Isla
Cronan looked both of them over with an air of disappointment.
His ancestor turned to him, sneering. “I expected better from you. Perhaps that was my first mistake.”
Cronan’s head tilted as he examined her. “I won’t be foolish enough to give you your powers again, but I won’t leave you empty-handed.” A sword fell through the air, and she caught it before it hit the ground. “If you can kill each and every one of my knights in this room, I’ll let you leave.”
She wasn’t going to leave without Grim. She just stood in place, refusing to move.
But then a knight to her left lunged at her.
She ducked at the last minute, whirling and kicking him in the back. He slid across the floor. Cronan watched on, looking amused.
She didn’t give the knight time to get up or gather his shadows. She swung her sword and cut his head clean off.
She heard a sharp inhale, like Grim was surprised by her brutality.
Did he not understand? They were both brutal in the lengths they would go for each other.
She heard the sound of shadows sharpening and stabbed behind her without looking, hearing metal strike metal.
Cronan hadn’t given her a sword sharp enough to go through their armor. Of course not. She turned—and was flying through the air, hit with a wave of shadow. She landed, her breath ripped from her lungs—
And eleven knights were right over her.
It was just like being on her back, in the middle of the forest, years before. Helpless against the forest Terra was raining down upon her.
She didn’t have powers again. But that did not mean she was powerless.
Remembering how she had weakened a knight before, she flung her sword into the sliver of vulnerable skin between helmet and breastplate, and the closest knight fell. One moment, shadow was rushing toward her, and the next, she was catching the fallen body, pulling it onto her—
And using it to reflect all their ruinous power back at them.
Their armor clashed against the marble as they fell, stunned by their own darkness, and she did not waste a moment.
From the floor, she wrenched her weapon from the knight’s neck, and on her knees, she turned, stabbing and stabbing and stabbing until all of their throats were in tatters and she was covered in blood.
Ten more bodies, strewn around her. Ten. She frowned—
And was slammed forward from behind. Her teeth sung in her skull from the impact, and she turned, but he was faster, kicking her blade from her grip. His hands curled around her throat.
One knight would not stand between her and Grim. Not when she had gotten this far already. She gasped for air. She had no weapon. No powers. But she had her hands.
She reached up and managed to rip the helmet off the knight’s head, throwing it across the room. She thrust her thumbs toward his eyes—
But then she saw his face and froze.
It was—it was his face. Cronan’s.
Her shock cost her.
The hilt of a sword slammed into her temple, and she saw stars. Then cold metal slid against her throat.
“Enough,” a voice said, and her blood-soaked body lurched as she was wrenched into the air. She looked frantically between the knight, who was in the process of getting his helmet, and Cronan. They were identical.
“Yes,” he said. “They’re all like this. All versions of me. Weaker versions.”
He looked over to the knight, who had just fitted his helmet back onto his head—
And Cronan sliced it clean off with his shadows. The knight’s body collapsed in a loud heap of metal as the head rolled across the floor.
Isla took a shaking breath. Cronan didn’t tolerate any weakness—even in himself. She tried to meet Grim’s eyes, but he was watching his ancestor closely, his face not betraying a single emotion.
Cronan strode over to Isla and ran a finger across her cheek.
“Your death must be public, of course,” he said.
“After all, I’ve done so much to build you up .
. . Another duel, of course. We can make a spectacle of it.
” He smirked, seeming pleased with himself.
“But first—let’s breach that wall in your mind you’ve been keeping, shall we? ”
Her bones locked under his hold. Then his shadows pierced into her skull, and she screamed. She couldn’t help it, despite the many times he had hacked through her mind, searching for what she had kept hidden.
Through her yell, she heard something. It started as a faint echo but grew louder as Cronan dug through her thoughts. She didn’t recognize the voice . . .
Which meant it had to have come from him.
That was when Isla realized that while he plundered her mind, he was still leaving the door to his wide open.
While they were connected like this, she could use her powers. He may have been able to hold her body still, with a firmer grip than ever before after what she had done to him, but her mind? It could wander. It could fight back.
As his shadows axed through her brain, she pierced his.
He was so fixated on desperately breaking through her thoughts that he didn’t even notice.
He was exposed, vulnerable. He didn’t think she was capable of doing what he did.
He didn’t realize that the entire time he had held her down and invaded her mind, he had been teaching her everything she needed to know to break into his.
Just like with Lark, she imagined herself like the tide, rushing in. Her awareness eroded the coastline of his mind again and again, until she saw flashes—of strange people and creatures and worlds she never could have imagined.
He didn’t just have walls within his head . . . he had labyrinths. They were shaped just like the maze in the winter palace garden.
More. She needed to see more.
She flooded his mind, her waters plunging deeper, until she found a crevice in the hedges.
In her own head, she let wall after wall break. And while Cronan’s shadows took what she wanted him to, she saw everything. Everything.
He was right. Everyone had a weakness.
She had just discovered his.
But it might have been too late. Because when Cronan finally crawled out of her mind, leaving her numb and gasping, he said, “All that planning with the king . . . for nothing. What a shame. You could have been great.”
He turned toward Grim. “And you,” he said. “You were going to let her out.”
Grim’s face remained expressionless. Cronan’s hands twitched, and Isla wondered if he would finally strike Grim down. Let him try.
Instead, he took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders.
“But I always give second chances.” He looked between them.
“I’ll be conquering your world the day after next.
I’ve been convinced that perhaps not everyone needs to die.
I could use willing servitude. Whichever one of you wins will get to save their realm. ”
Isla’s mind was still spinning from the shadows in her head and the fight with the guards. Cronan could see the moment that her scattered head finally put the pieces together.
His smile was sharp as a blade. “That’s right,” he said, taking pleasure in her panic. “You won’t be dueling me to the death . . . You’ll be dueling your husband.”