from those restraints into the dirt, and from the earth into him, all of it woven together in a net of control that spreads through the arena like roots.
That’s why he built this here. Not just for an audience but for anchors.
He sees my realization the second it lands.
“Hmm,” he murmurs. “You’re quicker than I’ve given you credit for.”
My eyes narrow. “And you’re not as strong as you’ve made yourself seem. You’re smart, but not much more if you need them to beat me.”
His expression doesn’t change, but the air around him cools another degree. “I needed witnesses and collateral. Nothing more.”
“You need plenty more,” I counter, glancing toward the chained leaders. “Because from where I stand, it looks like even you aren’t entirely sure of yourself.”
There. That flicker of doubt again. Small, but real.
His voice softens in a way that would feel gentle if I didn’t know him. “Careful, Rowan. Confidence is only charming when it’s earned.”
“I have earned it.” I lift my chin. “You’re the one who keeps needing props.”
That one lands.
He moves so fast the world barely has the chance to catch up.
One moment, he stands ten feet away, still as stone, and the next, a band of onyx magic slams into my midsection and throws me backward.
I twist before I hit the ground, boots skidding across the dirt as I deflect most of the impact, but the force still rattles through my spine hard enough to make my teeth clack.
Before I’m fully upright again, the dirt beneath me shifts.
Chains of light burst from the earth, snaring around one ankle and then the other, cinching tight enough to burn through denim and skin.
The supernatural leaders all groan in unison as Malrik uses more energy.
Witnesses, my ass.
I hiss and brace my palms against the land as another loop snaps around my wrist.
“Well,” Malrik says, strolling toward me with infuriating calm, “this is less dramatic than I envisioned, but perhaps you’re simply pretending to be something more than the weak little human girl you were raised as.”
“Or maybe I’m just pacing myself.”
I yank one arm free and send a blast straight upward. The magic shatters the chain binding my other wrist, but the ones around my legs hold for half a second longer than I want them to.
Long enough for him to get closer. Long enough for him to smile down at me like he’s already won.
“Still trying to be clever when force would serve you better,” he says. “You continue to mistake restraint for virtue.”
“And you continue to mistake power for worth.”
His jaw tightens. There it is. Beneath all that calm and his smug certainty with centuries of cultivated control… His ultimate wound.
I see it more clearly now than ever.
He doesn’t just want to defeat me.
He needs me to validate him.
To prove that all of this—all the pain, the cruelty, the manipulation, the lives he’s ruined—meant something.
That becoming this was the only path.
Too bad for him. I have other plans.
I rip my legs free and surge upward, driving my palm toward his chest with enough force to crack bone if it had landed.
Except he catches my wrist.
The contact is instant and vicious.
Cold floods up my arm like needles shoved under my skin. His thread of power wraps around me, probing and searching for weakness, trying to pin my magic before I can fully use it.
I force myself to breathe through it.
My energy surges to the surface—not wild or tearing, but precise—and I slam it into the arm holding me.
Malrik’s grip breaks. He takes a step back, likely more from surprise than pain, but I don’t waste the opening. I swing low, driving my fist into his ribs hard enough to make him grunt before I twist out of reach.
He straightens slowly, smoothing one hand down the front of his coat like I’ve merely wrinkled his evening.
“You’ve become more physical,” he says, almost curious. “The wolves rubbed off on you more than I anticipated.”
“Better them than you.”
His smile vanishes, and this time, when he attacks, it isn’t direct.
The chains behind him tighten.
The restrained leaders jerk as one, bodies going taut, magic flaring painfully around them.
A witch cries out first. Then one of the wolves. Brynn from Glacier Crest.
My stomach turns over. I need to break that connection before I try to siphon his power. I can’t risk hurting them in the process. Not a single one of them will be sacrificed on my watch.
“You’re more pathetic than I thought,” I toss out casually, already drawing my power toward him. “If you were all that you wished, if you were a true Ashmark, you wouldn’t need them.”
“Or maybe this is what real power looks like.” He spreads his hands almost lazily. “But if you’re so concerned, I welcome you to try and stop me.”
I do.
Or at least I try.
I reach for him—not the body standing in front of me, but the core beneath it. The thread Malrik calls his gift. His control.
For a brief, dizzying second, I feel it.
Ancient, edged, and dense with command.
Then it slips. Not because I missed, but because it’s shielded.
The magic shatters back against me hard enough to make my vision blur. Pain slices across my sternum, stealing my next breath, and before I can recover, Malrik hits me with another blast that sends me to one knee.
The arena roars around us. Not loud, not in a cheering way, but in the awful living hum of hundreds of people watching someone gain the upper hand.
Someone that isn’t me.
He closes the distance, and this time he doesn’t strike. He crouches and looks me right in the eye.
“Do you understand yet?” he asks quietly, almost sweetly. “You can’t do this on your own. You can’t unmake me while I’m still tied to the world around you.”
I swallow blood where I’ve bitten the inside of my cheek. “That’s almost comical.”
His brow lifts.
“Because from where I’m kneeling,” I say, voice rough, “it looks like you’re the one who can’t do this on your own.”
His hand lashes out and closes around my throat. The squeeze isn’t hard enough to crush, but it’s hard enough to dominate.
He leans in slightly, silver threaded through his darkening stare. “You should have stayed in The Keep. I gave you every opportunity to become something extraordinary.”
I stare back at him, my pulse slow yet thunderous in my ears.
“I already am.”
Then I go for the fanny pack.
His attention drops too late.
My fingers close around the first thing they touch—smooth wood, narrow, sharp at one end—and I drive the knitting needle up beneath his ribs with every ounce of strength I have.
Malrik jerks back with a raw, startled sound that isn’t nearly as composed as the rest of him has been. His grip releases from my throat as he stumbles to his feet, hand flying to his side.
For one glorious moment, he just looks at me. Not furious. Truly shocked.
I cough once, dragging in air as I rise with less grace than I’d like, but I’m upright, and that’s what matters.
“Dirty enough for you?” I rasp.
Behind me, I’m pretty sure I hear Archie make a deeply approving sound, and with him, Iris lets out a cackle so delighted it would be unsettling in any other circumstance.
Malrik pulls the needle free and tosses it aside. Blood darkens his coat, not enough to weaken him, but enough to prove he’s not untouchable and to buy me the second I need.
He looks down at the stain, then back to me. When he smiles this time, it’s all teeth.
“Rowan,” he says softly, but with an edge. “There you are.”
He comes at me harder after that.